Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

The virus on your computer is NOT Ebola.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• If Brainstorming Doesn't Work … Try This Technique Instead. (FastCompany)
• 5 Radical Business Quotes from Tesla Motors, Inc.'s CEO, Elon Musk. (M-Fool)
• Bill Gates's Favorite Business Book. (Wall Street Journal)
• 10 Malware Removal Apps Tested: Malwarebytes Comes out on Top. (Lifehacker)
• Which Country Does The Most Good For The World? (TED Talk Video)

 

Trading Links:

• Netflix Surpasses HBO in Subscriber Revenue. (Mashable)
• Harry Dent Predicts Central Banker Economies Will Collapse, Including Ours. (M-Oracle)
• New ETF Tracks the Billionaire Dream Team. (Bloomberg)
• USPS: 3D Printing Could Increase Shipping Revenue by Hundreds of Millions. (GigaOM)
• Math Nerds Are Taking Over Wall Street. (Money)

The Difference Between Rich and MegaRich

You've probably heard that the rich get richer.

Recently, there was much attention paid to the 1%.  Perhaps, the 1% of the 1% is even more interesting.

Here is a chart that shows how much the disparity between the rich and the really rich has widened over the past few decades.

 

Source: Mother Jones via Barry Ritholtz.

 

The average real income of the top 1 percent has increased more than 175 percent as the bottom 90 percent merely treads water.

Meanwhile, during the same period, the top earners -- the 1 percent of the 1 percent – have gained about 500 percent.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Sometimes the News cycle is worse than the news itself.

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Google's 'Perfect Human' Project Isn't Evil, It's Business. (TheVerge)
• Human Workers Report Feeling Most Productive When Led By Artificial Intelligence. (PBS)
• How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google. (First Look)
• Welcome to the New U.S. Digital Service: Geeks wanted, no stodgy suits required. (GeekWire)
• Software Shows What Children Will Look Like In 70 Years, With Unprecedented Accuracy. (Popular Science)

 

Trading Links:

• Wall Street's Revenge of the Nerds Means Fooling All The People All the Time. (Guardian)
• Crazy Prediction. Why You Should Expect More Quantitative Easing. (Joe Fahmy)
• Whopping 35% Have Debt in Collection in America: Where Is It? (GlobalEcon)
• Microsoft Has Lost About $1.7 Billion On Surface - So Far ... (CiteWorld)
• Goldman Sachs - On Crash Risk: The Simple Reason We're Probably Not About to Have Another Huge Crash. (Business Insider)

Are You Expecting More Selling - Or a Buying Opportunity

"Insider Selling Mounts as Markets Hit All-Time Highs" screamed the headline.

A glance at the charts showed that the S&P 500 Index tested below its 50-Day Moving Average for the first time in a long time.

Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 index experienced what technical analysts call a “Death Cross” ... where the near-term 50-day moving average dips below its long-term 200-day moving average.

 

 

What does it mean?

The "worry" is that this move is the beginning of a new bearish trend ... and the long-term moving average is seen as the new resistance level.

So far this year, small-cap stocks have underperformed their larger counterparts. Year-to-date, the Russell 2000 is down almost 3% while the S&P 500 has gained over 7%.

Moreover, the small-cap index has been weakening and is off almost 7% from its all-time high set at the start of July, while the large companies in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average have been hitting new highs.

The main issue is that small caps are under-performing and traders wonder what that says about the strength and breadth of the recent rally.

Nevertheless, the last time the Russell 2000 formed a death cross in July 2012, no significant sell-off followed as the index recovered and continued an uptrend.  My guess is that this pattern would get far less media attention if it was named "Phlarg" or a "50/200 Crossover".

These are the types of "early warning signs" you should watch.  However, they are just early warning signs ... until they prove themselves to be more.

How funny would it be if Google was a real person you had to talk to?

 Everything you ask Google sounds a lot stupider when you actually ask Google.

Imagine how many people's Google search history is littered with typos, questionable queries, embarrassing visits to malware-infected websites, porn, Facebook, porn, Facebook, basic math questions a 6-year-old would know, juvenile jokes and so forth.

Now imagine if, in order to do those searches on Google, you had to talk to a real life person?

College Humor has posted a series of videos showing what it would be like if Google was just some guy in an office answering all of your life's questions?

 

 

It may be frustrating to be Google ... but it is so much more embarrassing to be ourselves.

Links to the prior two videos are here and here.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Alibaba's IPO debut roared ... and its shares soared 38%. 

 

 

In many ways, the IPO was surprisingly big.

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Can Technology Really Change Your Habits? (FastCompany)
• The 10,000 Hours Myth: Practice Predicts Only 12% of Performance. (Spring)
• The Man Who Created The First Pop-Up Ad Says 'Sorry'. (TheVerge)
• Do Dogs Really Feel Shame and Guilt? (Psychology Today)
• China Says New Supersonic Sub Would Reach San Francisco In 100 Minutes. (Sploid)

 

Trading Links:

• Apple's Secret War Against Samsung is Working. (MacObserver)
• Microsoft Still Doesn't Get Why the iPhone Succeeded. (TUAW)
• The Dark, Disturbing World of the Visa-For-Sale Program. (Fortune)
• U.S. Hikes Fee to Renounce Citizenship By 422%. (Forbes)
• Here's How Much Aid The U.S. Wants To Send Foreign Countries In 2015, and Why. (INFOGRAPHIC)

Four of the world's most valuable internet companies are now based in China.

Four of the world's most valuable internet companies are based in China. 

 

 

 

$BIDU $JD $TENCENT $BABA -  via StockTwits

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Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies

Gartner Group's latest Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is out. 

Last year, Big Data was at the “peak of inflated expectations.” 

This year, the Internet of Things is at the top of the hype cycle.  

A new entry to the Hype Cycle this year is “data science,” projected to reach the plateau in 2 to 5 years. It’s more a discipline for dealing with big data then a specific technology or set of technologies, so it’s interesting to note that big data is still considered by Gartner to be 5 to 10 years away from reaching that stage.  

 

Source: Gartner, August 2014

Gartner's Hype Cycle Special Report highlights “the four Nexus of Forces (social, mobile, cloud and information),” which were highly correlated with items that had changed most significantly on the peak portion of the Hype Cycle. Two trends Gartner called out especially as having an impact at earlier stages of the Hype Cycle were digital business and the Internet of Things.

The 2014 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies marks the 20^th anniversary of the report.  

 

For more, see this video, which talks about the Hype Cycle as a tool for tracking how innovations and their business impact evolve over time and what is new about the 2014 version.

 

Surprised Steve Ballmer Went Bonkers In His Clippers Intro Speech?

Here is how new Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer introduced himself to fans in his introductory pep rally.

Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO who's known for his emotional speeches, was quite excited.

He even gave the crowd his email address ([email protected]).

Here is the video.

 

via YouTube.

The best part came at the nine-minute mark, when he told the crowd:

"We're going to be hardcore. HARD-core. HARDCORE! We're going to get better everyday. We're going to be tenacious. Something knocks us down and we're going to get back and keep coming and coming and coming and coming. Did you watch these guys? That was hardcore! Hardcore baby! Nothing gets in our way, BOOM! Keep coming. HARD-core. The HARDCORE Clippers, that's us."

 

Speaking of hardcore ... For the record, Ballmer bought the Clippers for a $2 billion (four times the record sale for an NBA team, according to the LA Times).

Related articles

Watch Steve Ballmer's intense tearful goodbye to Microsoft [Video]

What Is $100 Actually Worth In Your State?

Money goes further in some states than others.  Here is one way demonstration.

The Tax Foundation released a map showing the relative value of $100 in every state (compared with the national average using the data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis).

 

The same amount of dollars are worth almost 40 percent more in Mississippi than in D.C., and the differences become even larger if metro area prices are considered instead of statewide averages," writes the Tax Foundation. "A person who makes $40,000 a year after tax in Kentucky would need to have after-tax earnings of $53,000 in Washington, D.C., just in order to have an equal standard of living, let alone feel richer.

 

Here's the map:

 

Tax Foundation

The states with the smallest relative value of $100 were:

• Washington, D.C. ($84.60)
• Hawaii ($85.32)
• New York ($86.66)
• New Jersey ($87.64)
• California ($88.57)

While the states with the largest relative value of $100 were:

• Mississippi ($115.74)
• Arkansas ($114.16)
• Missouri ($113.51)
• Alabama ($113.51)
• South Dakota ($113.38)

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