1) Big Tech's First Quarter 2018: $AMZN $FB $GOOG $AAPL
Amazon caps a blow-out quarter for Big Tech
Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Apr 26, 2018: Platform power supercharges growth at Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet (Google), as big tech companies double down on investment.
Apple announces $100bn share buyback plan
Financial Times (ft.com) video published May 2, 2018: Apple issued a confident outlook for iPhone sales, in spite of concerns of a slowdown.
See also:
- Apple Earnings Show Growing Immunity to Smartphone Malaise | Bloomberg.com: "CEO cooks up new services, raises prices" as smartphone market slows.
- Apple $AAPL Q2 FY18 Results LIVE Webcast May 1
- Apple iPhone X Becomes World's Best-Selling Smartphone Model in Q1 2018 | strategyanalytics.com: 345M smartphones shipped in Q1 2018, down 2.4% YOY; iPhone X was world's best-selling smartphone with 16M units shipped this quarter.
2) Right Time For T-Mobile & Sprint Merger?
CNBC.com video above published Apr 30, 2018: Adonis Hoffman, former FCC chief of staff, and Nick Economides, NYU Stern School of Business professor, discuss the likelihood the $26-billion deal between T-Mobile and Sprint will go through.
T-Mobile (t-mobile.com) (NASDAQ: TMUS) and Sprint (sprint.com) (NYSE: S) have agreed to merge (subject to regulatory approval), valuing Sprint at ~$26B; merged firm will keep T-Mobile name and Legere as CEO--Bloomberg.com. Ownership: Deutsche Telekom 42%, SoftBank 27%. Deutsche Telekom will control the Board of Directors, nominating nine of the 14 directors. An all-stock transaction, fixed exchange ratio of 0.10256 T-Mobile shares for each Sprint share (or 9.75 Sprint shares for each T-Mobile US share). [Editor's note: T-Mobile gets Sprint's customer base and network assets including spectrum, Sprint is the "loser" here--I expect $TMUS CEO John Legere to absorb Sprint into the successful T-Mobile juggernaut that the 'Legere Team' has been building. Yes, the merger will go through.] See also T-Mobile adds to record M&A spree | Reuters.com.
3) Investing
Investing Notes
a. Bitcoin and Stocks:
b. EU Stalling: Are European Companies Ready for Life Without Draghi? | WolfStreet.com: "Not going to be easy, especially for “zombie” companies." See also BillBlain.wixsite.com: "... what about Europe, where the numbers seem to suggest the European Economic Miracle has stalled. Oops. I read the spread between US and German bonds has never been so wide. QE into infinity? Rates to remain low for ever? ... I harbour deep doubts Europe will ever really grow – its tired, exhausted, riven by rising bureaucracy and handicapped by ECB austerity that simply keeps the south from ever recovering."We recently refreshed the math on price return correlations between the S&P 500 and #bitcoin. There’s a lot of chatter about the idea that $BTC is some kind of “Tell” about the direction of US #stocks. It isn’t. Not even close...— DataTrek Research (@DataTrekMB) April 29, 2018
c. LIVE Saturday, May 5, 2018, starting at 9:45 am EDT on Yahoo Finance
Annual Meeting (times are CDT): a) Company Movie 8:30 am; b) Q&A 9:15am – 3:30 pm; c) Business Meeting 3:45 – 4:30pm (approximation).See also:
- Here’s how Warren Buffett’s stock picks for Berkshire Hathaway have performed in 2018 | MarketWatch.com
- Apple hits record high after Buffett's Berkshire increases stake--Reuters.com
- The Warren Buffett Empire in One Giant Chart | visualcapitalist.com
4) ICYMI Tech News:
- AT&T: "AT&T has quickly fallen out of the market’s favor"--SeekingAlpha.com. But see also AT&T: Benefit From The Irrationality | Seeking Alpha: "AT&T is not a growth stock but it is a solid income play and is worth adding to whenever shares dip ..."
- Google Pay rolling out on the web through desktop browsers and iOS | 9to5Google.com
- Uber & Lyft Crush Rental Cars and Taxis in U.S.--WolfStreet.com.
- Qualcomm | SeekingAlpha.com: Qualcomm extended the acquisition agreement with NXP to July 25, 2018, and is working for pending Chinese competition authority approval.
- China asks U.S. to amend ZTE business ban - sources | Reuters.com
- Xiaomi IPO: Xiaomi applies to raise funds in Hong Kong, giving city the pole position in 2018 global IPO race | South China Morning Post | scmp.com: Xiaomi files for an IPO in Hong Kong; reportedly the Beijing-based company seeks to raise $10B at a valuation of $100B. See also How Xiaomi staged a comeback that has led to an IPO at a $100B valuation by investing in retail stores, focusing on India, and diversifying its product range--Bloomberg.com.
- New York Times Co. Reports Revenue Growth as Digital Subscriptions Rise | NYTimes.com [Editor's note: here's the problem--as legacy publishers impose subcription-required paywalls, digital subscribers will rise at first (25.5% YoY to 2.8M), BUT total revenue went up only 3.8% YoY to $414M, AND digital ad revenue fell 6% while print ad revenue fell 2%. Long term problem: ad revenue will continue to fall as non-subscribers abandon the New York Times as a "news source," and digital subscriber revenue increases won't offset those losses. As an example, I have already "blocked" the Washington Post in my news.google.com settings. I encountered too many paywalled WaPo stories (and I was also tired of the Post's TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) bias which infects almost all of WaPo's "news" coverage). I much prefer mobile.reuters.com and the twitter.com platform as my 24x7 news sources. Which is also why Twitter would be a lot more successful if it embraced the mobile web and stopped requiring people to "install the app" and "sign in"--the Twitter platform and business model need to become more like YouTube ("mobile web friendly") and less like Facebook ("app trapped").
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo
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