Capitalogix

Happy New Year

Best wishes to you and yours.  JibJab nailed my resolutions for the year!

 

 

JibJab via YouTube.

Looking forward to a great 2016!

Goldman Sachs Lists the Top Ten Companies, by Size, for the past Ten Years

Goldman Sachs released a chart that shows how tech companies have dominated recently.

It highlights top companies by size, charted for the past 10 years.

2015 marked the first time the top three largest companies in the world were all technology firms.

 

Goldman Sachs via Business Insider.

As the falling oil price pushed Exxon Mobil dropped out of the top three for the first time.  Meanwhile, Google (sorry, Alphabet) and Microsoft took two and three this year.

The list is dominated by tech companies, which take five of the top ten slots.  It also shows the relative decline of the financial sector, which had three companies in the top 10 before the 2008 crisis. This year, Wells Fargo is the only bank.

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Getting ready for the New Year!

   

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Can You Get Smarter? (NYTimes)
• 10 Things You Might Not Know About Geniuses. (ChicagoTribune)
• The Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2016. (Gartner)
• YouTube's Top 10 Music Videos of the Year. (Mashable)
• Best USA TODAY Photos of 2015. (USA Today)

 

Trading Links:

• 2016: The Year Ahead. (Bank of America - ML)
• Robert Reich on Why Capitalism Needs Saving. (RollingStone)
• Google will Spin-Off Driverless Cars Into a Separate Company (BW)
• Mark Zuckerberg and the Changing Nature of Philanthropy. (FT)
• Peter Lynch, 25 Years Later: It’s Not Just ‘Invest in What You Know’. (WSJ)

Your Portfolio Guide to Rising Interest Rates. [Infographic]

Here is an infographic on market environments during rising interest rates.

 

via RCM's Alternative Blog  - “Your Portfolio Guide to Rising Interest Rates.”

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

My son got me a Squatty Potty as a holiday gift this year.  Not nearly as shitty as it sounds ... I kind of like it.

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 10 'Star Wars' Technologies That Are Almost Here. (InfoWorld)
• How to Use the Feynman Technique to Identify Pseudoscience. (BigThink)
• Amazon Announces its 20 Best-Selling Books of 2015. (Mashable)
• The Top 10 Restaurant Dishes of 2015 - The New York Times. (NYTimes)
• The Death of God Is Greatly Exaggerated. (Wall Street Journal)

 

Trading Links:

• ISIS Earned $500 Million From Selling Oil: Treasury Official. (NBC News)
• Consumer Confidence Rises to a 4-Month High. (Insider)
• Bitcoin Creator Is Probably an Australian Entrepreneur, Reports Claim. (Guardian)
• Fintech’s Five Emerging Powerhouse Markets are at a Crossroads. (TechCrunch)
• Fed Officials Worry Interest Rates Will Go Up, Only to Come Back Down. (WSJ)

What Happens When the Fed Raises Rates, In One Rube Goldberg Machine

After months of hemming and hawing, the Federal Reserve announced that it was raising interest rates.

It's the first increase since 2008 (when the Fed cut rates to almost zero).

The good news is that this means our economy is showing signs of strength.  But what, exactly, does raising interest rates mean? And how will it effect the economy (and our wallets)?

Turns out the answer is complicated and hard to explain (even, confusingly, if you're the chair of the Federal Reserve).

The process reminded the New York Times of a Rube Goldberg machine (you know, those incredibly intricate devices built to accomplish a simple task).

Here's the video:

  

 

 

via The NYTimes. 

The entire article, which explains each step in the machine in detail, is also worth a read.

Cool Comparison of Harry Potter and Star Wars [Infographic]

The first reactions to 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' are here, and people are thrilled ... Even Wired liked it.

Ah, the Hero's Quest ... a formula that has worked for centuries.

Check out this document showing the differences between the plots of Harry Potter and Star Wars.

 

 

J.K. Rowling has said, "I haven't the faintest idea where my ideas come from."  Well, Wikipedia lists over two dozen influences and analogues (and is interesting, if you like that sort of thing.)

Or, you could just glance at the following infographic.  It highlights the similarities between Harry Potter and Star Wars pretty clearly.

 

 

Sometimes it is better not to analyze the trick and just enjoy the magic.

Other times, just let Saturday Night Live do a parody of it.

Related articles

• Incredible Infographic - The Fascinating Franchise of Harry Potter (basekit.com)
• The Magic Of Harry Potter (grumbleltd.wordpress.com)
• Bank on Harry Potter to conjure up the cash (telegraph.co.uk)

Graduation Time

This was an interesting week. It started with a quick trip to Washington, DC to visit my older son and his fiancé. For dinner, I thought they were taking me to the "Tipped Cow" (which sounded good). Instead, we went to a Laotian restaurant (called "Thip Khao") which serves lots of vegetables and mixes their colors.

In addition, I had hand surgery. While not pleasant, it should result in my ability to hold things - and to use my hand again (which I consider favorable).

Finally, I went to Auburn, Alabama for my younger son's college graduation. I am very proud of him. His grades got continually better, the longer he was there ... and he's been there a long time.

  

  

Graduation marks the end of one level in the beginning of a new level. In this case, there is a ceremony with caps and gowns, a procession, and everyone knows what it means.

In business, graduations take many forms. It could be a promotion, a product release, or the launch of a fund.

In any case, the strategies and skills that got you to this point only represent the strategies and skills they got you to this point. It often takes a different set of strategies or skills to excel at what comes next.

In that vein, We just finished our annual planning session for 2016.

Onwards.

 

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Google is good for a lot of things.  Watching the auto-complete choices is often fun.  According to this, PDF might be the fourth most popular religion.

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• How Machines Learn (And You Win). (HBR)
• How an F Student Became America’s Most Prolific Inventor. (Bloomberg)
• Forget Humans vs. Machines: It’s a Humans + Machines Future. (Singularity)
• The 5 Biggest Rip-Offs Consumers Face Today.  (Fortune)
• Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s. (The Atlantic)

 

Trading Links:

• Goldman Sachs Bought a $21 Million Stake in HFT Network Company. (Bloomberg)
• U.S. System Designed to Prevent Financial Crisis ‘Likely to Fail,’ Say Experts. (MarketWatch)
• Wall Street is Under Attack from Hackers. (Business Insider)
• Short Interest: Dispelling Another Market Myth. (See It Market)
• Stop Listening to These Clowns: Economists’ Bad Ideas Have Been Damaging Our Economy for Years. (Salon)

Nearly 20% of 25- to 34-Year-Old Men Live With Their Parents

Deutsche Bank research found that nearly 20% of men between the ages of 25 and 34 live at home.

As a point of comparison, about 12% of women this age are living at home. 

  

  Deutsche Bank via Business Insider.

Ultimately, you can see this dynamic one of two ways: either the number of young people living at home is a bullish force for the housing market going forward, or this is indicative of a lost generation that has suffered the ill-effects of a deep recession, massive student loan debts, and a general proclivity for incompetence.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But, it is so easy for  my generation to hate on Millennials.