You need food to survive. And as it turns out, so does Amazon. With the purchase of Whole Foods, Amazon has determined how it will get into a customer’s home. More important, it has figured out a way to welcome customers into its home. Whole Foods is Amazon’s “Welcome Home” mat. Obviously the purchase is great news for Whole Foods with its 30% increase in stock value Friday. I love the move for Amazon too. But to me, this is a beautiful move for retail in general. Retailers have been put on notice: You’re in play. Getting into customers’ homes is the future. It’s what Amazon, Apple, … [Read more...]
The Rules of the Retail Game Have Changed
Mickey Drexler, famed Gap and J. Crew fashion genius, has found that in the digital era, the rules of retail have changed. Rather than surviving on high priced signature looks, retailers must focus on price, speed, and accessibility. Drexler told The Wall Street Journal “We became a little too elitist in our attitude.” Khadeeja Safdar reports: Many visionaries focus on doing what they do best, even when the ground shifts beneath them. From newspapers to television, successful companies have been upended by disruptive technologies. Facebook Inc. is now the world’s largest publisher; Netflix … [Read more...]
Where Can You Live the American Dream for Less than $2 Million Bucks?
California is dreaming. Where else in the world do regular homes go for well over $2 million bucks? There are cracks in that foundation. As an aside, take a look at the chart. The top three holdings in the MSCI USA Growth Index are: Apple, Amazon.com, and Facebook. Look familiar? Now forget about this chart. It’s scary. I don’t want to scare you. I want to point you to one of my favorite annual reports. Every year around this time, like Christmas in May, demographer Joel Kotkin and Pepperdine University public policy professor Michael Shires publish The Best Small and Medim-Size … [Read more...]
They Call This Investing?
The FT reports how tech stocks have electrified the stock market, overtaking the so-called Trump trade. The performance has been driven by FANG stocks. Mutual funds that have been lagging for years are now jumping on the bandwagon to try to outperform the S&P 500. If you have been active in the markets for more than the bull phase of this market cycle, you already know how this ends. Emphasis is mine. The US stock market climbed another 1.4 per cent last week to close at a fresh record high but the tech industry has been the rally’s dominant fuel, particularly the “FAANGtastic five” — … [Read more...]
This Computer Can Hold the Entire Library of Congress Collection, Five Times
HPE has built a new computer for the big data era. Known as "The Machine" it has enough memory to hold the contents of the Library of Congress five times over. The Machine prototype can hold 160 terabytes of data, spread across 40 physical nodes. HPE writes of the prototype: The prototype unveiled today contains 160 terabytes (TB) of memory, capable of simultaneously working with the data held in every book in the Library of Congress five times over—or approximately 160 million books. It has never been possible to hold and manipulate whole data sets of this size in a single-memory … [Read more...]
Here Is a Risk FANG Investors May Be Underestimating
Some investors in FANG stocks have a belief that the businesses they are investing in are so dominant that they can’t be caught by the competition. This may or may not be true. If it is though, are FANG investors ignoring regulatory risk? Here The Economist makes the case that regulators need to new approach to anti-trust to level the playing field in today’s data driven economy. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. … The nature of data makes the antitrust remedies … [Read more...]
Apple’s Headquarters Reminds Me of this Stock
Do you remember Polaroid? It was a "Nifty-Fifty" stock back in the 70s. It constructed a huge headquarters building to signify its greatness. Below are some pictures of just how run down Polaroid's Waltham, MA location was before demolition in 2008. Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Google are also putting up structures of their own. How will this movie end? I’ll point out that these four companies, plus Microsoft, are responsible for a huge chunk of this year’s advance in the markets, especially NASDAQ. … [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...]
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...]
Facebook Spending Big to Fight Fake News Infestation
Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has directed his company to tamp down on fake news on its site. Part of that process includes hiring expensive fact checkers to read through posted material, and then attempt to find evidence that verifies the claims made in the stories. Facebook is willing to spend the money because it wants to avoid being labeled a media company, which would come with expensive requirements regarding truth in advertising and publishing PSAs. The Financial Times reports: But the more Facebook becomes involved in policing content on its services, the greater the risk that it … [Read more...]