Growth (48)

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Smartwatches Overtake Swiss Watches

1291275?profile=RESIZE_320x320According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global smartwatch shipments reached 8.1 million units in Q4 2015, compared with 7.9 million Swiss Watch shipments. It is the first time ever that smartwatches have outshipped Swiss watches on a global basis.

Cliff Raskind, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “We estimate global smartwatch shipments reached 8.1 million units in Q4 2015, rising a healthy 316 percent from 1.9 million in Q4 2014. Smartwatches are growing rapidly in North America, Western Europe and Asia. Apple Watch captured an impressive 63 percent share of the global smartwatch market in Q4 2015, followed by Samsung with 16 percent. Apple and Samsung together account for a commanding 8 in 10 of all smartwatches shipped worldwide.”

Steven Waltzer, Analyst at Strategy Analytics, added, “We estimate global Swiss watch shipments reached 7.9 million units in Q4 2015, falling 5 percent from 8.3 million in Q4 2014.  Global demand for Swiss watches is slowing down, an

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How Else Could Bankcards Be Utilized

1291389?profile=RESIZE_320x320The way we pay for things has changed dramatically over the past few years. Uber calculates your fare in real-time and charges you as you exit the car. The newest phones have chips that let you pay with a tap.

But that’s only scratching the surface. Visa, for one, envisions a future where pretty much any device could handle a payment, and we won’t even need a phone or credit card to make it work.

To get there and beyond, the payment-processing company is looking for some outside help. On Thursday (Feb. 4) it announced that it’s opening up its VisaNet platform to developers. Considering Visa processes 100 billion transactions per year, it’s a potentially powerful tool for that community. By letting developers focus on the experience and Visa managing the payments—from processing to security and risk—change could happen quickly.

So how will we pay in the not-too-distant future? Visa CTO Rajat Tenaja, head of innovation Jim McCarthy, and head of product Jack Forestell gave Quartz a pee

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Admin

What Might Happen In China In 2016

In debates about whether growth is a percentage point up or down, we too often lose sight of the absolute scale of China’s economy. No matter what rate the country grows at in 2016, its share of the global economy, and of many specific sectors, will be larger than ever. My snapshot of China in 2016? An increasingly diverse, volatile, $11 trillion economy whose performance is becoming more and more difficult to describe as one dimensional.

The reality is that China’s economy is today made up of multiple subeconomies, each more than a trillion dollars in size. Some are booming, some declining. Some are globally competitive, others fit for the scrap heap. How you feel about China depends more than ever on the parts of the economy where you compete. In 2015, selling kit to movie theaters has been great business, selling kit to steel mills less so. In your China, are you dealing with a tiger or a tortoise? Your performance in 2016 will depend on knowing the answer to this question and shapi

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Admin

3Q Earnings Worst Since 2009

This U.S. earnings season is on track to be the worst since 2009 as profits from oil & gas and commodity-related companies plummet leaving many to wonder, is the worst behind us or is there more to come?  Is China's growth story over or taking a 'rest'?  We've lived on ghost cities creating demand for so many years; where is the next growth story?

So far, about three-quarters of the S&P 500 have reported results, with profits down 3.1 percent on a share-weighted basis, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. This would be the biggest quarterly drop in earnings since the third quarter 2009, and the second straight quarter of profit declines. Earnings growth turned negative for the first time in six years in the second quarter this year.

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The damage is the biggest in commodity-related industries, with the energy sector showing a 54 percent drop in quarterly earnings per share so far in the quarter, with profits in the materials sector falling 15 percent.

The picture is brighter for the telec

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Admin

Cash Flow Out Of Emerging Markets

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Worldwide money flows are of interest to a long term investor and the flight out of emerging markets has been striking.  Weren't emerging markets supposed to where our expansion was to take place?  What now?

According to the IIF, the volatile market conditions have taken a toll on capital flows to emerging markets, with net non-resident portfolio flows in August falling into negative territory for the first time in 2015, according to the Institute of International Finance’s latest EM Portfolio Flows Tracker. Outflows were estimated at $4.5 billion in August compared to inflows of $6.7 billion in July.

“Portfolio flows to emerging markets have retreated sharply in the last few weeks,” said Charles Collyns, chief economist at the IIF. “Emerging market investors have been spooked by rising uncertainty about China, and stress has been exacerbated by a combination of fundamental concerns about EM economic prospects and volatility in global financial markets.”

Emerging market equity flows f

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Admin

The New Face Of Competition For Profits

The world’s biggest corporations have been riding a three-decade wave of profit growth, market expansion, and declining costs. Yet this unprecedented run may be coming to an end. Our new McKinsey Global Institute report, Playing to win: The new global competition for corporate profits, projects that the global corporate-profit pool, which currently stands at almost 10 percent of world GDP, could shrink to less than 8 percent by 2025—undoing in a single decade nearly all of the corporate gains achieved relative to the world economy during the past 30 years (exhibit).

Exhibit

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From 1980 to 2013, vast markets opened around the world while corporate-tax rates, borrowing costs, and the price of labor, equipment, and technology all fell. The net profits posted by the world’s largest companies more than tripled in real terms from $2 trillion in 1980 to $7.2 trillion by 2013,1 pushing corporate profits as a share of global GDP from 7.6 percent to almost 10 percent. Today, companies

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Admin

Money Surges To Europe; Growth To Follow

If you ignore the ongoing Greek sideshow, rarely has European money growth been as accommodative as it is today. Europe has enormous structural problems of too much debt, an inflexible currency and an ageing population, but cyclical factors are very positive. Leading indicators are also positive, and the problems in Greece practically guarantee that the ECB will remain extremely accommodative even though Germany will require some tapering of QE.  Barring major contagion from Greece, any equity weakness in Europe will represent a buying opportunity.  Real M1 in Europe is growing at 11%, and the collapse in the price of oil means that excess liquidity is surging now and is as high as it was in 2009 and higher than it was in 2004-05.

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While investors are worried about the fallout from Greece on the European banking system, we offer the next chart to show that excess liquidity is still extremely positive for European banking stocks.

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- See more at: Variant

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Admin

Was Prior Growth An Anomaly

SVGZ_MGI_global_growthV2_ex1.ashx?mw=510&width=300Over the past 50 years, the global economy expanded sixfold as the world’s population and per capita income each grew at unprecedented speed. The global population more than doubled while average per capita income almost tripled to about $13,000 at 2012 purchasing power parity. However, there are significant doubts that this growth bonanza will continue in the long term given that the demographic tailwinds of the past half century are now waning.  Hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty.  Yet without significantly boosting the one engine the world economy still has—productivity growth—this period may prove to be a historic anomaly. 

Unless we can dramatically improve productivity, the next half century will look very different. The rapid expansion of the past five decades will be seen as an aberration of history, and the world economy will slide back toward its relatively sluggish long-term growth rate.

Over this time, two factors powered exceptionally fast GDP growth

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Admin

Investing In The Drone Space

Last week it was amazing to witness entire expressways shut down during the Hong Kong protests.  Something which was not surprisingly given little attention by our "keep the advertisers happy at all costs" mainstream media.  *cough cough*  Thank goodness for technology with this amazing drone footage and social media for 'getting it out there'.  Afterwards I decided to take a further look into the area of investing in drone (and drone component) manufacturers.

I've thrown this together, running on battery only and no internet after having lost power due to a strong storm rolling through the region.  Hey, it's a start, right?

Face it America.  It’s only a matter of time before drone applications become commonplace and drones are buzzing past our homes like flies.  Imagine the possibilities.  Packages, mail, medical supplies, internet and wireless signals to remote or under served areas, news coverage, spraying fields with pesticides, no more lost hikers (or drivers for that matte

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Admin

Global Growth Is Slowing Down

1290908?profile=RESIZE_320x320IT HAS been a consistent theme of this blog in recent months that global growth has been slowing, a fact some investors may have missed in the good news about American GDP. The latest confirmation came from the World Trade Organisation, which cut its forecast for trade growth this year from 4.6% to 3.1% and for 2015 from 5.3% to 4%. The WTO doesn't forecast economic growth directly; it takes its lead from other international organisations (Rabo Bank reckons the IMF is set to reduce its growth forecast in the next few weeks).

What is interesting from the WTO announcement is that even the revised forecast relies on a bit of optimism. Actual trade growth in the first half of the year was just 1.8%; the organisation is relying on a rebound in the second half. The first half regional numbers were revealing; Asia increased its exports by 4.2% but its imports by just 2.1%. In effect, it has been gaining market share. North America was more balanced, increasing exports by 3.3% and imports by

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Admin

UPS To Expand 3D Printing In Stores

The 3D industry has reported grown by 21% last year alone and according to the 2014 Wholers Report, the worldwide 3D printing industry is now expected to grow from $3.07 billion in revenue in 2013 to $12.8 billion by 2018, and exceed $21 billion in worldwide revenue by 2020.

After testing 3D printing in it's San Diego stores, UPS has decided to expand it's partnership with SSYS to 100 stores nationwide.  California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas are just some of the states set to open stores with 3D-printing capabilities.

3D Systems (DDD) and Stratasys (SSYS) may be the largest 3D printing companies around, but together they only represented about one-third of worldwide 3D printing revenues in 2013. In other words, the 3D printing industry remains highly fragmented, and because no single company controls the majority of the market, there's a massive opportunity for a number of 3D printing companies to grow their revenue and market share considerably.  Other publicly trade

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Admin

The Bond Markets Pessimism Is Vindicated

I've been a close observer of the bond market for over 25 years, and it continues to amaze me with its ability to see the future of inflation and real economic growth. 
5-yr+TIPS+vs+2-yr+GDP.jpg?width=400I've been featuring the above chart for a long time, using it to argue that the market was quite pessimistic about the prospects for economic growth. My theory is that real interest rates ought to track the market's expectations for real growth, and indeed they have. Real growth and growth expectations were very strong in the late 1990s, and real yields on TIPS were very high. Since then, the economy has slowed down and real yields have fallen. 5-yr real yields on TIPS have been telling us for the past year that the market was braced for real economic growth to be as low as 1% or so. With today's revision to Q1/14 GDP growth, real growth over the past 2 years has been an anemic 1.4%. In effect, the bond market saw this slump coming a year ago. Needless to say, if the economy's prospects are going to improve going forwa

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Admin

Amazon Growth

Jeff Bezos knows; continue to innovate, acquire and turn out new products.....or die.  Investors have rewarded the stock accordingly.  AAPL had the same growth and innovation.  When investors began to doubt, they rang the register until Tim Cook was able to convince them that all was well.  Great job Bezos - keep it up; or else. (click chart to enlarge)

1290790?profile=originalCourtesy of Twitter

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Admin

german_solar_farm_zpsf739d698.jpg?width=320

(edited 1:18pm to add U.S. projections)

Germans have now achieved goals, which coal industry skeptics have been claiming for the last 40 years could not be achieved even by 2050 and is is rapidly becoming a model country for transitions to renewable and sustainable energy proving that "yes, a transition to a renewable energy economy can be done, and it can be down with continuous improvement to existing technology.

Germans have a special word for it -"'Energiewende', or energy transformation - which aims to power the entire country by renewable resources by 2050." Germans are now laying down a challenge for other countries saying there is no longer any excuse for countries to say this is impossible.

June 6, 2014 was a record breaking day for the solar power industry in Germany when the country broke through the symbolic barrier of generating more than 50% of its total electricity needs with solar power for one hour in an all time record, according to Tobias Rothachter, and expert on r

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Admin

Small Robots Building Large Structures

As highlighted here previously, China is clearly not the only country exploring the wonderful world of 3D printing and it's application to housing.  Sadly the loser will be the average construction worker.

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona is working on a set of robots that will soon be able to build complex structures by extruding layers of concrete, a process that might be a bit slow but that will allow strange, unique shapes to be formed using concepts popularized by plastic 3D printers.

The team, led by Sasa Jokic and Petr Novikov, has created small robots, called Minibuilders that perform various tasks. The Foundation Robot lays down a structure base while the Grip Robot sits at the top of the foundation and runs around it, laying down a bead of cement and instantly curing it so it can maintain its upwards motion. Finally a Vacuum Robot clings to the side of the object and lays down perpendicular sw

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Admin

Solar Shingles; An Idea To Catch On

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Like anything else, it will take more widespread usage and increased competition for pricing to drop, but I would install these in a heartbeat if/when the cost became more reasonable.  idk about anyone else but my utility bill is ridiculous at this point.

Dawn Kurry of Biz Journals writes Solar shingles system comes online in Cary North Carolina. Don Hyatt is the first person in the research triangle, and maybe in the whole state, to install the new DOW solar shingles on his home.

Don Hyatt says people have been stopping by his house to admire the shiny new roof.
"I've been waiting for them to become available in North Carolina," Hyatt says. "It's not like solar panels, which have the big blue rectangles that stick up above everything else and are obtrusive looking. These blend in nicely."

Sun Dollar Energy of Raleigh, owned by Dan Lezama, installed shingles on the roof of a home which double as solar panels. ... “It’s a building integrated PV (photo-voltaic) module,” explains Lezama

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Admin

World Bank Cuts Outlook But There's Always A 'But'

Here we go again but should anyone be surprised?  This is one of those days when people will come out and say "the market is not the economy" yet we all know job growth remains tepid at best and with that, one has to ask "where will the growth come from?"  See the ginormous infographic below.

World Bank has lowered its forecasts for developing countries, now eyeing growth at 4.8 percent this year, down from its January estimate of 5.3 percent. Signs point to strengthening in 2015 and 2016 to 5.4 and 5.5 percent, respectively. China is expected to grow by 7.6 percent this year, but this will depend on the success of rebalancing efforts. If a hard landing occurs, the reverberations across Asia would be widely felt.

There's always a BUT

Yet Variant Perceptions survey of small businesses (a proxy for future growth) shows the belief that wage growth will pick up for the rest of the year driven by much tighter labour market. (My thoughts: many of those who have left the workforce may not ret

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Admin

Small Business Growth And Outsourcing

We tend to think of outsourcing as being overseas call centers and phone assembly in China however that's not necessarily the case anymore; especially when it comes to small business.  One has to wonder just how much small businesses think of outsourcing as a business advantage or requirement in order to grow.  This cute slideshare laid it out in simple, easy to understand terms and got my mind to thinking...........

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Admin

At its E3 press conference, Sony just announced that the PlayStation TV game console (known as the PlayStation Vita TV abroad) is coming to the United States and Canada this fall.

The PlayStation TV will come by itself for $99 (you’ll have to bring your own controller) or in a $139 bundle that comes with a DualShock Controller, a memory card to store downloaded games on, and a copy of the Lego Movie video game.

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The console will be compatible with many of the games currently available on the PlayStation Vita, Sony’s portable game console. Those will be for available for download on the PlayStation store.

PlayStation TV owners will also be able to log in to PlayStation Now, Sony’s upcoming Netflix-like service that lets people “stream” games from the cloud. The service will have approximately 100 PlayStation 3 titles available as well as more than 20 free games made specifically for PlayStation Now.

Gamers with a PlayStation 4 in their home will also have the ability to stream games fro

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Admin

50 Stocks Most Loved By Hedge Funds


Google Inc.
$178
58
6%
-6%
Apple Inc.
$533
51
8%
8%
General Motors
$54
45
6%
-16%
American Intl Group
$77
43
7%
3%
Time Warner Cable
$38
42
8%
1%
American Airlines Group
$25
40
7%
53%
Citigroup Inc.
$141
37
6%
-11%
Microsoft Corp.
$331
37
6%
8%
Hertz Global Holdings
$13
33
6%
-1%
Micron Technology
$28
32
6%
20%
Facebook Inc.
$148
30
6%
6%
Cheniere Energy
$14
28
8%
34%
Actavis
$36
27
5%
24%
Forest Laboratories
$25
26
7%
55%
Delta Air Lines
$32
25
7%
38%
NorthStar Realty Finance
$5
25
7%
21%
Bank of America
$153
24
7%
-7%
Charter Communications
$15
24
6%
1%
Liberty Global Class C

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