Tech Review: Is Google $GOOGL Courting Trouble In China? (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-08-11)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Is Google $GOOG $GOOGL Courting Trouble In China?, 2) How Apple $AAPL Reached $1Trillion Market Cap, 3) Investing: The Week, "Escape Velocity" | Investing Notes: China, Brexit, Eurozone, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Is Google $GOOG $GOOGL Courting Trouble In China?

Google staff awoke on August 1st to surprising news: their company is working on a search app tailored, and censored, for China. BloombergQuint.com video above first published Aug 3, 2018.

How Google is building its censored search engine for China, codenamed Dragonfly, using subsidiary 265.com to compile a list of sites China is blocking--theintercept.com.

source: Statista.com

2) How Apple $AAPL Reached $1Trillion Market Cap 

Apple's Journey to a $1 Trillion Company: WSJ.com's Spencer Jakab takes a look at how Apple $AAPL got to $1Trillion in market cap value. Video first published Aug 3, 2018.

source: Statista.com

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +0.4% | S&P 500 Index -0.3% | DJIA -0.6%.  U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday, joining a global equity market selloff, as a mounting currency crisis in Turkey raised alarms about possible contagion into other markets, particularly Europe due to the European banks' exposure to Turkey. Nevertheless ...

Mohammed El-Erian has declared that the U.S. alone has escaped the "new normal," a concept he used in 2009 to predict slow growth for post-financial crisis economies, and now that the U.S. has reached "escape velocity" and people are returning to the labor market, the Fed can keep on raising rates.

So-called bond king Gross has been ‘wrong and wrong badly,’ his boss at Janus says--Marketwatch.com: "About three years ago, he predicted the end of the rip-roaring bull market. However, the current stock bull market is entering its 10th year and approaching a record not seen since 2000."

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes:

China: Market pressure on China's renminbi would leave Chinese policymakers three choices according to JP Morgan:

• intervene in currency markets to offset market pressures risking a new wave of reserve depletion;
• raise interest rates to defend the currency causing monetary tightening and risking economic weakness; or
• let the currency depreciate beyond the above critical levels along with market pressures risking capital outflows and a more abrupt move.

See also Look beyond the trade war to explain China’s tech stock tumble | chinaeconomicreview.com.

Brexit: UK trade minister Fox says EU is pushing Britain to no-deal Brexit--reuters.com. See also Brexit – Will The EU Collapse Anyway?--truepublica.org.uk.

Eurozone:

• ‘Let the Whorehouse Burn’--The euro and the damage it wrought--weeklystandard.com.
• Eurozone GDP slows again in Q2 2018--The loss of momentum in 2018 contrasts with the U.S., where growth accelerated during the second quarter and the Eurozone-U.S. growth differential was the widest since the second half of 2014--marketwatch.com.
• Eurozone Economy Slows Further as Exports Sputter--Business confidence has weakened on worries about future relations with the bloc’s largest trading partners--wsj.com.
• Stiglitz Advocates A Dual Currency System In Italy But Why Not For The Whole Eurozone?--socialeurope.eu.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• MAGA? FT.com's West Coast editor Richard Waters has suggested that "MAGA" (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon) replace "FAANG" to denote the market's current tech leadership.

• Tesla $TSLA shares fall 5 percent on Wall Street skepticism, SEC probe reports--reuters.com 9 Aug 2018.

• Maersk, IBM say 94 organizations have joined blockchain trade platform--reuters.com.

• India regulator, who took on Facebook, Apple, to stay on for two more years--reuters.com.

• Qualcomm settles with Taiwan antitrust regulator for US$89 million--reuters.com.

• Amazon HQ2: Cities’ Offers for Amazon Base Are Secrets Even to Many City Leaders--NYTimes.com.

• Computer Virus Cripples Taiwan's IPhone Chipmaker TSMC Plants--bloomberg.com.

• Google: Control government-backed attack alerts in G Suite--googleblog.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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Tech Review | Reinventing Air Conditioning & Cooling (video)

Tech Review (TR 2018-07-07)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Reinventing Air Conditioning & Cooling, 2) Fintech: Finn by Chase, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Focus on  China, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Reinventing Air Conditioning & Cooling (video)

Bloomberg.com video above published Jun 26, 2018: The starry night sky seems remarkably distant from the topic of air conditioning, but it’s revolutionizing the field in quite an unexpected way. In this episode of Bloomberg's "The Spark," watch how scientists from across the globe are harnessing natural phenomena to drastically redesign this century-old technology.

2) Fintech: Finn by Chase ℠ - Your New All Mobile Bank ℠

Introducing Finn by Chase℠ -- "a new all mobile bank that helps you stay in control of your money. It gives you all of the classic bank stuff, plus some new features that let you see your spending differently, so you can use your money better." More info: https://www.chase.com/personal/finnbank
(finnbank.com).

With an all mobile-banking service like Finn, it's like having a bank in your pocket, but lighter! Feel free to reach out to let us know what's #Weighing you down! ^OP

— Finn Support (@FinnSupport) June 29, 2018

See also: "JPMorgan Chase takes smartphone account 'Finn' nationwide"--Reuters.com.Jun 28, 2018.

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite +2.4% | S&P 500 Index +1.5% | DJIA +0.8%

"Strong U.S. jobs growth helps Wall Street overlook trade worries"--Reuters.com 6 Jul 2018.

NASDAQ Composite

• The U.S. labor market continues to power forward, adding another 200,000 jobs in June according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS also revised upwards April’s new jobs from 159,000 to 175,000 and May’s from 223,000 to 244,000, a total of 37,000 more than originally stated.
• A small increase in the unemployment rate to 4%, up from 3.8%, came as a result of a rise in the labor participation rate, which increased 0.2 percentage points to 62.9 percent as 601,000 people came off the sidelines and re-entered the labor force. Average hourly earnings increased 2.7% year over year. 
• According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the May 2018 trade deficit – the difference between what the U.S. exports to, and imports from, foreign markets – fell 6.6 percent to $43.1 billion, the smallest deficit since October 2016. U.S. exports increased 1.9% to a record $215.3 billion. Imports increased only 0.4% to $258.4 billion.

Wall Street's Charging Bull:

Investing Notes: Focus on China

Shanghai Composite

a. Global central banks are not enthusiastic about China's renminbi, and they are not dumping US-dollar-denominated assets from their foreign exchange reserves, nor euro-denominated assets either. US-dollar-denominated assets in foreign exchange reserves were $6.5 trillion, or 62.5% of “allocated” reserves in Q1 2018--WolfStreet.com. [Editor's note: The renminbi is the official currency of the People's Republic of China. The yuan is the basic unit of the renminbi, and also used to refer to the Chinese currency generally--official website: pbc.gov.cn; Symbol: ¥.]

b. China: Jim Chanos & James Grant video | vimeo.com--"China is the most extraordinary living laboratory of credit formation and credit abuse the world has ever seen ... China has been creating credit at twice the growth (or greater) of its economic growth ... Bank credit compared to GDP is far greater than anywhere else in the world, if there are no consequences, the world has truly been remade ... Non-chinese investors have no recourse in the Chinese legal system. Alipay was removed from Alibaba (BABA) without compensation and put into the private holding company of its Chinese owners." 

c. Alibaba $BABA: "Almost all of Alibaba's competitive advantages have some linkage back to the license to operate provided to them by the Chinese (PRC) government"--Not So Hidden Risks With Chinese-Based Companies--SeekingAlpha.com.

d. China now set to become the epicenter of the next Emerging Market turmoil--zerohedge.com.

e. Goldman: "We Met With Chinese Investors And The Tone Remains Very Negative"--zerohedge.com 6 Jul 2018: "Investors continue to have a long list of worries. Similar to the feedback from our recent trip to Beijing, most investors are worried about the trade war, defaults, and credit crunch, with particular concerns about liquidity in the LGFV and property sectors. After the sizeable RMB depreciation in recent days, we noted increased worries about policymakers' stance towards the RMB, and concern that further RMB depreciation would trigger capital outflows. Overall, investor sentiment remains very cautious, and are meaningfully more bearish than offshore investors." (emphasis and links added)

f. Who China Has Trade Disputes With:

source: Statista.com

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Amazon AWS: Google, Microsoft, Oracle et al Gang Up on Amazon for $10Bn Pentagon Prize--WolfStreet.com
• Uber: Con artists are fleecing Uber drivers--cnet.com
• IBM wins AU$1B (US$740 million) contract to be central technology partner to Australia's government for the next five years, including automation and blockchain services--Bloomberg.com.
• Amazon's logistics network expands via small businesses operating 20 to 40 vans each--zdnet.com.
• Reddit — one of the world's most popular websites — is trying to cash in through advertising--CNBC.com.
• Lyft buys Motivate (motivateco.com) the largest provider of bike-sharing services in the United States--NYTimes.com.
• Tech’s ‘Dirty Secret’: The App Developers Sifting Through Your Gmail--wsj.com.
• Kroger, largest supermarket chain in the U.S., is launching a fully driverless delivery service by teaming up with Nuro (nuro.ai) a startup founded by two veterans of Google’s self-driving team--TheVerge.com.
• Cyber Command moves closer to a major new weapon--FifthDomain.com.
• ‘Hot’ money is flowing into Netflix, Facebook and Amazon again--Marketwatch.com.
• Amazon Vs. Alibaba: Which Is Riskier?--SeekingAlpha.com.

Viewsroom: Is Silicon Valley getting nervous yet?

The tech hub is getting squeezed by new policy restrictions amid a looming trade war between the U.S. and China. How is the Valley holding up? Plus: India's state lenders are losing CEOs. Is running these banks into the ground part of the plan? Release date: 3 July 2018.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
Follow @DomainMondo

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