Price Flat Lined

To market to market to buy a fat pig. It is one year on since we found out that Trump was going to be the next president of the US. In a speech he gave this morning in China, he took the opportunity to remind people of the 25% rise in the stock market over the last year, which has created $5.5 trillion in wealth. If he is taking credit for these record highs, what will he do when the next market crash happens?

It still hasn't fully sunk in that he is president, it probably won't for his whole 4-year term. I remember watching the US futures market tank over 4% on the news of his victory, a very temporary decline. By the time their market opened, things were well in the green and if memory serves the market was up around 2% on the close.

Market Scorecard. It was another quiet day on Wall Street, the market there actually started the day off in the red. The Dow was up 0.03%, the S&P 500 was up 0.14%, the Nasdaq was up 0.32% and the All-share was down 0.17%.

The saying 'when it rains, it pours', applies to Steinhoff at the moment; Steinhoff shares down on allegations of $1bn non-disclosures in Europe. The company released a SENS yesterday afternoon saying that they have complied with all regulations; time will tell if they are investigated around the allegations. Dr Wiese bought R120 million worth of shares last week, which tells you what he thinks of the current value being offered in the stock.

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Company corner

Byron's Beats

Many people do not know Priceline. The name of the of the company is not synonymous with it's strongest brands. In reality, this is an $80 billion online travel booking behemoth. Who better to explain what they do than the company itself. The following comes from their latest results report.

Incredibly, out of the brands mentioned above, 88% of Priceline's profits come from outside of the US Expedia (a competitor) is the biggest US player. Booking.com is Priceline's largest brand with nearly 1.5 million listed properties. The company reported third-quarter results yesterday which were horribly received by the market. The stock fell 13.5%, ouch. Let's take a closer look.

Agency revenues are travel related transactions where the group does not facilitate the payment. For example, if your guest books a hotel room via booking.com but pays directly to the hotel.

Merchant Revenues are derived when the payment is actually facilitated by the group.

Advertising and other revenues are derived mostly from KAYAK which is big referral system used by travel agents. OpenTable the restaurant booking service is included here.

The numbers were pretty good and beat expectations. Bookings increased by 19% to $22bn. Room nights increased 19%, while gross profits increased 22%. Earnings for the full year are expected to come in at $71 a share. That puts the stock at 23.5 times earnings after the share price drop. Not expensive at all for a fast growing tech stock with low capital costs and high profits.

Why did the share price fall so much then? It all relates to costs going forward. Sound familiar? I remember when Facebook shares fell heavily last year when management stated that margins would come down because of reinvestment in the business. Short term "investors" are fickle.

As you can see from the numbers above, their biggest cost is advertising. A vast majority of that actually goes to Google. Priceline is trying to take on Airbnb in the smaller home market. The problem with this market is that there are fewer rooms per advert. One advert for a 500 room hotel covers 500 rooms. An advert for an exclusive guest house with three rooms, will cost the same but result in fewer bookings. Priceline plans on spending big on advertising to continue growing their business; this will include TV commercials in over 30 countries in 2018. Those increased costs, pushed forward earnings guidance down and is why the share price took so much heat.

We see this short-term pullback as great buying opportunity into a world class business.

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Linkfest, lap it up

Michael's Musings

Yesterday we spoke about Tencent's new listing of China Literature, which created about $6 billion in value for Tencent. There is another listing coming to market this week from the Tencent stable, their search engine Sogou - Tencent Could Repeat Its China Literature Trick.

Sticking with Tencent, it was revealed yesterday that they have at least a 12% stake in Snap Inc - The Chinese giant behind WeChat, Tencent, is taking a 10% stake in Snap. This means that owning Naspers means that you also have a small stake in Tesla and now Snap.

Are you brave enough to buy Bitcoin now? I avoided it when it was below $1 000, so I am definitely avoiding it above $7 000 - Bitcoin's 'bubble' is unlike anything we've seen recently. The price action around cryptocurrencies is fascinating; time will tell where these things settle.

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Bright's Banter

What I am reading this morning:

- Gupta Leaks Are Finally Public
- In Saudi Desert Worlds Business Leaders Follow The Money
- Companies To Watch In 2018
- Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone
- What Could Apple Buy With Its Offshore Cash

You will find more statistics at Statista

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Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Data out today, pertinent to us in South Africa is our Manufacturing Production, Mining Production and Gold Production numbers. Moving across the ocean, it is Thursday so that means Initial Jobless claims from the US. Lastly, Apple finished off yesterday's session with a closing value above $900 billion for the first time! Onwards and upwards.

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Priceline Is Just Fine

To market to market to buy a fat pig. The 15 day streak of the S&P 500 not moving more than 0.3% in a single day came to a spectacular end yesterday, finishing down 1.45%. The tech heavy Nasdaq, was in even worse shape finishing down 2.13%. It seems the tensions between the US and North Korea took a day to settle in before having a significant impact on the market.

Three exciting companies had numbers out last night. Blue Apron, the recently listed food delivery company missed expectations and are down 18% in after hours trade, meaning that they are now down over 50% since listing date. Snap Inc also recently listed and also missed expectations pushing their share price down 17%. Nvidia was down 4% along with the rest of the market and then dropped another 7% in after hours trade due to their results, even though they were a beat! More on Nvidia next week.

Talking of red markets, this week marks the 10 year anniversary of the start of the market meltdown leading to the 'Great Recession'. The official start of the crisis is marked as the 9 August 2007, when BNP Paribas blocked the withdrawl of funds from three hedge funds due to "a complete evaporation of liquidity". The peak of the S&P 500 was 2 months later on the 11 October 2007, topping out at 1 576 points and then a steady drop until the fateful 15 September 2008, when Lehman Brothers didn't open business on Monday morning. It is worth noting that the cause of all the pain was the housing market bubble that had peaked in 2006 already, the delinquency rates started to rise in August 2006. It took one year for the effects to start to show on Wall Street and two years for Lehman to go bust, which then lead to debilitating fear and an absolute shutdown of the cash circulating around the banking sector. No cash moving around meant healthy businesses couldn't access credit for their daily operations. At that point a Wall Street problem became a Main Street problem.

If you bought an S&P 500 ETF 10 years ago at the official start of the crisis you are up, before dividends, by around 70%. Considering that inflation has been near zero for the last 10 years I don't think you can complain about 70% ? To get a 70% return over 10 years the market only needs to grown by, wait for it, 5.45% a year. That is all, reminding us about the power of compound interest. Yes, 70% over 10 years is not an amazing return but it is not bad either and if we continued at the same 5.45%, over 21 years we would have tripled our money. 'Not too shabby hey Nige?'

Locally our market was down 0.5% yesterday even though we started the day off in the green. Just about every sector was in the red except for gold miners, who were up 6% thanks to a weaker Rand (no-confidence vote) and higher gold price (missile comparing contest in the Northern Hemisphere). Unfortunately the only stock sitting on the right side of the 12 month high list is South32, on the wrong side are some former market darlings like Taste, Ascendis Health and Anchor Capital.

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Company corner

Michael's Musings

On Tuesday night after the market close, the world's biggest online travel company, Priceline reported their 2Q numbers. They had revenues of $3 billion up 18%, ahead of expectations and net income of $720 million up 24%, also ahead of expectations. As is the case with any company, especially fast growing tech companies with high expectations, the past period is of less importance the then next quarter. Their guidance of earnings growth of between 4% and 10% was a bit lower than the market expected resulting in the stock selling off 8%. It is still up over 30% for the last 12 months, so where you draw the line in the sand matters.

The absolute size of this business amazes me. They have a $90 billion market cap yet most people have never heard of them. Through their sites there were 170 million room nights booked over the last quarter or around 1.9 million rooms booked per night, up 21%. Lastly, their spend on getting customers to come to their sites, they spent around $1.4 billion in the last quarter on advertising and marketing (most of it going to Google) out of a total $2.06 billion in operating expenses.

As more people want to travel and feel more comfortable using the internet to design and book their trips, Priceline will continue to see the cash rolling in. A recent study shows the dominance of their business (Expedia and Priceline now own 95 percent of the Online Travel Agencies market), I don't think the researchers included Airbnb in their numbers though? A company with high growth expectations will always have a bumpy share price, hang in there and book your December holiday on Booking.com.

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Linkfest, lap it up

Byron's Beats

MTN has been through a very tough period but with a brand new management team and a recent sponsorship of the resurgent Bokke, things are looking optimistic. Financial Mail did a nice piece on their latest results titled MTN the bright spark once more? A few interesting stats that caught my eye were that out of 232m customers, only 72m have access to data. Still huge room for growth! They also expect their current target population of 700m to grow by 45m in the next 4 years. Sounds like an opportunity to me.

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Michael's Musings

E-sport is a fledgling industry, have a look at lifetime career earnings of the best in the business. It is around the same as what golfers or tennis players make for winning one major tournament - The highest paid eSports player has won almost $3 million in prizes - one chart shows the world's top earners

I wonder how much a ticket for this flight costs? - The shortest scheduled flight in the world only takes 90 seconds

How big do you think the batteries will need to be for long haul trucks? The trucking industry along with the taxi industry seem set to be the first industries to be impacted by self-driving technology - Tesla developing self-driving tech for semi-truck, wants to test in Nevada.

Thanks to faster internet connections and better quality cellphone screens we have seen the growth in video consumption sky rocket. Facebook is now moving more directly into the video space where they will be a type of Netflix/ Youtube hybrid - Facebook is packing its first original video series lineup with annoying reality shows.

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Bright's Banter

Here's a quick update from The Visual Capitalist on where the U.S. market is year-to-date on the returns front - Who's Thriving And Who's Diving

If you're thinking about a career in investment banking, make sure you join the right bank. Middle market and boutique firms seem to offer the best work life balance as well as the best pay compared to the Big Banks - These Are The Best Paying Investment Banks

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Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Markets in Asia are also red this morning following on from the US. Tencent is down over 3% so expect Naspers to probably be down more than that. Later today there is a CPI number from the US which is expected to be an increase by 1.7%, below the Fed's target rate of 2%, meaning that there is still no pressure to raise interest rates in the US too quickly.

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Lodging Profits

"Airbnb will possibly achieve 2.8 billion Dollars in revenues this year. The company trades at roughly 11 times revenues, if you are using that metric. Priceline, the listed entity that owns Booking.com amongst other platforms (see recent note - Priceline 4Q & FY numbers - still strong growth), trades on 8.5 times revenues, with a multiple of 40 times. Not cheap, although, growing like gangbusters."

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To market to market to buy a fat pig A mixed bag for stocks across the oceans and deep blue seas, stocks in New York, New York ended marginally better after a see-saw day. The Dow Jones added all of 0.01 percent by the time the closing bell clanged, the nerds of NASDAQ double that, whilst broader market S&P added 8 times the Dow, falling short of one-tenths of a percent. Yes, at face value it was an average day. Crude oil WTI, fell below 50 Dollars a barrel for the first time since December, rumblings of a brave face photo opportunity with Russia and Saudi, and perhaps all OPEC members not really able to make good on the quota cuts. Funny that, a cartel can work until real competition sends them packing. By that time they are so inefficient, they lose market share. The oil price did pick back up again, energy stocks closed in the green.

Snap Inc. lost a little ground, the stock is such old news and will be listed for a week now. Ha ha, nope, I am kidding. Just like Evan Spiegel's fiance, Miranda Kerr, who asked why Facebook keep copying Snapchat. Oh no, that is real. Why is that important? Facebook through their multiple platforms, WhatsApp, Instagram and of course Facebook, are bringing their users similar, if not identical features that Snap has. Interesting. In the old days it was Facebook that was being "copied". See - Facebook's Clones Attack Snapchat.

Talking of money being raised, Airbnb, who do not plan to go public any time soon, raised another 1 billion Dollars, giving it a valuation of around 31 billion Dollars in this current funding round. Uber is apparently worth 70 billion as per their last funding round. You can actually get some deep dive data on private business, for a price, over at PrivCo. Got a spare 199 Dollars to get information on Airbnb?

Oh wait, there is a Santa Cruz Sentinel article for that - Airbnb raises another $1 billion, with no IPO in sight. See the metrics there? Airbnb started with 4 people in 2008, now they employ nearly 3000 people. The company actually makes money and is (unlike Snap) not "pre revenue" (a little unfair to Snap).

Airbnb will possibly achieve 2.8 billion Dollars in revenues this year. The company trades at roughly 11 times revenues, if you are using that metric. Priceline, the listed entity that owns Booking.com amongst other platforms (see recent note - Priceline 4Q & FY numbers - still strong growth), trades on 8.5 times revenues, with a multiple of 40 times. Not cheap, although, growing like gangbusters. At the same time, Priceline raised over 1 billion Dollars (1 billion Euros), check it out - 0.800% Senior Notes due 2022.

We like the sector, experiences trumping "things". The story of Airbnb is pretty amazing, with the initial goal to make a few bucks. See, I was wrong on "if money was the starting point, you wouldn't succeed". Perhaps Airbnb won't ever make more than a few bucks?

The original email from Joe Gebbia to Brian Chesky reads as follows:

"brian, I thought of a way to make a few bucks - turning our place into "designers bed and breakfast" - offering young designers who come into town a place to crash during the 4 day event, complete with wireless internet, a small desk space, sleeping mat, and breakfast each morning. Ha!"

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In Jozi, where the weather has been "funny" and almost unseasonal, stocks were cold as a collective. The all share sank three-quarters of a percent to end the day below the 51 thousand mark. A three year return for the ALSI shows around 7 percent. That is it. Resources on the day sank over two percent, Kumba down nearly 7 percent on the day. Iron ore prices have sunk recently, after having doubled since last June. It is also (the iron ore price) half of what it was in September 2011, as ever, it depends on where you draw the line in the sand.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Steinhoff gained after having been beaten down over the last few sessions, the weaker Rand has had something to do with that. Read, weak commodity prices = weaker Rand. The same could be said for Russia, or Saudi or Australia. So .... if you have been wondering why the currency has been so strong, look no further than better commodity prices. Now ... the Gold price is below 1200 Dollars an ounce and sliding platinum prices.

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Company corner

Some more on the Aspen H1 results from yesterday. Make sure that you watch this fabulous interview (that lasted longer than initially planned) - Aspen H1 normalised HEPS up 6%. Self inflicted (supply chain) problems in South Africa, those have been fixed and a turnaround is afoot. An interesting question, when asked about why own Aspen today, at these levels, he gives an answer which I suspect a shareholder should expect. He said that 40 reporting periods of increased earnings, time and time again, tells you something. And he tells of how the business was harder at the beginning, cap in hand sitting in front of the bank manager. In some ways he says, it is easier to run a bigger business. Interesting perspective, not too dissimilar to those of Phil Knight of Nike in his book, Shoe Dog.

Paul actually saw both Stephen Saad and Gus Attridge in the foyer of the JSE yesterday and chatted with them. Not too much different to what Stephen said there. I will tell you something about this guy, he was asking Paul about his family and his running regime (Paul looks fit). That shows you the fellow genuinely cares about other people around him. I have heard a story too of him flying locally on coach and helping fellow passengers stow their luggage in the overhead compartments (there is always a fight over those, right?), from another client of ours. I wonder if the person sitting next to him knew that he would on paper be a Dollar billionaire?

After listening to him yesterday, we are very happy that the business here is in the "right" hands. They have had to close all the transactions and make sure that shareholders finally see the fruition of the hard work. A big base in a "good space". They will push and look for opportunities, including in infant nutritionals in China (baby formula), they are advanced in their thinking about entering China directly. We continue think that this is a fabulous business, with boundless opportunities. Whilst we are going to continue to "wait" and be patient in a stronger Rand environment, I think the stock represents a great opportunity now.

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Linkfest, lap it up

I was talking to a client a week or so back, we were interrupted by her pool people at the gate. She disliked her pool. How about this low maintenance option? Recycled shipping containers in Aussie are being used as fibreglass pools - Shipping container pools.

The smart home is already a "thing". In some instances, Nest, a subsidiary of Google is a market leader. They are, according to Mark Gurman writing for Bloomberg, working on something new - Alphabet's Nest Working on Cheaper Thermostat, Home Security System.

An online clinic that reverses type 2 Diabetes? Here already. Although in their infancy, this business is looking to shake things up - Virta Health Launches to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes as New Study Demonstrates Reversal Possible Without Surgery. Their outcomes so far have been pretty amazing, Preliminary 6 month trial data shows 87 percent of patients reduced or even eliminated insulin and they had on average 12 percent weight loss over 6 months.

This is one of the best articles that I have read in a long time, via Paul, it does require a subscription though, you may be able to get your "free FT" articles - The problem with facts. The telling line "Once we've heard an untrue claim, we can't simply unhear it." What a research paper cited in the piece is that only 4 percent of people read "seriously". Finally. I understand Facebook .

I think this headline says it all - Despite Modi's anti-corruption drive, 70% of Indians must still pay bribes for basic services. Is it still wrong if society just assumes that a bribe is part of the price of a good?

All the stock markets in the world? Check this out, via our pal Prof. Perry at AEI

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Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Stocks have started better here in Jozi, again the Rand is marginally weaker. Non-farm payrolls today. Exciting stuff sportslovers.

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Bigger than Naspers

"The stock price is around 1700 Dollars a share. Not surprisingly, the stock is up nearly 3000 percent in ten years. What? Yes, the company now has a market capitalisation in excess of 80 billion Dollars. It may well be the biggest holding company that you have never heard of. In fact, the market cap is bigger than Naspers, quite a lot bigger in fact. The company has delivered compounded gross profit growth rates over the last five years of 35 percent."

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To market to market to buy a fat pig Stocks in Jozi were lower by the close, down over two-thirds as a collective, resource stocks and specifically gold miners were looking a little worse for wear. Down over three and on-quarter of a percent as a collective they were, gold stocks. There were spits and spots of green, some of the Rand hedges benefitting from a weakening Rand environment. Hammerson, BATS and Mediclinic at the top of the leaderboard, at the opposite end of the spectrum was Redefine, AngloGold Ashanti and Amplats. There were results from the JSE themselves, they certainly looked decent enough to me. Over ten years that stock is up 190 percent. Amazing, not so? Still, the market capitalisation is "only" 14 billion Rand, Famous Brands by comparison is 15 and a half billion Rand. Chips and burgers trump derivatives and options. Not really, you know what I mean.

Bidvest slid another five percent, since their (and Bidcorp) results there has certainly been a pretty big divergence between the two. The lower growth environment here in South Africa is not really "helpful" for Bidvest. They are more than a good company, whether or not they are correctly priced at 23 odd times earnings, I am not convinced. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is a screaming sell, there are better options out there for my mind. Talking of which, Steinhoff had a quarterly trading update that "looked good" at face value. See below in the company segment.

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It wasn't to be, the Dow Jones industrial average did not make it 13 in a row, which would have tied the record for most days up in a row. Stocks slipped marginally in New York, New York, the broader market S&P 500 fell one-quarter of a percent. The nerds of NASDAQ slipped nearly two-thirds of a percent. Target was flamed, the stock was down over 12 percent after weak numbers and weak guidance. The stock looks cheaper, it may well get cheaper. Other retailers sank in sympathy. Hey, Amazon Web Services were out last evening, that caused a few flutters and reminded us that even the best doesn't work all of the time.

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Company corner

Steinhoff numbers yesterday morning (and afternoon), this was for the quarter ending December 2016. This is a 300 billion Rand market cap business, sizeable indeed. Of course the business is now listed in the Frankfurt, this is the secondary listing down here. I think that access to cheaper capital and growth in emerging market (as well as looking for opportunities in developed markets) is more important.

Their listing there, with the backing of big German institutional money makes for favourable reading, from a funding point of view. That is what I think when they made the comment that shares in issue had been stable, I suspect that it will stay that way. There is a *nice* colourful slide for us to use here:

That pretty much sums up the business right there. What Steinhoff have done well over the last half a decade is realise that in the space that they operate in, there were cheap assets that nobody else wanted at the time. They recognised that after the financial crisis there were opportunities that may have only presented themselves once in a decade, or generation for that matter. Through the bumbling of the European sovereign issues, the company found a foothold in Europe and will continue to build on their huge base.

Be patient here, I know that the share price has not rewarded you over the last year (down 20 percent). It looks cheap at these levels and is showing signs of "bedding down" (no pun intended) their recent acquisitions. The risk of course is that they enter "a deal too far" territory. Beds and sofas, kettles and white goods are certainly not the most appealing and dynamic products, that is for sure. We continue to add to the stock of a company that we think has a dynamic and quality management team, searching for perfection.

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Priceline presented numbers for their fourth quarter and full year to end December, close of business Monday. For the full year, the group had gross travel bookings (total dollar value, generally inclusive of all taxes and fees, of all travel services purchased by its customers, net of cancellations) of 68.1 billion Dollars, 23.1 percent better than the prior year. Gross profit was 10.3 billion Dollars, 20 percent better than the year prior. Non-GAAP income grew 23 percent to 3.3 billion Dollars, per diluted share, non-GAAP net income was 65.63 Dollars. Yes, per share, there are only 49 million odd shares (13 million too in treasury, what!!) in issue.

Net income per diluted share was 14 percent lower to 42.65 Dollars. Reason being that Priceline took a non-cash charge in the 3rd quarter related to OpenTable, a business they bought for 2.6 billion Dollars in 2014. 941 million Dollars, gulp. Shouldn't have paid that premium!

The stock price is around 1700 Dollars a share. Not surprisingly, the stock is up nearly 3000 percent in ten years. What? Yes, the company now has a market capitalisation in excess of 80 billion Dollars. It may well be the biggest holding company that you have never heard of. In fact, the market cap is bigger than Naspers, quite a lot bigger in fact. The company has delivered compounded gross profit growth rates over the last five years of 35 percent. Incredible.

In case you were wondering who and what this massive business is, you know their Booking.com platform (Michael said he wasn't too familiar with it until he bought the share, I almost fell off my chair), they have multiple others, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable. You may have used some, I have. I couldn't find a rental once, I used priceline.com directly, it worked perfectly. Except I forgot my drivers licence at home, that is another story! This business is very valuable for all the stakeholders in the tourism industry, they have the ability to connect the dots better than ever. Ever old traditional insiders (travel agents) have their own platforms, enabling them to have a wider scope than before.

As per the annual report: "As of December 31, 2016, Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for over 1,115,000 properties in over 220 countries and territories on its various websites and in over 40 languages, which includes over 568,000 vacation rental properties ... Vacation rentals generally consist of, among others, properties categorized as single-unit and multi-unit villas, apartments, "aparthotels" (which are apartments with a front desk and cleaning service) and chalets which are generally self-catered (i.e., include a kitchen), directly bookable properties."

In other words, people would be willing to advertise on both AirBNB and Booking.com, as far as I understand it, there is no exclusivity. Interestingly, the company lists their competitors as Google, Apple, Alibaba, Tencent, Amazon and Facebook, and then a whole lot more, from TripAdvisor to Marriott International, Hilton and Hyatt Hotels. They also list Lyft, Uber and Didi Chuxing, in the cars space. So there is a lot of seasonality to their business, and there are multiple competitors too. They do own some great brands and try and keep at the forefront of technological advances in travel.

There is another sentence that makes you wonder if humanity is ever going to advance, these are broad based risks that could impact on any business: "In addition, other unforeseen events beyond our control, such as worldwide recession, oil prices, terrorist attacks, unusual or extreme weather or natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, droughts and volcanic eruptions, travel-related health concerns including pandemics and epidemics such as Ebola, Zika, Influenza H1N1, avian bird flu, SARS and MERS, political instability, regional hostilities, imposition of taxes or surcharges by regulatory authorities, changes in trade or immigration policies or travel-related accidents, can disrupt travel or otherwise result in declines in travel demand."

Wow. Reach for the pills.

The company stuck out a guidance that seems to have been below the market expectations, remembering that this is the 1st quarter. In other words, not the holiday season, that comes in the second half of the year, July through to December:

The stock rallied hard, up over five percent to another all time high of 1725 Dollars a share. The stock trades on 40 times earnings, it is hardly cheap. What the company has going for them is the shift to experiences over things. i.e. People want to spend their money to see the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and all of the other amazing places around the world, over "things". Although, I get that they must still have the latest technology in order to take the pics and selfies. There is plenty of growth left here in order to justify even accumulating the stock at these levels, remembering that they may display volatile price action on such a high rating (November 2015 Paris attacks, the stock got hammered).

Notwithstanding what are always headwinds that humanity faces (mostly made by themselves), there are more people with more resources that want to see the rest of the world, experience different cultures and eat different authentic food. I suspect that we may only be scratching the surface globally with this travel trend. We stay the course here.

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Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Stocks across Asia are better than yesterday, US stock futures are better than before the Trump speech, which look short on substance. Mind you, give me a speech that contains all that and we would probably fall asleep having to listen to it.

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Teeing up with George

"Thanks to the pioneers of the electronic trading systems, we can all tee up on the same course as George Soros (to use golf as an analogy) and think we are going to dispatch the ball down the middle of the fairway right next to the green. A chip and a put in, hey, the expensive training courses and the adverts make trading look so easy! In reality, there are more losers than winners."

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To market to market to buy a fat pig Stocks as a collective in Jozi, Jozi eked out a gain. A little one, 0.06 percent higher on the day as the bell had rung for closing time. Industrials slipped and dipped and were pipped, financials were marginally higher and resource stocks were the biggest gainers on the day. And Faf was a genius at Newlands, it was a pity that the best blocker in the modern era (in our team) couldn't beat the best blocker of yesteryear (Kirsten) record in a limited overs match. Irony, right?

Glencore, Barclays Africa and Steinhoff were at the top of the winners boards, MTN, Redefine and Aspen on the losing end of the sheets. This morning there is an announcement from Brimstone that they plan to list Sea Harvest, a well known fish household brand here in South Africa. Is fish business a good business to be in? I really am not sure, in all the years of watching this and having seen these businesses, I hear the simultaneous announcements from the companies that coincide with a sigh or mumble from Paul. Your mum and dad were wrong on relationship advice and should pick another example, it turns out that there are not plenty fish in the sea.

In other more pressing news, MTN has released a trading statement in which they say that they expect to report a loss for the last financial year. Part the regulatory environment in Nigeria, the fine (which will have a negative impact of 474 cents per share) and part foreign exchange losses in a number of operations. The bad news does not stop there however, the list is longer than your arm and one gets the sense that the new management team will be met with a tired boat with the decks scrubbed clean. Also hanging over their heads is the more recent statements coming from the US in terms of hostility towards the Iranians. I am afraid that this trading statement, as it is not quantified, leaves us groping around in the dark. The one point worth making about this juncture in the company's history is that they have attracted recently some incredible people. This may well be a horrible bottom, we continue to "watch it".

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The nerds of NASDAQ closed at an all time high last evening. NASDAQ stands for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". Sounds like something out of the sixties. You would be right for thinking that, it was founded in 1971. It wasn't that the NASDAQ was the first electronic trading system, it was the first electronic quote system. i.e. you didn't need to go to the tape. What the NASDAQ did do was end the dominance of the brokerage houses in a way, by making sure that price discovery was easier to come by, i.e. the spread between the bids and offers narrowed significantly. I suppose in a way the NASDAQ is to settlement and markets as radar is and was to flying, you were no longer flying by the seat of your pants, in the same way, you were no longer trading blind.

Can you imagine what it was like when you went to the system that was based on electronic trading only, that must have been a pretty strange feeling to have the matching on the screens. I remember the days here locally with the old JET trading system when you could see the brokerage firm and the actual dealer on the screen, broker name and dealer code. In that way, you could actually call the firm's trading desk up and match in the middle, with less liquid stocks. Nowadays it is clear that all is equal. Dark pools in the US seem to the anonymity.

Thanks to the pioneers of the electronic trading systems, we can all tee up on the same course as George Soros (to use golf as an analogy) and think we are going to dispatch the ball down the middle of the fairway right next to the green. A chip and a put in, hey, the expensive training courses and the adverts make trading look so easy! In reality, there are more losers than winners. As we often say around here, the people offering the day trading software and the courses, why don't they do it themselves if they have the secret sauce? Perhaps everyone should try their hand at trading, to see how hard it actually is. Strangely, a lot of people do not know the difference between trading and investing, stock brokers and fund managers, sell side and buy side, the list goes on, no wonder people feel intimidated by it all. As one old timer once said to me, forget everything except that cash flows don't lie.

Anyhows, quickly to markets across the seas vast and wide, the nerds of NASDAQ closed off their intraday highs, still printing an all time high of 5674, up nearly one-fifth of a percent on the session. The Dow industrial average closed by the same amount higher on the day, the broader market S&P 500 just managed to squeak a gain, energy stocks once again were laggards. If you are looking for someone good to follow in that regard (the oil markets), follow Javier Blas. And if you are wondering what the hashtag OOTT stands for - the Organization of Oil Trading Tweeters. Yes. Really.

Walt Disney reported numbers that were lower, as expected, and above analysts expectations. There was an announcement that Avatar and Star Wars themed parks would be opening relatively soon, Avatar in May this year, Star Wars sometime in 2019. Now you get to queue with nerds for days and not screaming kids! Sheldon and the gang must be thrilled. I must admit, I didn't watch any of their movies growing up, perhaps as a function of living in places without "proper" TV. I really, really like the business, I have never been moved to invest in the stock, which does look perpetually expensive. The model is pretty amazing, three to four blockbusters a year, throngs of people at the parks and ESPN of course. Where it seems that the attrition of the subscriber base has bottomed. Somehow, you just have to watch sport live.

In sort of related news, as Hasbro actually sell Disney princess dolls, the company reported numbers comfortably above analyst estimates and soared (the stock price). Bright asked, what, Monopoly? I said yes, we still partake as a family, I honestly think that this is a magnificent way to teach kids not only winning and losing, rather about acquiring "stuff" and managing cashflows. Cards are also world class. So whilst some old school toys struggle to stay relevant, some old favorites turn up time and time again. Hasbro remember has assumed the licensing for Disney dolls. Beauty and the Beast I hear you say? Michael's wife can't wait, I do not blame her, the trailer looks incredible - Beauty and the Beast US Official Trailer. It turns out that an exact remake can continue to the franchise, from animation to "real".

Another one of our stocks, Priceline, made an announcement yesterday - The Priceline Group Agrees to Acquire Momondo Group. The company acquired, Momondo, owns Cheapflights. This is a foray into European markets. The stock hardly budged, I suppose this is not big in the whole scheme of things. The company reports in just over a week from today, the market is obviously expecting good things, the stock is trading near the 52 week high.

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Linkfest, lap it up

Not everyone can manage their finances. YOLO and all that, you know. What happens when it is Johnny Depp however and his financial affairs of the last 17 odd years are dragged into the open, as a result of him running into "difficulties". In the court papers filed a week or so back, it is suggested that Johnny Depp Lives $2M-a-Month Lifestyle, Claim Ex-Managers in Lawsuit. Quite simply, the managers of his money had to lend him 5 million Dollars in 2012 (which he refuses to pay back) to fund an extravagant lifestyle. It does not matter who you are, and whether or not you can do the Futterwacken, spend less than you make is simple math. All the assets (you don't see the debt) and wobbly to cover cash flows. I suppose Depp could sell some of the 70 collectible guitars and the 200 collectible works, and some of the 18 properties, those at least are assets.

I think that this is very significant for all deep level mining companies, an announcement from a drilling business - Master Drilling rolls out cutting-edge mining technology. The timing coincides with the mining Indaba in Cape Town, and you might well find that this is the biggest release of the day. Two things here, if the technique requires less support structure and less explosives, what does that mean for construction and explosives businesses? I would love to hear from geologists out there! Master Drilling is of course a listed business since 2012, since listing and all the talk of mechanization (and their good looking technology), the stock is up 85 percent plus. As the old adage goes, in times of the mining boom, it is the people who make picks and shovels (and beans) that make the money.

We have spoken about using cash regularly, especially since we are Visa shareholders and believe that The Cashless Society is the future. Jeff makes a good point here though, some business might be able to start charging less for cashless only transactions. No more, worrying about theft of cash, of the time wasted counting cash, the cost of transporting cash then then the cost of depositing cash.

Elon Musk Tweeted this last night, there is no doubt that the Model S is an amazing car - 2017 Tesla Model S P100D First Test: A new record - 0-60MPH in 2.28 seconds!. The article gives comparisons to the likes of Ferraris, Porsches and Lambos.

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Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Stocks across Asia are mixed, US futures are marginally higher. Markets have started mixed here!

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Unravelling Travelling

"Priceline reported numbers after hours. The company operates in the travel space. The investment thesis is simple, more people are going to use more online platforms to fulfil their experiences (which beats "things" in the modern era), and this business operates multiple websites and apps to facilitate that."

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To market to market to buy a fat pig Not quite ten days down for the S&P 500 in a row, that had last happened in 1975. Which is a smidgen before I was born, and even I consider that a long time ago. Funny, I am at an age that is neither traditionally old nor am I young anymore. And I sure as heck don't look anything like Goldilocks. And I don't eat porridge. And best of all, whilst I know many (market) bears, I certainly am not one. That is right, like all of us here at Vestact, we are unashamedly optimistic. Sometimes when you are optimistic of the ability of the collective to overcome dumb systems set in place by flawed theory, there are some examples that prove you completely wrong. There is not a day that goes by that I don't feel the pain of the people of North Korea. It is not the fault of the people.

Democracy is relatively new, and we are still trying to work it all out. Our World in Data and Max Roser try and put forward their versions of democracy in the modern world, and he has some interesting graphs -> Democracy. According to the research, 150 years ago (1866) we were in the process of moving from 4 to 5 democracies. Globally. By 2010 there were nearly 90 democracies, where you can pretty much do what you want, within reason. However there are only 4.1 billion people across the globe who wake up in real democracy and implement free thinking each and every day. Check out this graph:

There is a strong link between basic user services, accountability, education and wealth with democracy. It is no secret that the North Koreans are more malnourished than their Southern counterparts, who not only have extreme pressure to succeed, they (the South) have internet that defies logic. The speeds that is. Not that internet speeds should be how you measure a country, freedoms to choose and access to the internet go hand in hand. Often flawed democracies (see Turkey) try and block internet activity. And as such, stifle long term growth. Those are matters that I am not likely to change.

To markets quick sticks. The markets roared ahead, erasing the losses from all the other trading days in November (which all happened last week) as the Clinton email FBI investigation overhang was removed. Really, that was the reason given. The FBI found nothing new. Elections and markets, sigh. One of the WSJ headlines is Dow Jumps 371 Points After FBI Says It Won't Charge Clinton. And the FT says Wall St rallies as investors bet on Clinton win. I know that it is nitpicking, surely investors do not change their minds daily? Those are traders. Investors make long dated bets on businesses and debt of countries and institutions, traders look at price and price only.

Session end the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied by just over two percent by the close of shop, the broader market S&P 500 rallied nearly 2 and one-quarter of a percent. The nerds of NASDAQ added 2.37 percent by the close. There were strong moves by Alphabet and Amazon, Microsoft and Berkshire (who had results over the weekend). Berkshire now sits on the biggest cash pile in it's history, elephant hunting will no doubt be taking place. There is a timeless paragraph written by Warren Buffet in 1979 that holds true today more so than at any other time in history:

"An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn't it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose: "Maintain buying reserves until current uncertainties are resolved," etc. Before reaching for that crutch, face up to two unpleasant facts: The future is never clear and you pay a very high price for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values."

So where we sit right now, where there is always uncertainty (around politics and rates and earnings momentum, Chinese debt and growth), that might represent a massive opportunity. "Things" are never going to be clear. Like ever, and you must get used to that when investing. There will always feel like a good reason to not invest. Stay the course, remember that long term wealth creation was not made by politicians or central banks, it was consumers and businesses, individuals at the core.

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Back home where we were saluting the performances of Joburg's finest (KG, Quinny and Temba) in dismantling the Aussies, markets rallied sharply. OK, it was a team effort, the orange ones from Bloem had Dean, the other country Cape Town had Vern and JP, it was pretty much a team effort. That runout though, from St. David's finest (Bavuma) was something else. And now Temba Bavuma also has one more test wicket than I will ever get, or anyone in our office for that matter. And the same as Sir Don Bradman, who also only got one. Glowing in the dark over that comeback. OK, cricket aside, a quick check in with the roaring market yesterday.

The Jozi all share racked up a percent and a quarter gain, the financial 15 added nearly 1.9 percent on the session, gold shares were the big losers on the day. The Trump sell I guess. Glencore, Naspers and FirstRand were at the top end of the winners table. The currency was also boosted, perhaps the flows were strong as a result of yield searchers. Rates are more than likely to head higher in the US next month, and I suspect that will be a good thing. Here, expectations are (all things being equal) for tepid growth, weakish demand and perhaps a recovery, if the political landscape will allow it. As such, rates are unlikely to budge from where they are currently.

There was an excellent trading update from Spar (good for you), the stock has certainly been an absolute cracker. I often tell the folks in the office that if you held Tiger stock around 17 odd years ago, you have gotten one share of Astral, one of Spar and one of Adcock, it has been one of the steadiest and best stables to be in. Regardless of what you think of chicken, or retailers, or generics, or the missteps from any of those businesses. Makes you think long and hard about portfolio balancing and tinkering. Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing. Which in itself is taking an action and making a decision. Often this is the best action when investing.

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Company corner

Priceline reported numbers after hours. The company operates in the travel space. The investment thesis is simple, more people are going to use more online platforms to fulfil their experiences (which beats "things" in the modern era), and this business operates multiple websites and apps to facilitate that. Priceline operate and own the brands Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com, and OpenTable.

Total properties on their flagship platform (Booking.com) stand at 1,065,000, which is a 29 percent increase over the same time last year. Vacation rentals were the biggest growing category, up 39 percent year-on-year to stand at 529 thousand. So, around half of all the places you can book are actually not single hotel rooms at all. Hotel rooms still dominate the number of total rooms that you can book, the total single rooms out of the million plus properties is now 24.4 million. 16.9 million are hotel rooms and the other 7.5 million are either homes, or apartments, holiday villas and of course some other "unique" bookable abodes. So, whilst Airbnb is at some level a threat to their business, many people renting the actual rooms would be happy to do so across multiple platforms.

All their other platforms performed well, with the exception of OpenTable, which they impaired by 941 million Dollars. The restaurant booking platform is pretty simple to understand and use. 50 percent of all the bookings made on the platform are done via mobile phones. It looks like a pretty exciting business, clearly the group overpaid way back when. Priceline paid 2.6 billion Dollars, all cash, back in the middle of 2014, paying a 46 percent premium at the time. Not good.

Q3 saw revenues increase 25 percent to 18.5 billion Dollars, profits were up 22 percent to 3.6 billion. Non-Gaap net income was 31.18 Dollars a share, comfortably more than the Street had penciled in. I am not a fan of the company pointing out that the analyst community were just below 30 Dollars a share, let the analysts do their job, the company should not fret about their targets and earnings forecasts. Over the last quarter 150 million plus rooms were booked over the Northern Hemisphere summer period.

What amazes me about this business is that the local market, North America and in particular the US, is not big for locals. i.e. for some reason the US local is just getting accustomed to using the platform. Rather late than never, right? Whilst the US is often at the forefront of technology, some of their general receptiveness to certain platforms boggles the mind. Payments? Crumbs, those people still use checks. C'mon people, it is 2016, send money to my app, right?

There is some concerns that their lunch may be eaten by the likes of Facebook, or even Google. In fact Google, as the CEO Jeff Boyd points out on the conference call is a great partner, see: "And then Google is continuously experimenting and iterating with different ways of answering travel queries for their customers and we work closely with them. They've been a great partner for us. We'll continue to work with them as they add new channels in the future, new ad placements, and look for ways that it will work for us and for them."

Priceline have announced that Brett Keller will run the website priceline.com, an insider of around 17 years at the business. They also guided for the fourth quarter, not exactly the biggest quarter, for the full year the analyst community has the company making nearly 69 Dollars a share. And then for the next year around 80 Dollars of earnings a share. The stock ramped nearly 4 percent in the spot market and now is up another 5 percent post market. At the indicated opening price of 1556, the stock trades then around 19.45 times, hardly expensive for a company that is growing revenues by more than that number, percentage wise. i.e. they have a forward PEG of less than 1. This may not be a mainstream investment, for those of you who think that global travel is in the infancy of the new experience economy, this is definitely the investment for you. We like the theme, we really like the business as a long term investment, buy.

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Linkfest, lap it up

Here is one area that machine learning is being practically used - Google's DeepMind trains AI to cut its energy bills by 40%. Great to see the technology already making a positive impact.

Having access to information is probably the most effective way to help people move up in the world and by extension having access to the internet is the easiest way to give people access to information. Facebook is working hard to bring free internet to parts of Africa and MTN has been involved in the initiative - Facebook's latest plan for cheaper and faster internet in Africa is off to a good start.

If you didn't understand what MTN was testing for Facebook, here is a more detailed explanation of the hardware that Facebook is developing - Now Facebook plans to eat the $500 billion telecom equipment market.

Given how quickly Tesla burns through cash as they ramp up car production and expand their supercharger network, it makes sense that Tesla is starting to charge for the use of the supercharger network - New Tesla buyers will have to pay to use Superchargers.

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Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. Today all of the action will be dominated by US election speak, voting has already kicked off in the US. Markets across Asia are apparently "cautious" ahead of the US elections. Make no mistake here friends, today will be very tough to call, I am going to suggest that Clinton will win comfortably. We shall see, this time tomorrow or a little later.

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Slow grind records

"The US markets also fizzled out towards the end of trade, yet stocks still remained in the green, only if just. And it was another record intraday high for the S&P 500."

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To market to market to buy a fat pig I would prefer, from a logistics point of view, for all public holidays to be on a Friday or Monday. Period. In that way, productivity can be higher, rather than disruptive to normal events. Politicians may work hard, but offer very little from the view of making stuff or offering a service that we had to pay for. If all government services were at a market related rate, what would the cost of your electricity, water, garbage removal, etc., be if there was a viable, and economic alternative. The flip side of that coin is, if local government didn't offer the service, nobody would live in that place. We are off the point. I suspect that we can celebrate public holidays and vote on days not in the middle of the week.

Overnight Michael Phelps backed his killer stare up and smoked everybody, including our own Chad le Clos. The US markets also fizzled out towards the end of trade, yet stocks still remained in the green, only if just. And it was another record intraday high for the S&P 500. In the end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P added fractions of a percent, adding 3.76 and 0.85 points respectively, meaning when rounded to the nearest one decimal place both markets were up 0.0%. The nerds of NASDAQ added nearly one quarter of a percent, Apple still marching steadily forward.

Since Apple reported quarterly numbers on the 26th of July (after the market closed), the stock is up nearly 12 percent. There has almost not been a down day since. And yet the stock still trades on a less than 13x historic multiple. The BusinessInsider had several interesting articles on Apple, including the headphone jack (or lack thereof) for the iPhone 7, this one caught my eye - iPads are doing better than expected, but tablets are still on the decline. The best problem that everyone has is that the tablets all work so well and perform their functions, there is little or no need to upgrade furiously. Until there is a huge form change.

The Pound continues to get smoked, stimulus and low rates and the central bank warning of a slowing economy is at some levels reflected in the numbers, other numbers continue to impress. The tourism sector in the UK continues to benefit from a weaker Pound. Job hires, not so much. We shall see the medium term impacts, we shall see if the economic impacts become more and more noticeable as time goes by. Back where local is lekker, stocks rose a touch on Monday, up just over one quarter of a percent.

Steinhoff was the big news of the day. We will see how that transpires, the acquisition target Mattress Firm shot up over 110 percent to the offer price of 64 Dollars a share, the graph looks like the "El Capitan". Not the operating system, rather the Yosemite cliff. We had rock climbers at school, the club was huge, the teacher in charge always used to say "fully". He had a long red beard and scraggly hair. He was our English teacher too, a heavy lefty with vegan tendencies, he opened our minds to the rest of the world. That could have been the motto for Steinhoff, "fully" Marcus Jooste, "fully". The only fully you don't want to see is fully priced and then overpaying.

Woolies were also in the news, they sold their David Jones head office building in Sydney, which is adjacent to their department store. The head office of David Jones will move to integrate with the rest of the business in Melbourne. The funds received will be to upgrade their department store in Sydney. And no doubt staff will be cheaper in Melbourne. I don't know, let us know, if you live down under. Are the jobs and the cost of living very different from Sydney to Melbourne. One gets the sense that Sydney is more expensive, Melbourne is more attractive. Definitely from a sport point of view. Woolies expects to save 10 million Aussie a year, whilst still rolling out the best of retail in the Southern Hemisphere in an 11 level shopping mecca.

We are "owed" Woolies results on the 25th of August, that is just around the corner. We will review then, the trading statement has pretty much fleshed it out, not too much to expect. Whilst the stock has "done well" recently, year to date the price is down 10 percent. The company doesn't really have a real comparable business here locally, can you really compare them to Pick 'n Pay or Shoprite, or Massmart or the Foschini Group? Whilst they broadly fall in the same space, they are all different offerings. Buy the company, not the share price.

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Company corner

At the beginning of the last financial year, 1 April 2015, the website synonymous with online booking, Booking.com (parent company and listed entity Priceline.com), had 670,000 places to visit. On August the 5th, 16 months later, the company announced that they had Added Its One-Millionth Property in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Of those, as you can see from the release, there are 23 million bookable rooms around the globe, with 7.2 million of those being homes, apartments and villas. Half of the total properties are NOT hotels, which in a sense allays many peoples fears that Airbnb will eat their lunch. They are all eating the same lunch. Besides, the biggest listed competitor in its space is Expedia, which is only 11.6 percent the size of Priceline.com.

Priceline has a market cap of 73 billion Dollars as of the last close, that is monumental in itself. And yet, the stock is neither cheap, nor is it expensive. At 27 times historical earnings and with the analyst community predicting over 68 and a half Dollars of earnings, the stock trades forward on just over 20 times. Growing earnings and revenues at a pretty breakneck speed, the same said analysts have the company making nearly 80 Dollars a share next year, and the multiple unwinds to just above 17 times earnings. Currently the company pays no dividends to their stock holders, growth is the current focus.

Herewith from the annual report from last year, these are all the key metrics which shows the meteoric rise in bookings and profits over the last 5 years.

So how does Priceline.com earn their money? The annual report breaks it into a few categories, processing fees (on behalf of smaller places of accommodation), commissions earned on the facilitating of accommodations, hires of rentals, ship cruises, as well as advertising revenues earned by KAYAK, one of their multiple platforms. They also recently, having acquired OpenTable, earn reservation revenues. And what do they plan to do, in order to continue to grow their revenues? Providing a great booking experience (they may want to work on that, it is easy, it could be easier), they are going to continue to partner with other travel providers, as well as restaurants (get the complete package), as well as investing heavily in other platforms. For instance, as they point out, they invested in Ctrip, a Chinese mainland operator. CTrip is actually listed in New York, and has a market capitalisation of nearly 20 billion Dollars.

Google and Facebook may well roll out large booking systems. I was quite interested when reading about online booking behaviours. It is different for business travel over personal. In business travel, over half of people in North America book their own business trips - Business traveller booking behaviours.

Tripadvisor (a competitor of sorts) had their 6 key travel trends for 2016, in which Trend#6 was quite important for me: "93% of hoteliers said that online traveler reviews are important for the future of their business" and "Online reputation management is still the biggest area of investment for accommodation owners in 2016, with 59% investing more in this area than they did the previous year."

Which means that more and more travellers will trust websites like Booking.com more than any other platform. The fact that the property is rated 9 out of ten and you can see the comments (petty or not) and the interaction with the management, means that all the dirty laundry is laid out bare. For all to see. The consistently higher you score, the more money you make, the more you are likely to promote your property on the website. All the reviews are for actual guests staying there, you only get a review request if you book through the platform, or are invited by the establishment.

So here goes, the last set of numbers: The Priceline Group Reports Financial Results for 2nd Quarter 2016. Revenues grew by 19 percent to 17.9 billion Dollars, gross profits increased 16 percent to 2.4 billion Dollars. That is nothing though, this is the dominant online business, and global revenues for the travel bookings industry is at 1.3 trillion Dollars. Their, Priceline.com, share is less than five percent. As such, there is plenty of road to run here. We continue to accumulate a growth business at a very reasonable multiple, relative to their growth prospects.

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Linkfest, lap it up

Knowing your time frames before committing a cent to the market is important. If you know that you are investing for the long term, when the market plus back it may not feel good but you can still sleep well at night - Rules-based tactical vs wizardry and witchcraft. If you don't know your goals and time frames before hand, statements like this will scare you. "As a result, we downgrade equities tactically to Underweight over 3 months, but remain Neutral over 12 months."

I can see similar technology being used in an Apple watch in the future - An electronic temporary tattoo will warn people if they've had too much to drink. Imagine, your Apple watch senses that you have had too much to drink, it deactivates your Apple car and calls you an Uber instead.

Sticking with the Olympic fever, here an estimation of some of the incentives countries give to their athletes who win Gold. The US incentive may seem low compared to other countries but the athletes that win gold representing the US also generally get larger endorsement cheques - Some Athletes Are Chasing Huge Gold Medal Bonuses

You will find more statistics at Statista

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Home again, home again, jiggety-jog. A couple of questions for the loyal readers. Would you like to see more videos done on stocks via the Instagram platform? For the time being they have been sporadic, far and few between. A loose and informal style? Have you signed up for all of our platforms? Do you follow us on Twitter (see below). We have both a Facebook page (like us) and an Instagram platform. And lest we forget the entertaining Blunders videos, the weekly one delivered on Friday - Blunders - Episode 25. Sign up for all these platforms, to never miss a beat. Let us know, more videos or not? We used to be very active in that space, and went a little quiet in that regard. Perhaps all people need nowadays is a 30 second clip of how things are going, is this one a good one, or not. Markets across the globe are a touch higher.

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