growth (36)

Admin

The Fastest Growing Brands Of 2017

In a modern business era of near-constant disruption, which brands are winning the hearts of consumers the fastest?

Today’s charts look at the brands that are trending upwards. See below for the brands that have gained the most in brand value since last year, as assessed by BrandZ in their report on the world’s 100 most valuable brands.

Onwards and Upwards for Tech

As many big name brands try to find their footing in today’s fast-paced consumer environment, it’s not surprising to see up-and-coming tech brands skyrocketing in value.

Biggest Movers in Tech

In line with growing revenues, tech brands like Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix are also flying high with their brands. Amazon, for example, had its brand value soar 41% since last year to make it the fourth most valuable brand in the world at $139 billion. Chinese tech companies are gaining traction in the eyes of consumers as well, with Tencent and Alibaba both growing their brand values at clips of 20% or higher.

Note: the measure of “brand value”, not to

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Admin

Will Credit Cause A Slowdown

Saxo Bank thinks a slowdown in credit growth is bad news

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IF THERE is a consensus at the moment, it is that the global economy is finally managing a synchronised recovery. The purchasing managers' index for global manufacturing is at its highest level for six years; copper, the metal often seen as the most sensitive to global conditions, is up by a quarter since May

20170916_woc638_0.png?width=450But Steen Jakobsen of Saxo Bank thinks this strength will not last. His leading indicator is a measure of the change in private sector credit growth. This peaked at the turn of the year and is now heading down sharply. Indeed the change in trend is the most negative since the financial crisis (see chart). Since this indicator leads the economy by 9-12 months, that suggests a significant economic slowdown either late this year or early  in 2018. He says that

This call for a significant slowdown coincides with several facts: the ECB’s QE programme will conclude by end-2017 and will at best be scaled down by €10 billion per

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Admin

A Timeline Of Future Technology

A Timeline of Future Technology

Making predictions about future technology is both fun and notoriously difficult.

However, such predictions also serve a very practical purpose for investors and business leaders, since failing to adapt to changing industry paradigms can completely decimate a business venture, turning it into the next Blockbuster, Kodak, or Sears.

Today’s infographic from Futurism rounds up some of the most interesting predictions about the future, from trusted sources such as Scientific American and The National Academy of Sciences.

Machines,Big and Small

The confluence of robotics, artificial intelligence, and increasing levels of automation is a prevailing trend throughout the projected timeline of future technology.

In less than 10 years, we will be able to control machines based on eye movements, while ingesting nano-sized robots to repair injuries from within our bodies. Later on, it’s also expected that the next wave of AI will be a reality: by 2036, predictive AI

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Admin

Growth in the global electric-vehicle market

With the recent announcement from Volvo that all vehicles will have electric engines in 2019 and phase out combustion engines, it becomes shockingly clear that electric is growing.................and faster than we have previously believed. Clearly Tesla (TSLA) has more competition than ever before so I bring you this piece from McKinsey to give you the breakdown. By the way, what does this mean for crude oil?  Just tossng it out there.

New research on electric mobility reveals Chinese OEMs produced 43 percent of EVs worldwide in 2016 and highlights other trends in supply and demand.

China has increased its lead in electric-vehicle (EV) production, according to new McKinsey research (Exhibit 1). Chinese OEMs produced 43 percent of the 873,000 EVs built worldwide in 2016. And the country now has the largest fleet of EVs on the road, overtaking the US market for the first time (see sidebar, “Our methodology”).

Exhibit 1
Electric Vehicle Index, ranking 10 countries based on market and industry performance

China extends EV industry leadership

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Admin

Y Combinator, one of best-known Silicon Valley accelerators, has an impressive track record of success. With well-timed investments in Dropbox, Stripe, and Airbnb, the startups in the company’s portfolio are now worth an aggregate of $600 billion in market capitalization.

While Y Combinator has made a clear impact on the tech sector, the company also launched an internal side project in 2007 that would end up becoming highly influential in a different and surprising way.

Its user-powered news aggregator called Hacker News, which is now visited by 20 million people per month, has become a mainstay for entrepreneurs, tech professionals, and venture capitalists around the world. Using a Reddit-like interface, users can upvote and downvote articles that they think have the most relevance to trends and issues affecting the tech sector.

Data Mining For Trends

Today’s charts come to us from Variance Explained, and they help to paint a picture of what topics have been trending on Hacker News o

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Admin

Earnings Growth Likely Peaked In Q1

Note: The following is an excerpt from this week’s Earnings Trends report. You can access the full report that contains detailed historical actuals and estimates for the current and following periods, please click here>>>

Here are the key points:

•    The Q1 earnings is effectively over now, with results from 492 S&P 500 members already out. Total earnings for these companies are up +13.5% from the same period last year on +7.2% higher revenues, with 72.6% beating EPS estimates and 65.2% beating revenue estimates.

•    These results represent a notable improvement over what we have been seeing from the same group of companies in other recent periods. While growth reached the highest level in more than 5 years, a bigger proportion of companies have been able to beat estimates, particularly revenue estimates.

•    For the Retail sector, total Q1 earnings are up +1.7% from the same period last year on +3.1% higher revenues, with 60% beating EPS estimates and 50% beating revenue estimates.

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Admin

The Big Picture

First and foremost let me point out that Ray Dalio, founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, has joined Twitter so I encourage you to follow him here.  Secondly I suggest you grab a cup of coffee or maybe the entire pot as he gradually lays out what he sees ahead for the market.  Enjoy!

Big picture, the near term looks good and the longer term looks scary. That is because:

  1. The economy is now at or near its best, and we see no major economic risks on the horizon for the next year or two,
  2. There are significant long-term problems (e.g., high debt and non-debt obligations, limited abilities by central banks to stimulate, etc.) that are likely to create a squeeze,
  3. Social and political conflicts are near their worst for the last number of decades, and
  4. Conflicts get worse when economies worsen.

So while we have no near-term economic worries for the economy as a whole, we worry about what these conflicts will become like when the economy has its next downturn.

The next few pages g

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Admin

S&P500 Earnings With Trump Over The Shoulder

Before I present the insight on expected earnings ahead, there is one point I wish to make; that being Trump.  If you're not following our President elect on Twitter, you should get with it now.  Some may say it's not "Presidential" to be on TWTR but our commander and chief does what he wishes, and he wishes to scare whomever he can.  At the very least, throw him up as a column on TweetDeck and watch the charts fly when he mentions a name. 

Now while AMZN and GM were formerly expecting good growth in 2017, you will notice that both are now on Trumps radar for taxation and import/export fees which explains their recent trading action.  There seems to be no love lost between AMZN owner Jeff Bezos.  Even Trumps comments on taxation such as “If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag." should leave investors more than a tad concerned.  At this point, I feel we'll see quite a bit of this concern over China/Mexico/taxation/tariffs in th

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Admin

The Death Of Tradtional Retail vs The Size Of Amazon

The Extraordinary Size of Amazon in One Chart

The Extraordinary Size of Amazon in One Chart

It’s bigger than most brick and mortar retailers together

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

What has more value: all major publicly traded department stores in the United States, or Amazon?

Amazon takes the cake, and its no contest.

Add together the market caps of Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Kohl’s, JCPenney, Sears, and Macy’s, it amounts to a significant $297.8 billion:

Brick & Mortar Store 2016 Value ($B)
Total $297.8
Sears $1.1
JCPenney $2.6
Nordstrom $8.3
Kohl's $8.8
Macy's $11.0
Best Buy $13.2
Target $40.6
Walmart $212.4

However, it’s not enough to beat Amazon.

The online retailer alone is worth $356 billion, making it one of the largest companies by market capitalization in the world.

The Death of Traditional Retail

Ten years ago, the future of brick and mortar retail sill looked bright. The aforementioned retailers were worth a collective $400 billion, and A

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Admin

Wall Streets Top Picks For 2017 With Trump

new-years-day-1924608_1920.jpg?width=300We are into the homestretch of 2016, and the markets have seen strong upside this year, benefiting from the domestic economy's resilience and the election of Donald Trump.

With just four sessions to go, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been a up a solid 14.4 percent, the S&P 500 has risen 10.8 percent and the NASDAQ Composite is 9.1 percent higher — with all the three major averages trading off their all-time closing highs.

Among the ten S&P sectors, eight have been in the green. Old economy stocks such as energy, material, industrial, financial, utility and telecom are all up by double-digit percentages. Technology stocks are also up decently. However, the healthcare sector has taken a hit.

Though it is tough to replicate the performance of 2016, given the tougher comparisons and the uncertainty around policies amid the political leadership transition, Wall Street does see some opportunities that are compelling.

Here is a compilation of some top picks recommended by Wall Street an

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Admin

It's Not What You Think. Market Myths Debunked

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"A lie told often enough becomes the truth" - Vladimir Lenin

Imagine for a minute you lived centuries ago when people believed the earth was flat, or the earth revolved around the sun, or that planets were Gods, or that disease was angry spirits or supernatural powers. You'd have an explanation for everything ... only it would be wrong. And that "wrongness" would stand in the way of true understanding and true progress until they were discarded as falsehoods.

And so it is with the Stock Market. Let me explain.

First, let me be perfectly clear. I'm a statistician so I'm not referring to philosophical or political or gut feelings or anything other than Statistical Misrepresentations. Fact, not opinion.

I can hardly go a day without reading an article or hearing a TV pundit or someone regurgitate misconceptions that are so integrated in our minds ... we believe them to be the truth.

These misconceptions cause us to make investing mistakes because we take them as axiomatic when they are

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Admin

The Run In Small Caps. Will It Continue In 2017

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The stock market went on quite a tear in the 3+ weeks immediately following the election, with the month of November especially beneficial for small-cap stocks.

Before delving into what it all might mean for small-cap investors, here's a quick rundown to help contextualize just how dynamic a month it was:

  1. This was the best November in the history of the Russell 2000 Index. featuring its highest monthly return since October 2011 when small-caps were just emerging from a precipitous decline.
  2. The performance spread between small-cap and large-cap was the widest in 14 years (since April 2002). The Russell 2000 gained 11.2% for the month versus respective gains of 3.9% and 3.7% for the large-cap Russell 1000 and S&P 500 Indexes.
  3. Small-cap value enjoyed a good year's worth of results in one month! During November, the Russell 2000 Value advanced 13.3% compared to 9.0% for the Russell 2000 Growth.
  4. Small-cap value earned an even bigger advantage quarter-to-date, thanks to better performanc

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Admin

The noise and bustle on the streets of India’s biggest cities is a defining characteristic of a country that’s home to over a billion people.

Every year, millions more leave their traditional homes in rural towns and villages and head into urban areas. The United Nations World Cities Report 2016 says 9.6 million people will move to New Delhi by 2030.

To qualify as a megacity under the UN definition, an urban area must have a population of 10 million people. The UN takes into account urban sprawl and measures populations beyond official city limits. On these criteria, India currently has five megacities.

1. New Delhi The capital city has a population of 26.5 million people
2. Mumbai India’s financial hub has a population of 21.4 million people
3. Kolkata An important trading hub, with 15 million people living in urban area
4. Bengaluru The ‘Silicon Valley’ of India; 10.5 million people call it home
5. Chennai Home of the Indian motor industry, as well as 10.2 million people

Othe

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Admin

The Top 10 Emerging Technologies Of 2016

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Sometimes the world is not yet ready for a new technology to enter the fray.

Virtual reality, for example, sat on the sidelines for many years. The industry went into hibernation around the time of the Dot Com Bust, and it has only recently re-emerged with promise.

It is only today that big companies like Microsoft, Google, Samsung, HTC, and Facebook have the infrastructure, peripheral technologies, and capital in place to properly commercialize the technology. Now, instead of using primitive 300 x 200 pixel LCD displays that were prohibitively expensive in the 90s, we are looking at a world where display will be in beautiful 4k quality. Meanwhile, accelerometers and gyroscopes can measure head movement, and modern computing power can reduce lag and latency. It took many years, but finally the true potential of VR is being realized.

Like virtual reality, there are 10 other emerging technologies that are finally ready for prime time. Some, like the recent advances in artificial intelli

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Admin

Investors, advertisers, and business leaders around the world are still trying to understand millennials, the generational group that will shape commerce for the foreseeable future. In the past, that’s why we’ve looked at millennial investing and banking preferences, their favorite brands, and even what real estate professionals need to understand about the generation.

Today’s infographic from Adweek is of particular interest, because it focuses on a very particular subset of millennials. The data in the graphic is from a survey of nearly 500 nominees for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. While the subject range is broad, it’s a good snapshot of how some of the brightest millennials in business think.

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What’s interesting is that there on some topics there was a surprising consensus, while others had a diversity in responses.

In terms of consensus, 97% of the brightest millennials agreed that they were optimistic about the future, and 80% said they still believed in the “American Dream”. In

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Admin

The Top 10 Millenial Brands

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The market for U.S. millennials is expected to blossom to $1.4 trillion by 2020, according to international consulting firm Accenture. While this generation of digital natives is already a primary marketing target today, in the upcoming years millennials will make up a hefty 30% of all retail spending in the country.

However, millennials are complex and notoriously difficult to read, even for professional marketers. With values that seem to contradict one another, it’s a challenge for companies to successfully gain market share with this audience.

As millennials mature, researchers are gaining ground on the needs and wants of this generation. This week’s Chart of the Week shares data from a comprehensive survey of 3,500 millennials that were asked, without any prompt, about their favorite brands over the past three years. The results, which can be found in deeper depth here, help give us some insight as to what millennials look for in a brand.


Tech Brand Disparity

It’s likely that no

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Admin

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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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

Negative Growth. Thank You Deflation And QE

?m=02&d=20151113&t=2&i=1094697813&w=644&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&sq=&r=LYNXNPEBAC140&width=300Investors may wade into unknown territory next month as the Federal Reserve readies the first rate hike in nearly a decade amid a corporate earnings recession.

S&P 500 earnings are on track to close their first reporting season of negative growth since the Great Recession and estimates call for sub-zero growth in the current quarter as well.

Even if the trend reverses next year, as expected, a Fed rate hike in December could mark an unprecedented conflict between a tightening cycle starting at the same time as earnings fall into recession.

"We can't think of any instances when the Fed was hiking during an (earnings) recession," said Joseph Zidle, portfolio strategist at Richard Bernstein Advisors in New York.

"In the last six months one can point at a lot of different things. But if you think about fundamentals, falling corporate profits and the threat of rising rates" are behind the market stalling, Zidle said.

With more than 90 percent of S&P 500 components having reported, S&P 500 e

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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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