Spooked by the threat of trade war acceleration and despite the quarter-point interest rate cut Wednesday, the market sold off practically all off all week. Then, on Monday morning, we learned that the Chinese government had allowed its currency, the yuan, to slide to its lowest levels in more than a decade. The market sold off sharply as a result. Despite this slide though, large-cap indices still trade close to their all-time highs. The market is losing momentum, but the buyers can return as fast as they retreated if the market senses that the worst of the trade war is… Read More

Spooked by the threat of trade war acceleration and despite the quarter-point interest rate cut Wednesday, the market sold off practically all off all week. Then, on Monday morning, we learned that the Chinese government had allowed its currency, the yuan, to slide to its lowest levels in more than a decade. The market sold off sharply as a result. Despite this slide though, large-cap indices still trade close to their all-time highs. The market is losing momentum, but the buyers can return as fast as they retreated if the market senses that the worst of the trade war is over or if the Fed indicates more dovishness. In the meantime, investors have clearly become more cautious, booking profits on their best stocks of the year and taking losses on some of the laggards. —Recommended Link— The Real Reason Most Americans Can’t Retire by 65 If you’re following traditional retirement advice that made sense 50 years ago… You may be missing out on the most effective retirement strategy today. Here’s all you need to know to retire as early as this year. Let’s Go Hunting For Momentum In a normal… Read More

The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will lower interest rates by 25 basis points. This is the first cut we’ve seen in a decade, and rates are already low by historical standards.  Cheaper money, by design, is intended to stimulate the economy and to make sure investing is still preferable to saving.  Another upshot: more financing available to private companies. And it’s not just private equity. —Recommended Link— The Real Reason Most Americans Can’t Retire by 65 If you’re following traditional retirement advice that made sense 50 years ago… You may be missing… Read More

The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will lower interest rates by 25 basis points. This is the first cut we’ve seen in a decade, and rates are already low by historical standards.  Cheaper money, by design, is intended to stimulate the economy and to make sure investing is still preferable to saving.  Another upshot: more financing available to private companies. And it’s not just private equity. —Recommended Link— The Real Reason Most Americans Can’t Retire by 65 If you’re following traditional retirement advice that made sense 50 years ago… You may be missing out on the most effective retirement strategy today. Here’s all you need to know to retire as early as this year. In the past few years, mutual funds and hedge funds have been actively investing in privately-held tech companies and startups in their search for market-beating returns. This brings more money to private companies, and paves the way to building relationships and to receiving more shares when those companies go public. Here’s another byproduct of low interest rates: companies stay private for longer. Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOGL) went public in… Read More

If I had to name the biggest game-changing trend of the past decade — a trend that has disturbed the most companies, made the biggest organizational impact, changed the way businesses are structured, and impacted the most lives — it would be cloud computing.  Nothing short of a paradigm change, the advent of the cloud has truly transformed the way most technology companies do business. Even consumer companies have been significantly affected by the shift.  #-ad_banner-#The premise behind the cloud computing is simple: When technology — from simple applications to complete data centers — is delivered over the internet, it… Read More

If I had to name the biggest game-changing trend of the past decade — a trend that has disturbed the most companies, made the biggest organizational impact, changed the way businesses are structured, and impacted the most lives — it would be cloud computing.  Nothing short of a paradigm change, the advent of the cloud has truly transformed the way most technology companies do business. Even consumer companies have been significantly affected by the shift.  #-ad_banner-#The premise behind the cloud computing is simple: When technology — from simple applications to complete data centers — is delivered over the internet, it can be delivered as-needed, or on-demand. This on-demand business is now known as the cloud.  The on-demand feature makes everything easier. Companies have found that signing up for on-demand services is the easiest way to meet their future needs; the cloud-based model can easily get you more (or less), depending on how those needs change.  It also turns out that consuming technology over the internet is less expensive than doing it the traditional way: Basically, you pay for what you use — no more, no less. It requires much less hardware, too: All the hard work is done somewhere off-site… Read More