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CEO Darla Stuckey with luncheon speaker Bryan Stevenson. Life-changing speech. #CorpGov #GoldenGov2017 http://pic.twitter.com/Mp97hyzJaK
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June 30, 2017 at 03:07AM
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(Reuters) – Westinghouse Electric Co, a unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp , said on Sunday it issued a lockout notice to 172 union members at its nuclear components manufacturing plant in Newington, New Hampshire, declaring that the sides had reached a stalemate in contract negotiations. Read Full Story
The post Westinghouse to lock out 172 union members at New Hampshire plant appeared first on ForexTV.
May 22, 2017 at 02:27AM
from Reuters News
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Committee hears testimony about AT&T Bribery Refund Case
Muskogee Daily Phoenix OKLAHOMA CITY – Monday, the House General Government Oversight and Accountability Committee heard testimony from Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony regarding the AT&T Bribery Refund Case, which is awaiting a hearing in the … |
May 16, 2017 at 03:03AM
from
Faraday Future has kept fairly quiet in the months following its January appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The electric-car startup’s showing earned some mixed reviews at the time. The event was not without glitches, and the presentation was seen by some as rough around the edges.
Faraday, like most of the upstart automotive companies of late, has remained aggressive in its bid to stake a claim in the future of driving. That means autonomous, electric vehicles — drenched from bumper to bumper in immersive technology.
The mission is not easy. Building a car company is hard enough, but setting out to completely redefine the concept of driving, as Faraday Future says it wants to do, is a gargantuan task, fraught with nearly endless potential for failure. This week, the company released a video of its first car, the FF91, driving on public roads in what looks to be nearly production-level livery.
However, the car is not yet complete. Beta versions of the FF91 have been roaming the streets of Southern California, Faraday tells Business Insider of how far along the company is at this juncture.
Here’s everything we know about the current version of Faraday Future’s FF91, so far.
SEE ALSO: These are the 10 fastest police cars in America
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
May 16, 2017 at 03:11AM
from Bryan Logan
The picture we’re seeing by the major market indices over the first half of the current quarter is rather different than that of 1Q 2017. Over the last six weeks, the S&P 500 has risen just 1.2 percent, which means the bulk of its year to date return of 6.7 percent was had in the first quarter. Breaking down the year-to-date return of both the Dow Jones Industrial Average as well as the Nasdaq Composite Index, we find that pattern to be consistent. We’d also note that while the S&P 500 is not far from overbought territory, the Nasdaq, which has been the primary driver of the market in recent weeks, is firmly in overbought territory.
All that as the market remains valued at more than 18x expected 2017 earnings and the CNN Fear & Greed Index has rebounded to Greed (62) from Fear (28) over the last month. Not exactly something that helps one sleep at night.
What changed between Q1 and Q2?
The short answer to the question of why the market has generally marched sideways for most of the second quarter thus far is the emergence of continued signs of a slowing US economy. We dug into the details in last week’s Cocktail Investing podcast in spades, corporate earnings reports have led to reduced expectations for the current quarter and companies with meaningful international exposure are citing the strong dollar. We’ve also had some happenings in DC that raise the question over how long until we begin to see President Trump’s stimulative initiatives take hold.
Valid points given the reality that without a jolt to the system, odds are the US economy will remain in low gear. If you said you smelled some politicking going on, we’d have to agree. That’s why we’ll continue to let the data talk to us, and so far it’s telling us the odds of a significant rebound in the US economy from 1Q 2017’s abysmal GDP reading of 0.7 percent is looking less likely.
We’d note the Atlanta Fed’s GDP reading for the current quarter has slipped to 3.6 percent as of today from 4.3 percent on May 1; by comparison, the NY Fed’s GDP Nowcasting reading for 2Q 2017 is now 1.9 percent compared to 2.3 percent on April 28. Again, we covered all of that on last week’s Cocktail Investing podcast, which you can listen to here.
Insights from last week’s data flows
There were just a few major economic data points to be had last week, all of which came in weaker than expected, including the PPI and CPI inflation indicators. Not much of a surprise given what we’ve seen in the Bloomberg Inflation Index — a wide basket of commodities — which is down more than 8 percent since February. The triangulation of these inflation metrics, in our opinion, removes the Fed’s inflation argument as it looks to raise rates. We continue to think the Fed is more likely thinking it needs to put more arrows in its quiver should the current soft patch turn into something more.
Despite having the added benefit of the late Easter holiday, even though April Retail Sales rose month over month the figure still once again missed expectations. Building materials and e-tailing were the highlights of the report, which offset declines in furniture, general merchandise, food and clothing. That report along with what we heard last week from Macy’ (M), Kohl’s (KSS), Nordstrom (JWN) and JC Penney (JCP) paints a very troubling outlook for retail. Reading between each of those reports, we continue to see confirming signs of not only the creative destruction that Amazon (AMZN) has unleashed on retail, but the accelerating shift toward digital commerce that is a hallmark of our Connected Society investing theme. With Amazon looking to disrupt other industries we continue to think that Amazon is a stock to hold (invest) not trade.
We’ll have more in-depth thoughts on retail on TematicaResearch.com later in the week, but from our view, it’s hard to see how some of the GDP expectations for the current quarter as well as the back half of the year will materialize given the fiscal shape of the consumer.
Turning to the week ahead
This week we have a good flow of economic data, which continues to fill in the April picture with Housing Starts, Building Permits, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization as well as the Leading Indicators report. We also get our first look at data for May thanks to the Empire Manufacturing Index and Philly Fed Index. While those indices are regional in nature, they will help shed light on how the economy if fairing as we now halfway through the current quarter. In our view that should make speeches by St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard and Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester late next week all the more interesting.
Yep, we’re some crazy people that find Fed speeches interesting, but you can refer to us here as dorks.
On a somewhat positive, we will see a pronounced step down in the pace of earnings reports. On the downside, this week, we’ll hear from a number of retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), Target (TGT) and Ross Stores (ROST) among others, and we’ll be looking to determine if “retail-mageddon” is as widespread across brick & mortar retailers as the data implies. We suspect the answer is “yes” and we can point to declining mall traffic per comments from Starbucks (SBUX) and others as evidence. his gives us pause with regard to SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) shares.
The other piece of supporting data is found in the e-tailing/nonstore line item for the monthly Retail Sales report over the last several months, which has continued to outpace overall retail sales. What this says is digital commerce is taking share from brick & mortar retailer and this is a great example of how listening to the data can help one see what is on the horizon like we try to do here at Tematica.
One retailer, in particular, has stood out relative to the pack and that is Costco Wholesale (COST), which not only offers items in bulk, but has been expanding its fresh foods offering to bring consumers back to the warehouse more frequently. The fact the company continues to expand the number of warehouse locations is also a positive given the favorable impact of membership fees on is overall operating income. Perhaps we’re biased, but on the other hand, we’ve never gotten out of a Costco location without dropping a few hundred dollars in the process.
Also on the earnings deck this week is Applied Materials (AMAT), and demand for its semiconductor capital and display equipment should give us a good understanding of ramping semi capacity as well as that for organic light emitting diodes. For those who haven’t been following the story, organic light emitting diodes displays (OLEDs) are the next go-to display technology given their emissive qualities, which allow for thinner and less power-hungry displays. We see the technology being adopted much the way light emitting diodes were adopted to backlight liquid crystal displays in mobile phones, tablets, wearables, TVs, auto interiors and other applications.
We’d note that thus far corporate earnings for 1Q 2017 have held up rather well, but that was before we started to hear from retailers. With 90 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported, odds are we won’t see a significant downward revision in 1Q 2017 EPS for the S&P 500 group of companies as more retailers share their quarterly results. That said, we will be far more interested in retailer comments over the health of the consumer and his or her ability to spend. As we pointed out in last week’s Monday Morning Kickoff, we’ve seen Capital One (COF) and Synchrony Financial (SYF) boost their net charge-off expectations, which isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for consumers. No matter the reason, if consumers aren’t spending or more to the point aren’t spending as much as economists thought they would that puts a significant crimp in the speed of the domestic economy and gives a high probability to more downward GDP revisions.
We’ll be sure to scope out data from others reporting and puzzle it through our investing matrix, but as the velocity of earnings winds down, we’ll be looking at opportunities to put some cash to work to keep the profits coming on the Tematica Select List.
A thematic perspective of upcoming earning reports
Join the conversation about this story »
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May 16, 2017 at 03:11AM
from Chris Versace and Lenore Hawkins, Tematica Research
May 15, 2017 at 03:03AM
from Sophie Jamieson
May 15, 2017 at 03:03AM
from Steven Swinford
DeSmog (blog) |
Jordan Cove LNG Backers Spend Huge Money to Sway Tiny Oregon County Election
DeSmog (blog) Two weeks ahead of an Oregon county special election, backers of the multi-billion dollar Jordan Cove Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project are spending an additional $236,500 to prevent that vote from halting the proposed fossil fuel project. That’s on … |
May 14, 2017 at 03:03AM
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April 29, 2017 at 03:12AM
from MarketWatch.com
I just found this post by the founder of Baremetrics and had to post here. Three great points:
I just thought it was so important to share here. It’s ok if you’re not doing well, it’s ok if you think you’re terrible and have impostor syndrome, it’s ok to feel bad and when starting a startup – everyone does.
Feel free to share if you constantly feel like a failure, if you feel like you’re not doing well enough, like things should be easier etc. I know I feel that way all the time.
Here’s the post:
I got this (unsolicited) email a few weeks ago from a relatively well known investor.
Is your company really only doing 45k / month?
It stung, playing right in to my own insecurities and the imposter syndrome I’ve been feeling lately. If anything, it echoed what I spend a lot of time thinking about: why are we only 50% of where I had hoped we’d be at this point?
It highlighted one of the hard parts of running a transparent startup: everything you do is up for scrutiny. Some (most) days it’s great. The pros far outweigh the cons. But on days like that one…it just didn’t feel good.
It also highlighted something that I think startup culture glosses over: most companies aren’t doing nearly as well as you think they are. It’s easy to look at buzz around a startup or a few high-profile logos thrown on a marketing site and think: “they’re crushing it”. Well you know what? 90% of the time that startup that you look up to, envy and try to mimic…they are in fact NOT crushing it.
But therein lies one of the core reasons we started operating as a transparent company: nobody wins thinking everyone else is “crushing it”. So, let’s clear things up. Yes, Baremetrics is “only” making ~$50k MRR and no we aren’t profitable yet (though we will be within the year).
My hope is that in the coming months we can be even more transparent with how we operate, along with our successes & failures. Baremetrics exists to help businesses and operating in a way that reduces hype and sets realistic expectations is a win for everyone.
Just remember: we’re all winging it.
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April 29, 2017 at 01:26AM
from /u/hyperwriter
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Corporate Governance retweeted:
The Rise Of Passive Investing Via #ETF bit.ly/2pY3LbB #corpgov
April 25, 2017 at 03:12AM
https://twitter.com/ToGovern/status/856630576484413441
from Corporate Governance
Mistakes in sales happen when companies fail to update their sales tactics. Today’s modern world needs modern thinking. Avoid the pitfalls and aim high.
Your product is the solution to your clients’ problems. If you focus too much on the offer, you risk making your presentation too long or your prices too low. Remember that your clients need to know that your product or service will solve their issues. Identify three problems that your company can address.
Book Recommendation! Check out this book on selling called “How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling” by Frank Bettger.
Don’t focus so much on your presentation that you lose sight of important signals from your clients. Long hours spent preparing your pitch are useless if you cannot tell who the influencers are and whether you are getting their buy-in. Deliver a strong presentation. But make sure you pay attention to how your clients react. The interaction between you and your clients is more important than presentation slides!
Lack of experience and or training sometimes leads to poor communication. Direct, honest conversations help build trust between you and your clients. Asking hard questions will help you understand why some deals close while others not.
Your clients may say they are only looking for the best price. But you always have a chance to convince them otherwise. Prices are not the only factors that make products or services great.
Make your intentions clear from the beginning. You might even mention how soon you want to close during your presentation.
Confidence, not arrogance, shows that you know how to solve your clients’ problems.
Your goal is to close the deal—your presentation should reflect that.
Why continue your presentation if your clients are ready to make a decision? Think about dividing your presentation into parts, and check in with your clients during breaks. Ask them, “Have you seen enough to make a decision?” Your clients’ answers will tell you whether the presentation has served its purpose. Don’t keep presenting if your clients have already made a decision.
One of the most common mistakes in sales is waiting until the end of the presentation to discuss price. Traditional techniques advise you to build value, then show price. The reality is that your clients will be thinking about cost throughout the entire presentation. Save your clients the worry by stating the price upfront. They will then be able to listen carefully to your presentation to decide if your product or service is worth the price. If they worry about high costs at the beginning, you can acknowledge their concern but make sure to prove to them that your product or service is worth the price.
Don’t focus solely on the decision-maker during your presentation. Know who else will influence the decision to buy. Ask your clients if there are others involved in decision-making. Understanding how influencers affect decisions will help you make a close.
Nothing in the world comes free. Free trials without timelines or commitments to invest cause cash flow problems. If you have a SaaS or membership model free trials might be great for your business, but they don’t work for every business. Free trials rarely work for professional service businesses.
Closing the deal is your number one goal. Don’t hold back from completing transactions for fear of sounding pushy. Train your sales team to be insistent without appearing to pressure.
The post 10 Ways to Avoid the Biggest Sales Mistakes appeared first on Small Business Advice Help For Startups and Entrepreneurs.
April 25, 2017 at 01:42AM
from George Meszaros
