Tech Review | Tesla $TSLA And Elon Musk's Wild August Ride (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-09-01)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Tesla $TSLA And Elon Musk's Wild August Ride (video), 2) Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in DC Sep 5, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Stocks, Brexit, Trade, China, News: Signal or Noise? 4)ICYMI Tech News: Google, Amazon, Facebook, AI, Paypal.

1) Tesla $TSLA And Elon Musk's Wild August Ride

$TSLA

Baby you can drive my car, Yes I'm gonna be a star

Baby you can drive my car, And maybe I'll love you

--Drive My Car (John Lennon / Paul McCartney)

Tesla $TSLA: "After considering all of these factors, I met with Tesla’s Board of Directors yesterday and let them know that I believe the better path is for Tesla to remain public. The Board indicated that they agree."--Elon Musk writing on tesla.com (Aug 24, 2018). Look on the brightside--"According to ARK Invest’s research, Tesla should be valued somewhere between $700 and $4,000 per share  in five years. Taking Tesla private today at $420 per share would undervalue it greatly, depriving many investors of the opportunity to participate in its success. In our view, given the right investment time horizon, TSLA is a deep value stock today"--ark-invest.com. On the other hand: "The corporate-governance disaster that is Tesla continues--Jim Chanos.

Tesla And Elon Musk's Wild August Recapped

Tesla and its headline-stealing CEO Elon Musk had a wild August. Here's how the drama played out on CNBC: the month began with the electric car company reporting second-quarter earnings and Musk apologizing for some recent ill-advised outbursts. But a week later, the Tesla and SpaceX founder took to the social media platform to announce that he wanted to take the company private. It set off a media firestorm that consumed the business news cycle for weeks. But near the end of August, Musk had reversed his position on going private. CNBC.com video above published Aug 30, 2018.

2) Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: House Energy & Commerce Committee Hearing Sept 5

Twitter CEO Dorsey to testify before House panel on September 5 https://t.co/8OobPpllIz pic.twitter.com/GBteJpWWXJ

— Reuters Tech News (@ReutersTech) August 25, 2018

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) announced that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will testify before the committee the afternoon of Wednesday, September 5, 2018, regarding Twitter’s algorithms and content monitoring--energycommerce.house.gov.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +2.26% | S&P 500 Index +0.93% | DJIA +0.68%  The month of August was positive: S&P 500 posted a +3% monthly rise, the Dow advanced +2.2% and the NASDAQ +5.7%.

The biggest winners in the stock market’s hottest sector in August--Technology has led the way, with AMD, Autodesk and Nvidia among the high-fliers--Marketwatch.com.

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes:

'U.S. Consumer Confidence Surged in August to Near 18-Year High; Conference Board index climbed to 133.4 this month from 127.9 in July.' From WSJ: https://t.co/RjsexlqHlT

— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 28, 2018

• Warren Buffett Says 'I'm Buying Stocks' (video), including Apple $AAPL.

• Trade: U.S. wants quick progress on EU trade issues, officials say | reuters.com. President Donald Trump notified Congress on Friday, Aug 31, 2018, he intends to sign a trade deal with Mexico 90 days from now, and will include Canada "if it is willing," according to a statement from the U.S. Trade Representative--marketwatch.com. 

• Reality Check--No-Deal Brexit a/k/a Hard Brexit--UK Prime Minister Theresa May agrees that a no-deal Brexit 'wouldn't be the end of the world' ... the UK would continue trading--sky.com.

• US airlines cut flights to China--chinaeconomicreview.com.

• Malaysia PM confirms cancellation of $20 billion Chinese infrastructure projects--chinaeconomicreview.com.

• News: Signal or Noise? You're On Your Own: "today forty percent of the public believe the “[New York] Times” is biased and evil. And forty percent believe the same about “The Wall Street Journal.” There is no paper of record in the public’s mind. And only a few million people are paying attention to either of these outlets. Youngsters don’t read the newspaper, whether it be physical or virtual, they get their news on the fly, from multiple sources, where it originated does not matter ... Same deal for TV news. Most people don’t see it, check the ratings, they’re miniscule."--Lefsetz.com. 

If You Want to Survive this Election with Your Mental Health Intact, Turn Off the "News" and Social Media Now--charleshughsmith.blogspot.com.

 “To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.”--Nassim Taleb

 "Why You Should Stop Reading News"--Shane Parrish

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Apple $AAPL: Banking on iPhone X: Apple's new phones are the razors, services are the blades--zdnet.com.

• Alphabet $GOOGL $GOOG: Google is facing obstacles in its efforts to establish a presence in China in search, smartphones, autonomous cars, and more--NYTimes.com. Editor's note: anyone surprised?

• Alibaba Puts the Brakes on U.S. Cloud Expansion--theinformation.com.

• U.S. accuses China of `super aggressive` spy campaign on LinkedIn--reuters.com.

• Amazon $AMZN: Amazon's Twitter Army--theguardian.com.

•  GDPR is strengthening the hand of giants such as Google and Facebook in the $200 billion global digital advertising industry--reuters.com.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI): Bank Of England Chief Economist Warns Of Disruptive AI Threat In "Fourth Industrial Revolution"--zerohedge.com. 

• PayPal partners with Brazilian bank Itaú Unibanco--reuters.com. PayPal also announced a partnership with British bank Barclays last April.

• Trump Effect: Ford kills plan to sell Chinese-made vehicles in the United States--reuters.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review | China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area

Tech Review (TR 2018-07-14)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1)  China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area, 2) The Hottest Tech IPOs in the Pipeline (podcast), 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) China Bridges The Gap To Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area

Hong Kong's financial markets, Shenzhen's technology and Guangdong's manufacturing have the potential to turn the Greater Bay Area of China into an economic powerhouse according to FT.com in the video above published Jul 5, 2018.

Editor's note: Hong Kong is being subsumed into mainland China.

Greater Bay Area of China

Hongkong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) | wikipedia.org CC BY-SA 4.0

2) The Hottest Tech IPOs in the Pipeline


Tech IPOs, especially in the enterprise space, have had strong showings so far this year, paving the way for more to come. TheStreet.com’s Eric Jhonsa, Annie Gaus and Nelson Wang look at some of the most highly-anticipated new issues, from Sonos and Tanium to Uber and Airbnb. Podcast published July 12, 2018.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +1.8% | S&P 500 Index +1.5% | DJIA +2.3% --Editor's note: the NASDAQ closed the week at a new record high, with large-cap tech stocks leading the market rally:

NASDAQ Composite

“In the absence of a recession, which still appears to be more than a year away (if not 2-3 years), the most important thing for investors to focus on is corporate earnings, which are set to increase by approximately 20% over last year”--Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer, Independent Advisor Alliance (independentadvisoralliance.com).

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes:

The U.S. is 'winning' the trade war, says Mohamed El-Erian--CNBC.com: Mohamad El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, says the U.S. "will win the trade war" adding "one of the upside risks, is that you may end up changing, the global landscape in a way that favors the U.S." and:

"When people realize that at the end of the day, the US will prevail, because [China] is a less open economy, because [the US] is a more dynamic economy, that ultimately you may end up in a situation where the US' position in global economic terms is better off."

Safe Haven Asset: “The U.S. dollar is now the most popular safe-haven asset” says Cheuk Wan Fan, head of investment strategy for Asia at HSBC Private Bank. US$-based money market funds  now offer rates of about 2 percent, a level above seven-year Treasuries last September--Bloomberg.com 5 Jul 2018. Axios.com: Since the middle of June, China’s currency (RMB) has fallen more than 3% against the dollar, and the Chinese government has intervened to "limit the fall."

US Stocks: Freight Transportation Services Index is booming — and that’s bullish for US stocks, "signaling that the stock market and the U.S. economy are just fine"--Marketwatch.com. It’s time to go full MAGA in your stock picks, says Deutsche Bank--Marketwatch.com 10 Jul 2018. Five ‘mega trends’ are producing soaring stocks regardless of  'trade tariffs fears': Artificial Intelligence, E-commerce, Mobile Payments, Biotechnology, Gaming. 

Italian Bank Stocks Tumble as Savona warns of Euro break-up--zerohedge.com 10 Jul 2018.

Data & Stats: zombie stores in zombie malls are not being counted as “vacant” retail space because "they’re no longer being marketed as retail space" and presto! the square footage disappears from vacant retail space stats--WolfStreet.com.

Cryptocurrency: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized reports bloomberg.com.

Politics & Finance: Scaramucci Says His Political Foray ‘Cost Me a Lot’--bloomberg.com--now aspires to double the assets at his SkyBridge Capital to $20 billion in the next five years.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon Prime Day 2018 | Amazon.com/PrimeDay starts July 16 at 3pm EDT.
• CO2 Emissions Hit 67-Year Low In Trump's America, As Rest-Of-World Rises--zerohedge.com 10 Jul 2018.
• Google may face a new record penalty this month from EU and have to respond with big Android changes; sources: fine expected to range into billions of dollars--WashingtonPost.com.
• IP Theft: former Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang charged by FBI with alleged theft of trade secrets related to Apple's autonomous car efforts--macrumors.com.
• Paypal to spend $3 billion a year on M&A-reuters.com
• Xiaomi closed below the IPO price on the first day of trading in Hong Kong after pricing IPO at the bottom of the range at $2.17/share and raising $4.7B--cnbc.com.  
• Apple Music had ~21.5M US subscribers as of last week while Spotify had ~22.5M; Apple's service growing faster than Spotify's in UK and Canada--ft.com.
• Privacy: Congress asks questions--Android (pdf) and iOS (pdf)--about smartphone software.
• The Future of Retail: 2018 and beyond--ZDnet.com.
• CRM: Add 'Reply' To Your Mass Emails--campaignsandelections.com.
• Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2018: Watch the livestream of  Fortune.com's annual technology conference, July 16 to 18, from Aspen, Colorado--Livestream | fortune.com.
• Personal Tech: The latest Linux Mint desktop is still the best desktop around--ZDnet.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review | Samsung All-in-One Android Smartphone Computer (video)

Domain Mondo's weekly review of technology news:

Features •  1) Samsung DeX: Android Smartphone & Desktop, 2) Q1 2017 Earnings Season, 3)  Digital Learning, Browsers, and Apps, 4)  PayPal On The Edge, 5) The End of Retail as We Knew It, 6) ICYMI Tech News: 12 Quick Takes, and 7) One Last Thing.

1) Android desktop: all you need is a smartphone and dock + external monitor + keyboard + mouse--Samsung’s DeX dock for the Galaxy S8 costs $150 and will ship in April--T-Mobile is giving a free dock to its @Work enterprise customers who reserve the Galaxy S8 in-store. The Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus connects to the DeX Station via USB-C and lets you also plug in an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.--TheVerge.com

UPDATE April 3, 2017: Android overtakes Windows for first time | StatCounter.com: "Android now world’s most popular operating system in terms of internet usage."

Samsung DeX puts your Galaxy S8 on your desktop:

Video above published Mar 29, 2017: Samsung's new DeX dock uses special Android apps to give you a full-screen experience, like a PC. More info here. See also CNET.com's first Galaxy S8 impressions.

Reminiscent of Motorola's Atrix 4G Lapdock (no longer produced), you can expect other Android manufacturers will come out with competing products similar to Samsung's DeX. Will Apple's iPhone and iOS ever catch up with Android? 

Android desktop demo:

Video above published Mar 29, 2017: Currently compatible with Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, Samsung DeX provides an Android-based, desktop-like experience that enables users to seamlessly access mobile apps, edit documents and browse the web. See also: [Hands-On] 8 Galaxy S8 Features You Should Know About | Samsung.com

Other Tech News:

2) Q1 2017 earnings season: Apple: Panic Time, Again? | Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) | SeekingAlpha.com: Significant share loss in China. Challenges in penetrating Indian market. Declining gross margins for iPhone. A mature and slowing smartphone market. See also Apple iCloud hack threat gets worse: Here's what we've learned | ZDNet.com. Q1 2017 earnings coverage on Domain Mondo (alphabetical order): Alibaba BABA; Alphabet GOOG / GOOGL; Amazon AMZN; Apple AAPL; Facebook FB; GoDaddy GDDY; Rightside NAME; Tucows (TO:TC) (NASDAQ:TCX); Twitter TWTR; Verisign VRSN.

3) Digital Learning, Browsers, and Apps | Technology and Learning | insidehighered.com:

"Many of us working in edtech thought that the app would supplant the browser for digital learning. The app seemed to have so much going for it. First, we thought that digital learning would follow social media - migrating from the computer (and the browser) to the mobile device (and the app). Next, we also believed that the app was a more robust and powerful platform to design immersive learning environments than the browser. Web applications were thought to be clunky as compared to the potential elegance of the app. We were wrong. In 2017 online courses continue to be designed for, and run mostly through, our browser based learning management systems (LMS). Every LMS platform has a mobile app, but they continue to be mostly add-ons and appendages to the primary action that occurs in the browser. Nobody has come up with a mobile-first, or mobile-only, LMS app that has the potential of supplanting the browser-first design of the dominant learning management systems."

4)  PayPal On The Edge Of A Cliff  (NASDAQ:PYPL) | SeekingAlpha.com: PayPal will likely face off either directly or indirectly with the big ecosystem plays--Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), in the next five years.

5) The End of Retail As We Knew It--The Retail Death Spiral Continues | SeekingAlpha.com Mar 28, 2017--"... eBay CEO Devin Wenig, March 27, 2017, cnbc.com:

"The fourth quarter, the last holiday season, was a really important inflection point. That was the end of retail as we know it. The restructuring of retail is going to happen much faster than many people expect. I'm not sure that many retailers will make it to the next holiday season." ... Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, recently dumped his decades-old position in Wal-Mart (WMT), and he almost NEVER sells ..."

6) ICYMI Tech News: 12 Quick Takes:

1. GOP faces backlash over attack on internet privacy rules | TheHill.com
2. The 265 members of Congress who sold you out to ISPs, and how much it cost to buy them | TheVerge.com: "chump change"
3. With Washington’s Blessing, Telecom Giants Can Mine Your Web History | WSJ.com: "Congress’s repeal of FCC privacy rules could be data boon for Verizon, Comcast, AT&T."
4. Here's exactly what information of yours ISPs can now collect and sell | mic.com
5. Latest WikiLeaks release shows how the CIA uses computer code to hide the origins of its hacking attacks and 'disguise them as Russian or Chinese activity' | dailymail.co.uk
6. The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate | washingtonsblog.com
7. Cisco exposes uncomfortable truths about U.S. cyber defense | Reuters.com
8. T-Mobile Introduces New Network Technology to Protect Customers from Phone Scams | T-Mobile.com
9. FCC Moves to Confront Scam Robocalls & Malicious Spoofing | Federal Communications Commission | fcc.gov
10. The Wall Street Informant Who Double-Crossed the FBI | Bloomberg.com
11. James Comey’s Twitter Account | gizmodo.com
12. 3 billion solar mass black hole rockets out of a galaxy at 8 million kilometers per hour. | blastr.com

7) One Last Thing: "... Google’s geopolitical aspirations are firmly enmeshed within the foreign-policy agenda of the world’s largest superpower. As Google’s search and internet service monopoly grows, and as it enlarges its industrial surveillance cone to cover the majority of the world’s population, rapidly dominating the mobile phone market and racing to extend internet access in the global south, Google is steadily becoming the internet for many people. Its influence on the choices and behavior of the totality of individual human beings translates to real power to influence the course of history. If the future of the internet is to be Google, that should be of serious concern to people all over the world—in Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the former Soviet Union, and even in Europe—for whom the internet embodies the promise of an alternative to US cultural, economic, and strategic hegemony ..."--Julian Assange, Google Is Not What It Seems | wikileaks.org

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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America's Big Banks Connecting With Money Transfer App Zelle (video)

America's Big Banks Will Connect With Zelle | Tech Bet | CNBC.com:

Banks have announced Zelle as their product in the payment-transfer space. Zelle would be a direct competitor to Venmo, owned by PayPal, and includes features such as instant clearing of money from one bank account to another (video above published Oct 24, 2016)

Domains referenced:

• zellepay.com
• venmo.com

Auto-generated Transcript via YouTube.com:
0:00  America's biggest banks will be
0:01  connected through a new money transfer
0:03  app called Zelle will compete against
0:06  quite a few transfer apps that are
0:07  already in the market for joining us to
0:09  break all this down as Mark spoon our
0:11  editor-in-chief at tom's guide mark
0:12  thanks for joining us today thank you
0:14  let's talk about this app what is l how
0:16  many banks will connect with it or use
0:18  it and how does it work
0:20  sure so just imagine being able to send
0:22  your friends money for rent or for pizza
0:25  or for anything else as a direct deposit
0:27  right into their account using an app
0:30  and that's the idea behind shell they're
0:31  like you said there's a lot of
0:32  competitors out there but they have a
0:34  couple of advantages one is that they
0:36  have a lot of the major banks most of
0:38  them five of them including citi and
0:40  wells fargo and the there's not going to
0:43  be any transaction fee as part of this
0:46  instant deposit which is another feather
0:48  in their cap and I'm glad you brought up
0:50  some the competitors here venmo for
0:51  example which is owned by paypal I mean
0:53  there's already a verb out there i have
0:55  many friends who say that their venom
0:57  owing money from dinner for example
0:59  that's right so so I get why the big
1:01  banks want to have their own specific
1:03  service but how's it going to compete
1:04  against all of these other types of apps
1:06  are already out there
1:07  yeah i mean so you're right venmo has a
1:09  huge head start and depending on what
1:10  numbers you look at they could have
1:12  upwards of a million people that are
1:14  using it for a month already
1:15  and in the first quarter of a 2016 that
1:18  had 3.2 billion dollars and money
1:21  transacted among their users and that's
1:22  over a hundred percent increase from the
1:24  following year
1:25  what cell brings to the table is unlike
1:27  some competitors there isn't that
1:29  transfer fee for making an instant
1:31  deposit into someone else's account and
1:33  it truly is instant sometimes with venmo
1:35  and others it can take up to a couple of
1:37  days so that instant gratification
1:38  especially among Millennials is really
1:40  important because you want to make sure
1:41  that money is still there when taking
1:43  that transaction so and also obviously
1:47  but the support of the banks is is
1:48  really good for them but i also think
1:49  that Millennials could look at them with
1:51  a little bit of distrust because it is
1:53  run by the big banks as opposed to a
1:55  third party like paypal and in light of
1:57  all this and as especially this idea
1:59  that it's near instant clearing of the
2:01  money which to me would be key
2:03  yeah do you think she'll could actually
2:05  beat some of these rivals it could mean
2:08  I think a lot of it will depend on
2:09  marketing but at the same time you have
2:12  Zelle whose
2:13  they're stepping up their game and keep
2:15  in mind you know soon so the memo has
2:17  been out for awhile and they're adding
2:19  other features to their app like the
2:21  ability to use the your account when
2:24  you're making payments online and
2:25  through apps like they're working with
2:27  mantri right now for food delivery and
2:30  game time for a game tickets so in a way
2:32  they're trying to become more like Apple
2:33  pay and with shell not coming out until
2:35  2017 they're going to have to innovate
2:38  behind the scenes to make sure that
2:39  they're at parity with their rivals when
2:41  they finally come to market that's a
2:43  good point marks Punar thanks for
2:44  joining us thank you for watching I
2:46  Morgan Brennan have a great day
  
Tweets about app Zelle


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Mobile Payments Providers, Square IPO, NYSE: SQ (video)

Square has filed for an IPO (initial public offering), seeking to raise $275 million, with a listing on NYSE under the symbol "SQ" - Square Inc., the mobile-payments company was founded, and is led, by Twitter Inc. (twitter.com) Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey. Bloomberg's Reed Stevenson reports on "Bloomberg Markets," October 15, 2015.

Last week Square filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of its Class A common stock. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not been determined. Square intends to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SQ.” Goldman, Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan are acting as lead joint book-running managers for the proposed offering. Barclays, Deutsche Bank Securities, Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets, and Stifel are acting as additional book-running managers for the proposed offering, and LOYAL3 Securities, Inc. is acting as a co-manager. The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. (Source: Squareup.com; link and emphasis added)

Domain names of mobile payment providers referenced in the video above:

• squareup.com  (note: square.com redirects to squareup.com)
• firstdata.com
• paypal.com
• stripe.com

Tweets by @Square


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John Sculley Says Watch Very Carefully What Jack Ma Does (video)

John Sculley: Watch Very Carefully What Jack Ma Does: Video - Bloomberg:
(Allow video to load after clicking play or go to link above)
John Sculley Says Watch Very Carefully What Jack Ma Does (video above). The former Pepsico CEO John Sculley discusses his outlook for Alibaba’s financial affiliate Alipay on “In The Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg 10/15)

Ref.
alibaba.com
alibabagroup.com
alipay.com

apple.com
apple.com/apple-pay
amazon.com
paypal.com


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