Thursday 14 April 2016

Facebook 1 stop shop


"The main goal for Facebook is to be a platform for people to connect to each other, to be the platform where developers can build apps that work within the Facebook ecosystem making Facebook a one stop shop."




To market to market to buy a fat pig Another strong day all across the board. The All Share was up 1.8% meaning that we are up 4.5% for the year. WoW! After all the volatility of the year so far, the 'only' progress that we have made is 4.5% (most of it made in the last 3 days). If we have another strong week we could get to 10% for the year, which if you went back to February most people would have taken a 10% return for the whole of 2016. Remember that for the full year 2015, the All Share returned just less than 2% and that for the full year 2014 is was 7.6%, basically just less than 10% for being invested for 2 years! During the two years, there have been moves greater than 10%, if you had invested in October 2014 by April 2015 you were already up somewhere around 15%.

The point I am getting to is that the market is very volatile, probably too volatile and even though the market can move 2% in a day, getting a 10% return for the year is to be savoured. In the market volatility there are opportunities for traders (which we are not), where you buy if you feel the market is too fearful or sell if you think the market is too greedy, trading takes advantage of human emotions more than fundamentals. You don't need to be a trader to be buying when people are too fearful, long term investors often make their best returns from buying when people are fearful and then holding and holding and holding. As long term investors the volatility is the reason the equity market has given superior returns over time.

New York, New York also had a strong day yesterday, with the S&P 500 finishing up 1% on the dot. The NASDAQ was the strongest major index of the day, up 1.55% but still down 1.2% for the year due to tech stocks being hardest hit by the sell off in January. Today we get the weekly initial jobless claims number before the market opens as well as US CPI numbers. Both numbers will be watched by the FED, a strong jobless claims number means that the US economy could handle an interest rate hike. A high CPI number would mean that an interest rake hike is on the way sooner rather than later. A low CPI number will start talks of deflation again and interest rake hikes being pushed way out.




Company corner

The F8 developers conference hosted by Facebook finished yesterday, you may not be a developer but part of the conference was explaining a road map for the next 10 years. Here is a summary of what was said at the conference, Here's everything Facebook just announced. If you have the time (30 min) watch the Zuck give his keynote speech, Mark Zuckerberg's keynote at Facebook F8 Developers Conference. The main goal for Facebook is to be a platform for people to connect to each other, to be the platform where developers can build apps that work within the Facebook ecosystem making Facebook a one stop shop. An example is opening up their Messenger app, to allow AI bots to communicate with you. So if you want to get an update on oil talks happening, you would open Messenger, go to your Bloomberg contact and send the contact a message asking about oil. The AI technology will then find what you are looking for.




Linkfest, lap it up

Montblanc was founded in 1906, so for their 110th birthday they have made some limited edition products - Montblanc's New Serpentine Watch Is Crazy Good-Looking



Have a look at how volatile the Tesla stock has been. Are you able to hold the stock through all those draw downs - The Most Complicated Stocks






Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Our stocks are slightly down today being pulled down by gold stocks and dual listed stocks, thanks to the stronger Rand today. Talking currencies the Rand is trading in the R/$ 14.50's, next stop R/$14.00? Tonight there are numbers from Wells Fargo, which we will touch on tomorrow.



Sent to you by Sasha and Michael on behalf of team Vestact.

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