Yearly Archives

318 Articles
Blue Chip

iPhone? What’s an iPhone?

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The iPhone isn’t very popular… in China and India. The lack of interest in the iPhone is somewhat disappointing to the tech giant because those are the two hottest growth spots for smartphones. People in developed markets already have smartphones – so those customers are basically tapped out (except for the upgrades). So why don’t iPhones sell like crack in other countries like they do in North America?

 

The Chinese are innovative… and apparently, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi own 80% of the market. In fact, Huawei is the world’s second leading smartphone brand (call me crazy, but I’ve never heard of them). If innovation from Chinese brands is killing the iPhone, maybe we should give those same phones a try in America? Just name it something we can pronounce…

 

India can’t afford it… and 800 million people in the country have yet to use the internet. There is no “official” order on how this should go, but I believe it should go: internet then smartphone…in that order. Not to mention increased tariffs make the iPhone X cost $1,700 in India – something most developed markets wouldn’t pay. And Indians prefer Samsung and Xiaomi, anyway. It looks like Apple can’t win ‘em all…

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Blue Chip

In a world without two-day shipping…….

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The ‘Amazon of China’ as we like to call it… is joining forces with Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, telecom company MegaFon, and internet company Mail.Ru Group. Alibaba plans to pay an unspecified amount of money and give ownership of its existing business, AliExpress Russia to gain access to Russia.

 

Russia and China are… teaming up in business and politics to help counteract sanctions from Europe and the United States. Also, Alibaba will help facilitate online shopping growth across Russia – something the country could really use. Seems like a win-win, right?

 

If the deal goes through… Alibaba will keep 48% of AliExpress Russia, MegaFon will own 24%, and the rest will be divvied up in smaller amounts. And there is no better country to be an e-commerce company in than Russia. Why you ask? Because only 20% of the country shops online which means there are plenty of customers to be had. Online sales came in at $24 billion in 2015, which may sound like a lot – but it’s really not. Hopefully the new ‘Russian online shopping craze’ will give the trolls something else to do.

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Start-up

You probably didn’t lose this much on bitcoin

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Cryptocurrency has lost $400 billion… and this figure includes Sean Russell’s life savings. Russell invested $120,000 in bitcoin last November…and if you know anything about bitcoin, you would know that number magically grew. Scratch that – that number exploded to $500,000 in a month.

 

The highs and lows… bitcoin was once trading over $20,000 per unit; now it goes for around $6,300. Russell has lost 96% of his life savings, after initially quadrupling it. Yes, the once-promising returns of bitcoin seem to be gone for good. But how does something like this even happen?

 

It happens because… people have no clue what they’re doing. People that wouldn’t normally invest, like college students (no offense if you are one), started buying into the bitcoin frenzy and jacking the price up far beyond what it should have been. You know, like a bubble – and that bubble isn’t done bursting because, last week, bitcoin dropped another 20% in two days…just for good measure.

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International

‘Tencent’ will soon live up to their name if this keeps up

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Tencent is deciding to fold… on its popular online poker game “Texas Everyday Hold’em” which had over 1 billion users. The loss looks to be yet another setback for a company whose stock is down 35% since the start of 2018. Now, 35% is a lot for any company, but to Tencent that represents $200 billion in market value – that’s a lot a lot (sorry for the really technical term there).

 

The significant loss in market value… comes from strict regulations imposed by the Chinese government. Gambling (and all fun?) is illegal in China, but the gaming company got around that by having users play with virtual tokens. That was all well and good until users started trading tokens for cash which caused the Chinese government to take a closer look at the gaming company.

 

Other problems for Tencent include… not being able to make money – there you go, that is an all-encompassing reason. Tencent needs the approval to make money on their new mobile games, such as the popular “PlayersUnknown’s Battlegrounds.” There is also talk about Beijing limiting online gaming and restricting the amount of time kids can play on their devices. Sounds like a fun time to do business in China, no?

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Start-up

Everyone is ditching Snapchat

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Everyone’s leaving Snapchat… and now the list includes Imran Khan, the company’s chief strategy officer. Others that have left include CFO Drew Vollero and VP of Product Tom Conrad. The company has also been without a COO since Emily White left in 2015. And while there haven’t been any high profile departures, investors are still wondering what is going on at Snachat.

 

Hopefully, you didn’t buy Snap’s… IPO at $17 per share. Today, the stock was trading in the single digits and was at an all-time low last week. Needless to say, the revolving door of executives and the recent drop in daily users will continue to drive the share price down.

 

Investors seem to believe… that Snapchat could use an executive that can command both the respect of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Currently, Snap appears to be run by a bunch of damn kids. But maybe the company just needs someone who will stick around…whether that be executives or daily users.

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Fang

It’s a cauldron. It’s a grill. It’s a smart speaker?

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Brought to you by Samsung… is the Galaxy Home. The Galaxy Home is a smart speaker with an unusual design that aims to compete with Amazon, Google, and Apple. And better late than never – Amazon has been in the smart speaker game since 2014.

 

Hey Bixby… is the phrase you will be using to speak with your speaker. That is the extent of what we know about this speaker because Samsung has not released the cost or what the speaker even does. However, Bixby should integrate well with the company’s connected cars, premium audio, and artificial intelligence.

 

Bixby will be different… or at least it should be if Samsung expects any of us to buy it. Samsung demonstrated Bixby’s ability to have a conversation with you – which isn’t particularly impressive because Google and Amazon speakers have already been able to do that. What else ya got, Bixby?? I guess we’ll see…

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Start-up

Here is a robot we could ALL use

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The future is upon us… and pretty soon we will have robots cleaning up after us – and what is more futuristic than that? Researchers at MIT are creating robots that can understand objects to help automate tedious chores like cleaning. This robot isn’t just useful for cleaning up your crap – it also could be used to pack boxes in warehouses.

 

Okay, we do already have robots… but these cannot think for themselves, which makes them so much less futuristic. Robots developed by MIT could understand how to pick-up and pack objects into boxes – just like humans already do. And I know what you’re thinking, ‘Robots are going 2 steal our jobz!!!!’ Well, yeah – probably…but maybe try doing a better job so that doesn’t happen.

 

Here’s how they work… it is actually a robotic arm that examines and analyzes different products to understand what they have in common. After looking over different shoes, this robot could learn where the laces should be. Okay, not that impressive, but we’re getting there people.

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International

Isn’t everything ‘Made in China’?

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Not anymore… because the country’s exports have been slowing down steadily amidst a trade-war with the United States. Chinese exports have gone from 12% in July to 10% in August, and things are not looking so great going forward. US President Donald Trump is ready to put another $267 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese products.

 

There are already lots of tariffs… and such a move by Trump would push new taxes on the $505 billion worth of goods the US imported from China last year. With slowing growth in exports coming from the European Union and Japan – can China really afford this?

 

Meanwhile in the United States… exports were at a record-high. But don’t get too excited as many companies were just trying to beat the next round of tariffs. And the United States is still largely indebted to China which is a critical issue in the trade spat. It looks like more trade-fun is in-store for the fall!

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Fang

The iPhone rules the S&P 500

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Let’s kick things off… with a shocking statistic about your phone (and if you don’t have an iPhone…get out) – the iPhone is expected to bring in more revenue than 492 of the 500 companies in the S&P 500 did last year. Apple is hopeful that the iPhone will bring in $165 billion in sales this fiscal year. In fact, $165 billion in revenue [from just the iPhone] crushes the revenue Amazon brings in from online store sales.

 

You’ll be saying ‘TGIW’… when Wednesday rolls around and Apple announces the new iPhone models. Well, maybe not, because remember, this is a “minor” update year, so we probably won’t see anything too groundbreaking. But hopefully, there will be good news to report so that investors can hang on to their near 20% gains the company’s stock saw in August.

 

They do other stuff, too… which we have covered here many times at Sanebull. But to reiterate for those just joining us – Apple makes a $#!% ton of money by offering services like the App Store, Apple Pay, iTunes, and Apple Music. So it’s not all about the iPhone (although it kind of is…).

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Mid caps

Uh oh… Ford is making a break for China…

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Not everyone is dodging the tariffs… or at least not one company and that company is Ford. Donald Trump tweeted saying “This is just the beginning. This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs!” to the company. However, we have come to find that such a reason wasn’t actually “the reason” for Ford building cars in China.

 

Americans don’t like… the Focus Active which is why it won’t be built in the United States. The model is expected to sell fewer than 50,000 units in the United States, so why not make the car where it will sell? That is what the car-maker is doing. Although, Ford won’t be importing any of the vehicles to the states because of tariffs – so I guess they are tariff dodgers after all.

 

It’s not just the Focus Active… that American consumers don’t like – it’s sedans and small cars altogether. To combat this, Ford is reallocating $7 billion of R&D money from cars to trucks and SUVs. It’s not just Ford, either – General Motors and Fiat Chrysler also plan to focus on the larger automobiles, as well. Who knew sedans were out of style?

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