Operations Management? When I was at Babson College one of our core curriculum courses was Operations Management. And, at the time, I didn’t see the vast opportunities that would unfold from this course. Who wants to spend a career figuring out how to piece together a supply chain or re-tool a factory? Then, when I had an internship at an online grocery delivery start-up, I recognized how fruitful a career in Ops could actually be. Fast forward to today and if you’re an Ops wizard, companies like Walmart or Amazon want to talk with you. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest through … [Read more...]
Is This Just the Beginning of the FAANG Collapse?
Barbara Kollmeyer, reporting at MarketWatch, rounds up a host of negative views on the future of the FAANGS. She writes: Hide behind defensives? That doesn’t seem like such a crazy strategy lately as investors wait to see if worries about the U.S. economy turn into real problems in the coming year. Tuesday’s session offered the most recent evidence of that as health care, consumer staples and utilities drove the gains for the S&P 500. Compare these numbers—the Utilities Select Sector SPDR XLU, -0.30% is up 4% for the quarter, while the Technology Select Sector SPDR XLK, +0.84% has … [Read more...]
Suppliers Suffer When Apple Clouds iPhone Orders in Mystery
With little information to go on regarding future iPhone sales, and possibly canceled orders from Apple impacting business, iPhone suppliers are being trashed in markets. Yoko Kubota, Takashi Mochizuki and Tripp Mickle write for The Wall Street Journal: Lower-than-expected demand for Apple Inc.’s AAPL -2.77% new iPhones and the company’s decision to offer more models have created turmoil along its supply chain and made it harder to predict the number of components and handsets it needs, people familiar with the situation say. In recent weeks, Apple slashed production orders for all three … [Read more...]
This is What Can Happen When You Invest Without a Margin of Safety?
Nvidia, a member of the high-flying NYSE FANG+ index, reported third quarter results yesterday that missed estimates. The stock is down 19% this morning, and over 42% since October 1st. Why have the shares cratered? Earnings are up 32% over the last year and the outlook remains positive with Goldman saying Nvidia “has access to one of the best growth opportunity sets in semis.” The problem for Nvidia shareholders, in a word, was price. Early this year, Nvidia traded as high as 60X earnings. Investors buying shares at those levels were forgoing a necessary margin of safety. Without a … [Read more...]
Cryptocosm and Life After Google Part III
You instinctively know something evil is going on when a company’s motto is “Don’t be Evil.” As we learned in parts I and II when Google offers you “free” services (Gmail for example)—you’re the product. Will Google be able to compete against a cryptocosm several orders of magnitude larger than it could ever become? At the heart of the matter is big data. Googlers feel big data has all the answers—but big data is no match for human touch and emotional intelligence. Would you trust software to drive your family today? At the heart of self-driving cars is a battle of software (Google) vs. … [Read more...]
The Fourth Industrial Revolution?
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, is calling the future economy, "powered by the mobile internet, automation and artificial intelligence," the fourth industrial revolution. After revolutions driven by coal and steam, electricity and the automobile, and computing, Schwab sees these new technologies pushing the world forward to new heights. The Wall Street Journal's Christopher Mims writes: Each of these earlier revolutions is easy to measure in hindsight—tons of steel produced, number of automobiles on the road, the proportion of homes with a PC. Since we’re just at the … [Read more...]
Cryptocosm and Life After Google Part II
What we learned in Part I is there will be Life After Google as explained in futurist George Gilder’s book by the same name. Because when we use Google’s products for free, you and I give them a free pass to do what they will with our data. Who are we to complain if Google mishandles security of our data? “You fools it was free,” they counter. But what if there’s a universe, a cryptocosm, that provides search on a much larger scale where we own our data through a blockchain? Imagine musicians, artists, and other creators whose work has been essentially stolen by the “everything is free” … [Read more...]
Did Apple Raise Prices too Much?
Lumentum, an Apple supplier, told investors it is cutting its outlook for the second quarter, possibly signalling that Apple's business is taking a hit. Tech investors reacted by pushing Lumentum's stock price down 30%, and Apple's down 4.1%. Is it possible that Apple has raised prices too high for its products, thereby decreasing demand? Ryan Vlastelica reports for Bloomberg: The latest warning sign was Lumentum Holdings Inc. cutting its second-quarter outlook after one of its largest customers asked to “meaningfully reduce shipments” for previously placed orders. Lumentum didn’t name the … [Read more...]
The Problem with Tech Stocks Today
Writing at Bloomberg, Michael Regan explains that the problems with tech stocks today "can’t be erased by a strong quarter or two." He continues: One is higher interest rates, which raise corporate borrowing costs and boost the appeal of bonds relative to stocks. Another is the Trump-induced trade war, which threatens to reshape global supply chains and make investors rethink internet companies’ overseas ambitions. Low unemployment has added labor market pressure, as exemplified by Amazon.com Inc. increasing its minimum wage. And with every discussion of social media’s role in election … [Read more...]
What Apple Doesn’t Want You to See
Since Apple started reporting unit sales for its products, analysts have been glued to the numbers as a direct measure of Apple Inc.'s health. Now Apple is doing away with that reporting, and no one is happy. Tripp Mickle reports: Apple Inc. AAPL -2.84% reported its fourth consecutive quarter of record revenue and profit, as the combination of higher iPhone prices and strong app-store sales propelled the technology giant to its best year ever. But the world’s most valuable company offered guidance for the current period that disappointed many investors, and said it would stop reporting … [Read more...]
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