1) Big Tech Five Too Big, Too Dominant?
Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft
Alphabet $GOOGL, Amazon $AMZN, Apple $AAPL, Facebook $FB, Microsoft $MSFT--the five most valuable companies in the U.S. They've been called the Big Five or the Frightful Five and a few other names. Bloomberg QuickTake looks at how these tech companies have developed their huge market shares. Is it time to break them up? Bloomberg.com video by Henry Baker and Madeline Quinn published Feb 28, 2018.
2) Are Google $GOOGL and Apple $AAPL Good Value Stocks? Yes, says Joel Greenblatt
Gotham Asset Management (gothamfunds.com) managing principal Joel Greenblatt characterizes the backdrop for investing at the stock market’s current levels. Fox Business video above published Mar 2, 2018.
3) Investing
The Week: S&P 500 broke above its 50-day moving average in intraday trading on Friday.
Wall Street's Charging Bull: The current bull market marked its ninth birthday on Friday
- Brexit: A year to go before Brexit, U.S. investment banks still bet on London | Reuters.com. See also UK Prime Minister Theresa May wants financial services to be included in a free trade deal--Reuters.com.
- Trade: Elon Musk tweets at Trump to push China on car tariffs | TheVerge.com: The Tesla CEO says high tariffs on U.S. cars exported to China, as well as manufacturing rules there, have made things ‘very difficult’ for the company.
- Eurozone inflation falls again despite decade-high growth | washingtonpost.com: the rate of unemployment across the eurozone stands at 8.8 percent, around double the rate in the U.S. See also Don’t put the blame on me: How different countries blamed different actors for the Eurozone crisis | lse.ac.uk.
- Europe's "Zombies" Brace For Mass Extinction In 2019 | ZeroHedge.com: "... completing the "zombie trifecta" ... quasi-insolvent companies one year ahead, in a world in which the ECB's bond buying is a thing of the past: Although some months away, 2019 will be the first time in four years that European markets will have to manage without the helping hand of ECB asset buying." See also ECB To Phase Out QE With €10Bn In Monthly Purchases By End Of 2018: Report | ZeroHedge.com.
- Lame Duck: Weakened Merkel has her work cut out to make [German political] coalition last | Reuters.com
- EU / Greece: How Europe’s Band-Aid Ensures Greece’s Bondage by Yanis Varoufakis | project-syndicate.org Feb 26, 2018: "All the happy talk about impending “debt relief” and a “clean exit” from Greece’s third “bailout” obscures an uglier truth: the country’s debt bondage is being extended to 2060. Worse, by ossifying Greece’s insolvency, while pretending to have overcome it, Europe’s establishment is demonstrating its refusal to fix the eurozone’s flaws." See also Reform key to smooth Greek market return says Europe's rescue fund | Reuters.com
- European Court of Justice Deals Heavy Blow to “Corporate Sovereignty Clause” | WolfStreet.com: "In recent years, ISDS [Investor-State Dispute Settlement] has become such a toxic concept that even Beltway institutions such as the Cato Institute have called for its purging from future trade agreements — an idea that appears to be supported by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and could even be applied to a newly negotiated NAFTA agreement."
- Initial Coin Offerings Likely Need to Follow Bank Secrecy Rules | Bloomberg.com: "some ICOs have already registered with FinCEN in anticipation of the requirement, many haven’t. Violating the requirement could be a felony, punishable with up to five years of jail time."
- Nearly Half Of All ICOs Last Year Have Already Failed... And That's A Good Thing | ZeroHedge.com.
- Corporate Bond Market Gets Ready for Big Reset | WolfStreet.com: "The Fed will succeed in tightening financial conditions. It always does. And when this starts to click, the adjustment will be sharp and possibly harsh for those companies that have relied on cheap and easy money to fund their operations. But for now, investors are still blithely oblivious to the coming reckoning in the corporate bond market." See last week's noted Buffett says 'terrible mistake' for long-term investors to be in bonds | Reuters.com.
- Who Is Nassim Taleb? Antifragile Thinking for a Fat-Tailed World | fs.blog: "My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously."
4) ICYMI Tech News:
- Silicon Valley Is Over, Says Silicon Valley | NYTimes.com: VCs who travel outside the Bay Area, including to Midwest, see downsides of Silicon Valley, even San Francisco has high levels of outward migration.
- Broadcom redomiciling into the U.S. from Singapore could be complete in mid-May which could ease concerns at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has the power to stop the Qualcomm deal for national security reasons.
- GE hopes giant grid batteries can save the planet (and its fortunes) | MIT TechnologyReview.com: Competitors include Tesla and Siemens.
- Why Tencent likes the music streaming business--SeekingAlpha.com
- An executive’s guide to AI | McKinsey.com
- Google Fiber deployment slowed by high costs, politically-powerful incumbent ISPs, and the potential of next-gen wireless broadband--motherboard.vice.com.
- Sequoia Capital Goes on Fundraising Spree | WSJ.com: "More than $12 billion in capital is sought across seven new funds."
- News Corp. CEO Slams Facebook, Google for Not Sharing Enough Ad Revenue | Bloomberg.com: "‘Too many publishers have been patsies,’ Robert Thomson says. BuzzFeed CEO agrees that Facebook should share more ad revenue."
- The Oligopolization of Food Supply Hits a Snag | WolfStreet.com
- Amazon built the world’s most efficient warehouses by embracing chaos--qz.com.
- Xiaomi set to enter U.S. smartphone market as early as 2018--WSJ.com
- South Florida technology startup and 'unicorn,' Magic Leap, filed suit in Texas against its global security chief, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alleging he tried to extort millions of dollars from the company by threatening to falsely accuse it of stealing trade secrets from Microsoft Corp--bizjournals.com.
From the Reuters.com feed:
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo
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