Internet

Going back to my comments from yesterday about the utility of macro, I want to talk a bit about credit excesses and valuation manias. The overall gist here is that manias are endemic to our system because psychology plays a big part in…

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company, is going public via an initial public offering underwritten by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Credit Suisse. Alibaba was founded 15 years ago in 1999 in a one-room apartment…

Today is going to be a bit of a roundhouse review of issues in the news rather than a single topic daily newsletter because a lot of different things are creeping up on us that I haven’t highlighted. So I want to touch upon some of the…

The so-called new economy is about disintermediation. That’s what it has always been touted as. And I think there’s validity to this. It’s interesting to see how incumbents deal with this disintermediation, especially when they have…

Amazon. It is a highly-valued stock in the equities market – one that many point to as proof of a burgeoning technology stock bubble in the US. But for all the controversy over valuation, it is undeniable that Amazon is a big force in the…

In the wake of the financial crisis, bailouts and cheap money have done much to restore American bank balance sheets. Earnings for banks have returned to pre-crisis levels. But over the medium-term I believe banks’ earnings power will be…

This past holiday sales season was weak for a number of retailers in the US. But, discounting was the culprit rather than poor demand by consumers. I see retail sales holding up but a shake out in retail is sure to come as the deflationary…

Reports indicate strong Bitcoin interest in China. BTC, the China-based Bitcoin exchange accounts (trading a third of all Bitcoin transactions, while China may account to close to half of the daily turnover, according to some internet…

This is my tech links post that I am putting up outside the paywall and free for non-registered users. The only tech links in today's post are on the NSA.The impetus for this post was the revelation that the NSA can get access to data in…

Facebook is up a massive 26% today on the back of strong mobile-fuelled earnings in the second quarter. Having dedicated itself to becoming a more mobile-centric platform, Facebook is reaping the rewards. This is a lesson, however, to every…