Alibaba in Jerusalem

The Chinese Giant Alibaba that pulled off one of the biggest IPO`s in Wall Street`s history last year is partnering with Israeli venture capital firm JVP (Jerusalem Venture Partners). It is so much negative talk about Israel in the media, so why are Alibaba doing this?

This year it is 70 years since the Holocaust and the first genocide since the world war II was found in Bosnia in 1992. Thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed, and it was «ethnic cleansing.» U.S Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke called Bosnia «the greatest failure of the West since the 1930`s.» It`s too much hate in Europe today.

Think_Different2

The Chinese people has another sight. They see human capital. They see talents. More Chinese people are seen in Iran as well as in Africa at the moment. The Chinese people are not killing them, but collaborate with them. They are friends.

The Chinese giant Alibaba is partnering with JVP which have $1 billion under management, attracted Alibaba`s attention with several of its recent «wins», exits for companies like security firm CyberArk and CyActive.

CyActie was recently bought by Paypal for $60 million and CyberArk was listed on Nasdaq in 2014. Some 20 JVP-invested firms have achieved exits since the company was established in 1993. In 2012, JVP was ranked as one of the top ten VC`s in the world.

JVP has had other notable successes, including early support and investment for XtremIO, which was sold to EMC in 2012 for close to $500b.

Alibaba has already invested $5 million in Visualead which is an Israel start-up that develops QR code technology. The investment with JVP will give Alibaba entrèe to the heart of the top technologies being developed in Israel today.

Israel`s most important tech industries is the cyber-security field and the world-wide market for cyber-security products, services and technologies was currently worth about $80 billion annually and rising, and Israel had about 10% of that. That makes Israel a power in cyber-security with great talents and great resources.

Accompanying the Alibaba executives who closed the deal with JVP is a group of Chinese investors and corporate executives, including Jason Lu, VP and Chief Risk Officer of Alipay, a subsidiary of Alibaba and one of China`s largest online payment firms.

Many of the world`s biggest companies are looking to Israel. Apple, which began operations in Israel in 2012 has about 700 employees in Israel, but work with more than 6,000 Israelis. Apple`s Herzliya R&D center is the second-largest in the world.

Along with hiring more Arabs, Israel has been encouraging tech companies to hire more woman and ultra-Orthodox Israelis. Increasing diversity in the workplace was a lesson Israel could learn from Apple. Keep in mind that Steve Job`s father was an Arab, born in Syria. Steve Jobs died in 2011, at the age of 56.

«True innovation can only result from full access to education for all, regardless of race, religion, or sex,» the president Rivlin said. Diversity is also an important issue to Cook himself.

Apple is one of the few companies that publishes a statistical breakdown of the gender and ethnic background of employees. Looking at diversity as «going far beyond the traditional categories of race, gender and ethnicity.

“It includes personal qualities that usually go unmeasured, like sexual orientation, veteran status, and disabilities. Who we are, where we come from, and what we’ve experienced influence the way we perceive issues and solve problems. We believe in celebrating that diversity and investing in it,” Tim Cook said.

Israel is very important to Apple and Tim Cook said that «Apple is in Israel because the engineering talent here is incredible. You guys are incredibly important to everything that we do and to all the products that we build.»

With multi-million dollar acquisitions and investments Indian companies also hope to tap into Israel`s flourishing innovation and start-up ecosystem. India`s industrial corporations are also increasingly looking to Israel for their innovation and technology needs.

India`s Tata Group is the lead investor in Tel Aviv University`s Technology Innovation Momentum Fund worth $20 million. The Indian Wipro has set up a Venture Capital arm with a war-chest of $100 million.

The Indian IT-giant Infosys announced the acquisitions of Panaya. An Israeli automation technology provider for estimated $200 million. Infosys is a global leader in IT-consulting and outsourcing. Their market cap is 41,01B.

They are looking for innovations that would give the company an edge over other global competitors. They reported a revenue of $8,25 billion in 2014 and shored up its existing start-up fund to $500 million.

War is stupid.

Human Capital and Team Work is the future.

 

 


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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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Kodak has a new strategy

The new economy is here and the new economy will intensify. Old giants drop like stones, but how can companies foresight their competitors next move? Take a look at the good old giant Kodak. What have happened to them?

Kodak`s annual sales 25 years ago was $19 billion, but that was then. Now, it`s all turned up side down. Their workforce has been cut from 145,000 to only 8,000, and their annual sales today is only $2 billion. A sharp drop for the New York City company Kodak.

Kodak-film-roll

When you hear the name Kodak, you probably think film, but another film-company was not the reason why Kodak plummeted. The film-company Kodak was losing market shares because of the new mobile phone revolution.

Today, many of the pictures is taken by a mobile phone. A cell phone. How many pictures do you think is taken only with the iPhone worldwide? And how could the dominant brand in photography see that coming?

Kodak tried to make some things to participate in the shift in the market, but as photography started to move from analog film to digital, Kodak were largely left behind. When film went from «essential» to «nostalgic» the film giant Kodak did never recover.

Not only the film-company disappeared, but also the retailers in the same business. No one is delivering their film to the retailer anymore. Not only Kodak lost on this shift, but the retailers was also hardly hit by the new economy.

You all know what the dominant camera is today. Kodak is and was not a phone company and that`s probably why they didn`t make a new phone, because that`s the product that really killed the film giant.

What should Kodak do?

It`s difficult for a company to make the right decisions when the revenues is plummeting, but it can be easy for other to look back and say you should do this and that. In my opinion, there is big opportunities for everyone. For example, Steve Jobs built and rebuilt Apple, but they were not the first phone maker on the market.

Take a look at the finnish multinational communications and information technology company Nokia. The worlds biggest phone maker a few years ago. Nokia`s history started in 1865 when mining engineer Fredrik Idestam established a ground wood pulp mill on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids in the town of Tampere, Finland (then part of the Russian Empire).

The predecessors of the modern Nokia were the Nokia Company, Finnish Rubber Works Ltc and Finnish Cable Works Ltd. In 2014, Nokia employed 61,656 people across 120 countries with annual revenue of around €12,73 billion. It is the world`s 27th-largest company.

The Finnish business and Nokia`s founder and leader Eduard Polòn founded Finnish rubber Works. A manufacturer of galoshes and other rubber products. He decided to use the name «Nokia» (the town) as a brand name for his products to differentiate his products from Russian competitors.

The legacy of Suomen Gummitehdas lives on in Nokian Tyres.

The electronics section of the cable division was founded in 1960. In the 1970`s, Nokia became more involved in the telecommunications industry by developing the Nokia DX 200, a digital switch for telephone exchanges. Nokia was a key developer of GSM (2G) (Global System for Mobile Communications), the second-generation mobile technology that could carry data as well as voice traffic.

NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony), the world`s first mobile telephony standard to allow international roaming, provided expertise for Nokia in developing GSM, which was adopted in 1987 as the new European standard for digital mobile technology.

One year later, in 1988, Nokian Tyres, manufacturer of tyres, split from Nokia Corporation.

In the 1980s under CEO Kari Kairamo, Nokia expanded into new fields, mostly by acquisitions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the corporation ran into serious financial problems, partly due to heavy losses in its television manufacturing division.

Kairamo committed suicide in 1988. After Kairamo’s death, Simo Vuorilehto became Nokia’s chairman and CEO. In 1990–1993, Finland underwent a severe recession which also struck Nokia.

Probably the most important strategic change in Nokia`s history was made in 1992, when the new CEO Jorma Ollila made a crucial strategic decision to concentrate solely on telecommunications.

As late as 1991, more than a quarter of Nokia`s turnover came from sales in Finland. However, after the strategic change of 1992, Nokia sales to North America, South America and Asia became significant.

The worldwide popularity of mobile telephones, beyond even Nokia`s most optimistic predictions, created a logistical crises in the mid-1990`s, prompting Nokia to overhaul its entire supply chain.

By 1998, Nokia`s focus on telecommunications and its early investment in GSM technologies had made the company the world`s largest mobile phone manufacturer, a position it held until 2012.

Between 1996 and 2001, Nokia`s turnover increased almost fivefold from 6,5 billion euros to 31 billion euros. Nokia acquired Smartphone, a company making Smartphone OS. Sybian was Nokia`s main smartphone operating system until 2011.

Apple`s iPhone, originally launched in 2007, was initially still outsold by Nokia smartphones, most notably the Nokia N95 for some time. Symbian had a dominating 62,5% market share as of Q4 2007, ahead of Microsoft`s Windows Mobile (11,9%) and RIM (10,9%).

Symbian dropped and Apple and Android grew. On 2 September 2013, Microsoft announced that it would acquire Nokia`s mobile device business in a deal worth €3,79 bn, along with another €1,65 bn to licence Nokia`s portfolio of patents for 10 years; a deal totaling at over €6,5 bn.

Steve Ballmer considered the purchase to be a «bold step into the future» for both companies.

Kodak has a new plan to grow and stay alive. The company is mining its patent library to find new business models. People around the world use their phones to take pictures and Kodak will try to reach the phone market by an old patent.

Kodak need to look for their intellectual property and be innovative in the photography business. They probably have an old patent that can turn talent in optics and chemistry into new money in other industries?

Nokia`s history shows us that everything is possible!

 


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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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All-Time High for Digital Music

As a music lover I`m following the music market closely, and streaming services has increased in value of one-third from 2013. The streaming services is overtaking CD`s for the first time. Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody and SiriusXM are among the leaders in this business.

Audio streaming and downloads accounts for 64% of the total market, and according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), sales of digital music formats hit $4,51 billion in 2014.

headphones

Permanent downloads remain the largest source of revenue at 37 percent.

Streaming services is up $1,87 billion in 2014 and paid subscriptions earned $7,7 million last year. Retail revenue value came in at $6,97 billion last year.

The figure is slightly down from the previous year and points to a flat revenue picture for the industry, which has long worried about revenue decline from digital music piracy and the obsolescence of physical formats like CD`s.

Apple`s acquisition of Beats Electronics will change the streaming business. Apple`s iTunes revenue has plummeted and that`s why they bought Beats. They want to compete with one of the biggest in this business; the Swedish brand Spotify.

Apple is planning to sell the music cheaper than it is today. Is that good for the music industry?

The problem in the music tech industry right now is that the ecosystem is broken and has been broken for many years now. If Apple sells the music cheaper, then the others will follow. Apple and Spotify will earn on it, but I don`t really care about them.

The most important thing in the music industry is that the money goes to the producers and artists of the music. Not to the distributors. The music industry need a new business model for music tech companies and change the copyright reforms.

Spotify is used by more than 50 million people but is it profitable for the artists? Taylor Swift`s decision to yank her music off of Spotify is one of the latest episode in the battle over the music industry`s diminishing profits.

Spotify`s payout range is $0,006 to $0,0084 per stream. With 46,3 million streams, Taylor Swift`s payout is $280k – $390k for her chart-toppin single «Shake it off».

Apple already have their own market and is poised to be a big winner, but Spotify will be difficult to break. Rdio and Deezer need to kick ass to still be in the market, and Facebook has been in bed with Spotify for years now, so Spotify will remain strong.

Artists can earn money from other arenas like the live concert subscription service Jukely. People can see all the concerts they want for only $25 a month. Live.ly failed but a similar product is up and running right now. Maybe they will succeed with their new Set.FM.

YouTube is planning to debut an analytical tool that will provide geographical viewer information to help artists route tours and that one is similar to Pandora`s Amp. Facebook inches closer to YouTube`s traffic with 3 billion views a day.

Clean Bandit`s megahit «Rather Be» is the most streamed song of 2014, the Official Chart Company can reveal. The song was streamed 39,7 million times. 15 billion songs were streamed in 2014, and the number is almost double of that in 2013, where 7,5 billion tracks were streamed.

«Rather be» fends off competition from Pharrell Williams’ monster hit Happy, which takes second place with 35 million streams. Close to Happy is John Legend`s «All of me» with 34,9 million streams.

This is a big jump in music streaming in only one year, but this is just the beginning. The massive growth means that streaming now accounts for 12,6 percent of all music consumed in the UK, compared to only 6,2 percent in 2013.

What do you think will happen with new services including Apple`s Beats and Google`s YouTube Music Key set to launch later this year? The platform`s growth will skyrocket in the next 12 months as it cements its position at the heart of mainstream music consumption.

 


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Nike better than Adidas

Something tells me that the sportswear king Nike (NKE) is still a growth company. Earnings per share is still increasing and so are their revenue for the past two years. In Nike`s two most recent three-month periods they has posted YoY earnings growth of 27 percent and 25 percent.

But Nike have great competitors. As a sports fanatic I have Nike`s biggest competitors on my radar. One of them is the well know brand Adidas (ADDYY) and the other one is a brand that not everyone is familiar with; Under Armour (UA).

Nike

Under Armour and Nike is both big and dominant in the U.S, but Adidas is more likely to be considered Nike`s equivalent in Europe. Adidas was on the news yesterday as they says they won`t bid on renewing a supplier deal with the NBA.

That leaves Nike and Under Armour as the two companies likely to make an aggressive play to land the high-exposure NBA deal. The decision from the German company could tip-off it will focus in different areas in the U.S after it lost considerable basketball market share over the last few years.

It is expected to see an intense bidding expected on next NBA contract, and Nike and Under Armour are two of the biggest companies to bid on the new contract which starts when Adidas’ contract runs out after the 2016 – 2017 season.

Nike and Under Armour have both shown explosive growth over the past few years, but who are the best plays? Nike has a much better valuation than Under Armour and Nike returns more money to their investors. Nike also controls endorsements in the NBA.

The demand in the sportswear market has increased. One of the reasons is the decline of Adidas. Nike`s shares have returned 22,7% 1Yr. Under Armour was climbing faster, returning over 50% in 2014.

Nike have returned about 1% in 2015, while Under Armour have returned about 10% so far in 2015. This role can change as we move further into the year 2015. CS have an outperform rating on Nike, but lowered the target price from $102 to $99.

The investment firm expects Nike to announce global futures growth of 9 percent when it reports FQ3 results on Thursday. Nike recorded 11% futures growth in FQ2 and FQ1, and CS joins the bandwagon of retail analysts expecting athletic footwear demand to remain strong.

The most bullish analyst has their estimate at $111. The one year price target on a consensus basis is $105 or around a 9% upside to a recently traded price. Some other similar stocks include Crocs, Deckers Outdoors and VF Corp.

Most of the caution on Nike is focused on the impact of F/X translation. Earlier this month Nike announced it will launch partnerships with Garmin, TomTom, Wahoo Fitness, and Netpulse in an effort to broaden the Nike+ running community.

The development follows in line with a plan of Nike to focus on the app/software side of fitness over hardware.

Nike has 48 teams in the tournament, including two wearing the Jordan Brand logo. They had 45 in 2014. Adidas is down to 11 teams which is down from 18 in 2014. Under Armour increased presence in basketball with the company`s logo on the uniforms of six different teams in the NCAA college basketball tournament. They had just one in 2014.

Nike is trading at $96,54 and is down -0,10% ATH on Wednesday. P/E is 28,74. EPS is 3,36.

 


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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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FedEx report on Wednesday morning

FedEx (FDX) is set to report fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday morning before the market open. Their rival UPS guided lower for its holiday period in January. According to some analysts, FedEx is in an «enviable possition» in the small package market.

Analysts say that the company`s cash levels are at an all time high, and their operations and fundamentals are extremely strong and suggest the potential for earnings and guidance upside. The company`s free cash flow has been a source of frustration for their shareholders in the past.

FedEx-Truck

Both FedEx and UPS are trading at about 4,6 percent free cash flow (FCF) yields based on 2016 estimates, but it is expected to see FedEx`s growth profile justifies the stock trading at a premium to UPS.

FedEx`s acquisition of Genco is fully funded and they can spend their $1 billion in a faster buyback or another acquisition. Growth expectations for FedEx are higher than their rival UPS, but UPS can be a better stock if you need income in the near future.

FedEx`s dividend yield is extremely low at 0,45 percent. If they continue to pay small dividends, they will have plenty of cash to buy back large amounts of its own shares and that will boost their own EPS.

I have talked about the transportation sector many times, and FedEx is one of them in this sector. The stock is up over 20 percent since last year, and the increase in price has pushed the dividend yield down to only 0,45 percent.

The street expected adjusted EPS of $1,87 on revenue of $11,79 billion. For Q4, adjusted EPS was estimated at $2,86 on revenue of $12,31 billion. Full year EPS was expected at $8,97 on revenue of $47,74 billion.

FedEx isn`t going to tell the market what they don`t already know on Wednesday. A better-than-expected earnings report could push the stock price up and above its 52-week high.

They cut costs in the express business to make up for lower volume, but that is not the way to grow. A resurgent U.S economy now affords the company a change to have its ground segment do all the heavy lifting for margins and profits.

The global economy is slow and so are China. A slower growth Chinese economy depends more on internal consumption and less on exports and that has been weighing on FedEx`s express segments for years.

Asia is slow, the U.S is picking up and the Europe is all about unfavorable foreign exchange. How will this impact the shares of FedEx? Let`s see on Wednesday. Expectations would put the company on track to reach its yearly goal of $8,50 to $9,00 in EPS. P/E is 22,48.

FedEx Corporation is now trading at $178,02. Up 0,39 percent.

 

 


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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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