A market crash has a way of focusing the mind. The 2014-2015 crash in oil prices, for example, forced unconventional oil and gas producers (Frackers) to improve their water management programs. “The predominant overarching trend in the industry is still dominated by ways to reduce the total spend on water—whether through recycling or sourcing water for lower cost,” said Devesh Mittal, vice president and general manager of Aquatech’s Shale Gas Division. Jeff Gunderson writes at Industrial WaterWorld: According to Wastewater Treatment Technologies in Natural Gas Hydraulic Fracturing, a report … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2017
Gadgets are Cheap Commodities, Services are the Future for the Tech Industry
For years tech companies have been trying to hook your phone to your computer, or your tablet to your computer so you can get the best of your mobile tech on your desktop. But after reading David Pierce's article in WIRED, you may think that the tech companies are missing the point. No one wants to connect their phone to their computer, they want to transition one service from their phone to the computer. Rather than enabling gadget marriages, tech companies should focus on moving the service from one device to another seamlessly without hooking them together. Pierce writes: At the very … [Read more...]
NASDAQ Has a Diversity Problem
Did you know there are over 3,000 companies in the Nasdaq Composite, and that the index is market weighted—i.e. the biggest companies have the most impact? Apple, Facebook, Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Google comprise 40% of the index’s gains this year according to Birinyi Associates. And they combine to represent 29% of the index's market capitalization. That’s a lot of money in a handful of stocks. Owning an index of 3,000 stocks doesn’t always mean diversification. … [Read more...]
Apple Owns More Corporate Bonds than the Biggest Funds Own
Apple has hordes of cash overseas. CEO Tim Cook says he won't bring the cash back until better tax rates are available. In the meantime, Apple has amassed a pile of corporate debt holdings larger than the top bond funds. Bloomberg's Claire Boston reports: If Apple Inc. were a bond fund, it would dwarf the competition. The iPhone-maker has $148 billion of its record $257 billion cash pile invested in corporate debt alone, according to a company filing from Wednesday. That’s enough to buy all the assets in the world’s largest fixed-income mutual fund, the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index … [Read more...]
The Best of What’s Next in Tech
According to WIRED, the world is in for a wave of coming technological revolutions that will propel society forward further. At the root of these innovative ideas are brilliant minds working at startups and for the largest tech firms in the world. In a feature it calls the "Next List," WIRED has profiled some of these up and coming geniuses who could transform the way people work and play in the future. One such innovator is Richard Craib, developing artificial intellgience to handle trades for his hedge fund. WIRED's Cade Metz writes of Craib: Wall Street is capitalism at its fiercest. But … [Read more...]
Portfolio Strategy: Where Are You Getting Your Financial Advice?
It’s fashionable today to talk about how Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are laying the wood to the actively managed mutual fund industry. Cumulative flows into passive strategies and ETFs has been staggering, while the outflows from active funds have been similarly spectacular. Some advisors and former brokers have become self-righteous about ETFs and indexing, but you didn’t hear a word about ETFs from this crowd for decades. ETFs have been around since 1993, but many in the industry were too busy hawking high expense ratio funds with monster front-end sales loads and back-end marketing … [Read more...]
Will There Be A Drone Relay Race to Your Home?
There have been a flood of companies looking to monetize new drone technologies to either gather information or disseminate products for customers, but the most famous of them is surely Amazon. CEO Jeff Bezos has been talking about delivering your products via drone for years now, and even delivered its first packages in December 2016 (see video below). The company calls its drone effort Amazon Prime Air. The idea is that you'll get your products in 30 minutes or less via an unmanned drone that will bypass traffic to swoop in to your location. That's fine for urban areas where population … [Read more...]
Investors Evacuating Big Hedge Funds in a Panic
This isn’t going to end well. The big money of pension investing that is. Imagine all of the money leaving hedge funds, and for indexing? It’s like everyone deciding to run from starboard to port aboard the same ship. Geoffrey Rogow details the hedge fund massacre taking place. Investors pulled nearly $7 billion from the largest publicly traded hedge-fund firm in the U.S. in the first four months of 2017, the latest sign of investor disillusionment with Wall Street’s most prominent money managers. Och-Ziff Capital Management GroupOZM -2.90% LLC said Tuesday that it received net redemptions … [Read more...]
Google and Facebook Push Neural Networks for a Coming AI World
According to WIRED, the potential market for artificial intelligence (AI) chips is enormous. That has companies like Google and Facebook pioneering the AI technology for their own neural networks. Google has developed its own chips designed specifically for neural networks, known as TPUs. Companies such as Intel, nVidia, and Qualcomm are also working on chips for neural netowrks. The chips are essential for efficiency and cost. WIRED's Cade Metz writes: As Google’s TPUs have shown, dedicated AI chips can bring a whole new level of efficiency in data centers, especially as demand for image … [Read more...]
“Great Song, Thanks Alexa”
I highly recommend the Amazon Echo Dot for your family. The sound quality is surprisingly good for something that basically has the look and size of a hockey puck. We have one hooked into the stereo system in our kitchen. Around dinnertime on Saturday night I pulled out the large wild caught shrimp we were having for dinner and said “Alexa, play Jimmy Buffett radio.” As I was in the middle of cleaning the shrimp a song came on that I hadn’t heard in forever. My hands were wet so instead of picking up my phone to Shazam the song, I simply asked "Alexa what song is this?" "Right Down the … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- Next Page »