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Senin, 21 Oktober 2019

Why the stock market has a ‘great distance to rise’ in the coming years - MarketWatch

There’s a lot to be glum about in the stock market — and the world, really — at the moment, but in our call of the day Michael Kramer, founder of Mott Capital Management, is confident there’s some serious upside potential in the coming years.

It all starts with valuations.

Kramer points out that the earnings multiple of the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.39% on a trailing 12-month basis sits around 19.7, the lowest level since June 2016 — a time when “the world literally felt as if it was on the verge of a meltdown”. (That multiple is a key method of measuring the value of a stock relative to earnings.)

But, in the reality that perhaps matters most to markets, we were in the midst of an earnings recession that would soon come to an end.

The bull market had life and, three years later, it still does, he says.

Read: How big will this year-end rally turn out to be?

For some context, Kramer used earnings data going back to 1988 and projections through to 2020, then overlaid that with a chart of the S&P for what he says is a self-explanatory reflection of where we stand.

And, more importantly, where we’re headed.

Kramer explained that the numbers show attractive equity valuations and, if corporate earnings continue to increase as expected, the market “has a great distance to rise” in the coming years.

Stocks are rising this morning, though not by “a great distance” yet.

The market

Futures on the Dow YM00, +0.15%, S&P ES00, +0.27% and Nasdaq NQ00, +0.32% are all in the green ahead of the opening bell. The pound GBPUSD, +0.1619% is fairly volatile as investors wait for more Brexit updates after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deal vote was a non-starter on Saturday. Europe SXXP, +0.49% stocks are up.

The chart

Yes, it’s a bit hairy out there.

This one is really stunning: A separate index that only focuses on uncertainty in global trade policy has surged to around 100 this year. From 1996 through 2018, its average level was about 2. “I think political uncertainty is clearly far higher than it has been for a long time.” pic.twitter.com/hgdAAT4Vvi
— Steven Russolillo (@srussolillo) October 20, 2019

The buzz

We’ve got a big week of earnings coming up, with bellwethers like Microsoft MSFT, -1.63%, Amazon AMZN, -1.68%, Procter & Gamble PG, +0.72% and Boeing BA, -6.79% among notables on the docket.

Voters won’t have to wait much longer to hear how Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren plans to pay for the “Medicare for All” future she envisions. The Massachusetts senator, who says she’ll give the details of her plan soon, came under heavy fire from her opponents during last week’s debate for refusing to say whether her plan would raise taxes on the middle class.

The strike at General Motors GM, -0.06% is spilling over into a second month, and the impact is intensifying across the Midwest in the U.S.he United Auto Workers union banged out a tentative labour deal with GM last week, but union leaders opted to continue picketing until workers approve the agreement.

The quote

“Market stability should not be the subject of a tweet here or a tweet there. It requires consideration, thinking, quiet and measured and rational decisions.” — Christine Lagarde, soon-to-be president of the European Central Bank, in an interview that aired on Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes”.

The economy

New and existing home sales figures for September are probably the economic highlight of the week, but we won’t get a look at those until Thursday and Tuesday, respectively. There’s nothing of note on the docket today. University of Michigan rounds out the week on Friday morning with the consumer sentiment index.

Read: Latest data does nothing for investors ‘animal spirits’

The tweet

Random reads

Influencers can buy 1,000 fake followers on Facebook FB, -2.38% for $34. Advertisers pay billions for them to pitch products to real people.

There’s a bear market in religion.

This sure looks like Republican senator Mitt Romney’s secret Twitter TWTR, -1.57% account.

A man stabbed his brother to death; now he earns six figures in Silicon Valley.

The grim reality of what climate change could do to three major US cities.

Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. Be sure to check the Need to Know item. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

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https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-stock-market-has-a-great-distance-to-rise-in-the-coming-years-2019-10-21

2019-10-21 11:11:00Z
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Illegal vapes traced to California woman who was CBD pioneer - Fox Business

A Wisconsin woman and her sons were reportedly running an illegal vaping business. FOX Business’ Ashley Webster reports on the 7 gallons of THC oil the police found.

CARLSBAD, Calif. (AP) — Some of the people rushing to emergency rooms thought the CBD vape they inhaled would help like a gentle medicine. Others puffed it for fun.

What the vapors delivered instead was a jolt of synthetic marijuana, and with it an intense high of hallucinations and even seizures.

More than 50 people around Salt Lake City had been poisoned by the time the outbreak ended early last year, most by a vape called Yolo! — the acronym for "you only live once."

In recent months, hundreds of vape users have developed mysterious lung illnesses, and more than 30 have died. Yolo was different. Users knew immediately something was wrong.

Who was responsible for Yolo? Public health officials and criminal investigators couldn't figure that out. Just as it seemed to appear from nowhere, Yolo faded away with little trace.

As part of an investigation into the illegal spiking of CBD vapes that are not supposed to have any psychoactive effect at all, The Associated Press sought to understand the story behind Yolo.

The trail led to a Southern California beach town and an entrepreneur whose vaping habit prompted a career change that took her from Hollywood parties to federal court in Manhattan.

When Janell Thompson moved from Utah to the San Diego area in 2010, the roommate she found online also vaped. Thompson had a background in financial services and the two decided to turn their shared interest into a business, founding an e-cigarette company called Hookahzz.

FILE - In this July 17, 2019, file photo, a Yolo! brand vape oil cartridge marketed as a CBD product is examined at Flora Research Laboratories in Grants Pass, Ore. Janell Thompson, a pioneer in marketing CBD as a health product, has pleaded guilty t (AP Photo/Ted Warren)

There were early successes. Thompson and her partner handed out Hookahzz products at an Emmy Awards pre-party, and their CBD vapes were included in Oscar nominee gift bags in 2014. In a video shot at a trade show, an industry insider described the two women as "the divas of CBD."

Indeed, Hookahzz was among the first companies to sell vapes that delivered CBD, as the cannabis extract cannabidiol is known. Now a popular ingredient in products from skin creams to gummy bears, cannabidiol was at that time little known and illegal in some states.

The partners started other brands that offered CBD capsules and edibles, as well as products for pets. Part of Thompson's pitch was that CBD helped treat her dog's tumors.

By autumn 2017, Thompson and her partner formed another company, Mathco Health Corporation. Within a few months, Yolo spiked with synthetic marijuana — commonly known as K2 or spice — began appearing on store shelves around Salt Lake City.

Synthetic marijuana is manmade and can be manufactured for a fraction of the price of CBD, which is typically extracted from industrial hemp that must be farmed.

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Samples tested at Utah labs showed Yolo contained a synthetic marijuana blamed for at least 11 deaths in Europe — and no CBD at all.

Authorities believed that some people sought out Yolo because they wanted to get high, while others unwittingly ingested a dangerous drug. What authorities didn't understand was its source.

Investigators with Utah's State Bureau of Investigation visited vape stores that sold Yolo, but nobody would talk. The packaging provided no contact information.

By May 2018, the case was cold. But it was not dead.

That summer, a former Mathco bookkeeper who was preparing to file a workplace retaliation complaint began collecting evidence of what she viewed as bad business practices.

During her research, Tatianna Gustafson saw online pictures showing that Yolo was the main culprit in the Utah poisonings, according to the complaint she filed against Mathco with California's Department of Industrial Relations.

Gustafson wrote that while at Mathco she was concerned about how Yolo was produced, that it was excluded from Mathco's promotional material and that the "labels had no ingredients or contact listing."

Justin Davis, another former Mathco employee, told AP that "the profit margins were larger" for Yolo than other products.

Gustafson's complaint asserted that Mathco or JK Wholesale, another of the companies that Thompson and her partner incorporated, mixed and distributed Yolo. Financial records in the complaint show Thompson's initials as the main salesperson for Yolo transactions, including with a company in Utah. The records also show Yolo was sold in at least six other states, including to an address in South Carolina where a college student said he vaped a cartridge that sent him into a coma.

The former bookkeeper also tipped the Utah Poison Control Center about who she believed was behind Yolo, according to her complaint.

Barbara Crouch, the poison center's executive director, recalled getting a tip in late 2018 and passing it along to the State Bureau of Investigation. SBI agent Christopher Elsholz talked to the tipster, who told him she believed the company she had worked for distributed Yolo. Elsholz said the company was in California and therefore out of his jurisdiction, so he passed the tip to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

FILE - In this July 19, 2019, file photo, Pierce Prozy examines a Yolo! brand vape oil cartridge marketed as a CBD product at Flora Research Laboratories in Grants Pass, Ore. Janell Thompson, a pioneer in marketing CBD as a health product, has pleade (AP Photo/Ted Warren)

The DEA offered to help but took no law enforcement action, spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said. Spiked CBD is a low priority for an agency dealing with bigger problems such as the opioid epidemic, which has killed tens of thousands of people.

In the end, it wasn't the synthetic marijuana compound in Yolo from Utah that caught up with Thompson. It was another kind of synthetic added to different brands.

By the time of the Utah poisonings, vapes labeled as Black Magic and Black Diamond had sickened more than 40 people in North Carolina, including high school students and military service members. Investigators were able to connect Thompson to that outbreak in part based on a guilty plea from the distributor of the spiked vapes, who said a woman that authorities identified as Thompson supplied the liquid that went into them.

Prosecutors also linked her to dealers charged in New York, where she pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to distribute synthetic marijuana and a money laundering charge. The only brand federal prosecutors cited was Yolo.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman called Thompson a "drug trafficker" who used JK Wholesale to distribute "massive quantities" of synthetic marijuana as far back as 2014. She faces up to 40 years in prison.

Reached by phone the week before she pleaded guilty, Thompson declined to discuss Yolo and then hung up. In a subsequent text message, Thompson said not to call her and referred questions to her lawyer, who did not respond to requests for comment.

While Yolo was Thompson's project and she was the exclusive salesperson, her business partner and former roommate was involved in its production, according to the workplace retaliation complaint.

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Thompson's business partner and former roommate, Katarina Maloney, distanced herself from Thompson and Yolo during an August interview at Mathco's headquarters in Carlsbad, California. Maloney has not been charged in the federal investigation.

"To tell you the truth, that was my business partner," Maloney said of Yolo. She said Thompson was no longer her partner and she didn't want to discuss it.

In a follow-up email, Maloney asserted the Yolo in Utah "was not purchased from us," without elaborating.

"Mathco Health Corporation or any of its subsidiary companies do not engage in the manufacture or sale of illegal products," she wrote. "When products leave our facility, they are 100% compliant with all laws."

Maloney also said all products are lab tested. She did not respond to requests for Yolo lab results.

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2019-10-21 10:19:09Z
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Tired of too many subscriptions? Apple TV+, Disney+ streaming launches add to overload - USA TODAY

Edward C. Baig USA TODAY

Published 6:05 AM EDT Oct 21, 2019

Quick test: Ask yourself how many subscriptions you’re on the hook for.

Hard to blame you for failing to come up with a number, or for feeling overwhelmed at the mere prospect of trying.

Let's see. There’s TV or internet for shows, music services such as Spotify and Apple Music, maybe some newspapers or magazines. Don’t forget the cloud storage where you keep all those precious photos and videos, and that identity theft protection you need because of all of the data breaches, holes and hacks.

Overwhelmed yet? We're not done.

There are the meal kits and razor blades delivered to your doorstep to make life easier. Then there’s wardrobe you swap out and have delivered on a regular basis through Rent the Runway. Maybe that extends to your ride, a car subscription that lets you drive your vehicle of choice.

That’s not even counting the apps, cellphone service, online genealogy, home security monitoring, audio and e-books, ink cartridges, videogame catalogs and that health-tracking service you forgot about that you pay for each month. Then there are those expired free 30-day trials you've long forgotten about still an unseen part of your world.

Feeling oversubscribed? Or maybe over being subscribed. Subscription fatigue is on the verge of reaching epidemic proportions.

What's more, the trend toward getting you to sign up is getting more intense when it comes to streaming media. The spectrum of apps and services, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO, Showtime and YouTube, is about to get even more crowded with the advent of Apple TV+, HBO Max (from AT&T), Peacock (from Comcast/NBCUniversal) and Disney+.

Streaming wars: Netflix says it will retain the streaming crown; not worried about Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus

There are more than 300 “over-the-top” video services streamed over the Internet, says Deloitte vice chairman Kevin Westcott, who leads the company’s U.S. telecommunication, media and entertainment practice.

The average household subscribes to three.

“That tells you we definitely have a problem,” he says.

Why do we subscribe?

As we transitioned to this sharing economy, we’ve seen “that globally, people have become more inclined to say that they want subscription-based services rather than to outright own something,” says Virna Sekuj, strategic insights manager with the GlobalWebIndex market research firm.

Sekuj says one of the motivators to the subscription or membership model is the upfront cost, especially driven by millennials who grew up with tech and during the Great Recession. "It's given people access to things that they may normally not have been able to do."

How many subscriptions are too many?

“Things are getting absurd,” behavior analyst Sean McCoy tweets in response to a USA TODAY question on the topic. Though he’s had subscriptions for years to multiplayer online role-playing games, he says, “my wife and I just took inventory and weeded (out) anything we didn’t really need.”

The impulse to subscribe to a video service may be largely built around the idea of convenience. That's the promise anyway. The basis of the old cable model was that all this content was aggregated in one place, and your TV subscription is very likely bundled with broadband in the home.

“If only there were one service that could bring me all the content in one easy box. Oh wait, it's called cable, and it's been around for 40 years,” says Andy Gibs a Northern New Jersey father of two.

Dana Strong, president of Comcast’s Xfinity Consumer Services, says the company’s X1 platform was created in part to help reduce the friction consumers may experience in leaving one video app for another or leaving linear TV for on-demand programming.

“Having the ability to elevate the content out of the app into an integrated search engine and user interface makes the content discovery that much easier, particularly when you connect it with a voice remote," she says.

If you’re a cord-cutter looking to ditch cable, your motivation may have more to do with saving money – why pay extra loot to the cable guys for hundreds of channels you never watch? But there are no guarantees you’ll come out ahead financially.

"My husband insisted on cutting the cable and switching to multiple streaming services," Deb McAlister Holland wrote on Facebook. "I can’t articulate how much I hate it. Terrible user interfaces. Half a dozen separate sets of preferences to update. Annual fees. Monthly fees. Delays of days, weeks, or months before TV shows are available."

By 69% to 65%, streaming video has edged ahead of traditional pay TV, according to a recent Deloitte survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers. But it’s not an either/or proposition; 43% of U.S. consumers have both.

Where to go to watch

Consumers may feel compelled to sign up for multiple video subscriptions because this or that service is the only place to go watch some program all their friends are telling them to binge on.

Access to original programming created by the service – think Amazon and Netflix – was cited as a chief benefit for 55% of more than 23,000 U.S. internet subscribers ages 16 to 64 surveyed in April by GlobalWebIndex. More than half also cited being able to watch across multiple devices.

That’s what Apple will bank on when it launches shows around such stars as Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon as part of Apple TV+. It’s another play by the company to attract and keep customers within its ecosystem.

Unfortunately, as shows are spread out across numerous services, chasing content may take a lot more effort on consumers' part and cost more than they counted on. Just ask a frustrated parent lamenting the fact that Disney pulled its content off Netflix in favor of its own soon-to-launch Disney+ service.

As a consumer, “you want to pick an ecosystem that’s neutral,” says Dave Shull, the new CEO of TiVo, the struggling DVR pioneer that is attempting to reinvent itself while trying to help viewers navigate content chaos. “It’s interesting to me the last couple of weeks to watch Disney+ and Netflix starting to fight. The benefit and promise of TiVo is I am never going to be a content provider. Those guys have much bigger pockets than we do, and they’ll fight it out.”

For many consumers, it may be a challenge just getting a handle on what they already pay for, maybe a “trial” subscription to some app or product they signed up for years ago and simply forgot about? If the bill automatically renews online, customers don’t get that monthly statement in the mail to remind them.

You probably pay more for subscriptions than you think.

An analysis last year by the WestMonroe consulting firm of 2,500 Americans’ budgets, spanning 21 categories of subscription services, found that 84% of people underestimated what they spent each month. The average person forked over about $237 for the categories in the study.

Bootstrap Media managing director Gene DeRose describes the problem of subscription fatigue as a feeling of complete bewilderment. “We’re all more than ever innocent victims of the blood wars between big tech players, who could easily enable all of these systems to more elegantly talk to each other but refrain from doing so because they're wired to keep all the bricks in place in their respective walled gardens, lest they lose leverage.”

Consumers may gain back a bit of leverage by sharing subscriptions. Eighty percent of the respondents in the GlobalWebIndex survey share a TV/movie streaming subscription with at least one other person; half of those share a premium music plan.

The complexity that comes with subscription overload may introduce another problem: “It's not as much subscription fatigue as it is password fatigue,” says Jeff Dorgay, publisher of ToneAudio.

Where to go to cancel

The most prudent remedy for consumers is to take the time to figure out which services they are paying for. The first place to start is credit card statements. Do a bit of digging to see which recurring charges are attached to your smartphone and other Android or iOS devices.

For Android users, start in the Google Play store and sign into your Google Account. Tap Menu, Subscriptions and choose the subscriptions you want to wave bye-bye to. Follow the instructions from there.

To get started on an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings, tap your name, then choose the subscriptions on your potential hit list.

You can always follow the path McCoy and his wife took. Reach out to every service you rarely, if ever, use and utter three simple words: “Cancel my subscription.”

Consumers, have you had enough? Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/10/21/disney-apple-tv-netflix-amazon-can-we-tame-subscription-fatigue/3995686002/

2019-10-21 08:07:00Z
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Facebook says Libra could use a series of cryptocurrencies pegged to different currencies - CNBC

A "Zuck Buck" is displayed on a monitor as David Marcus, the executive leading Facebook's blockchain initiative, is questioned by U.S. lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on July 17, 2019.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Facebook has suggested its Libra project could use multiple cryptocurrencies backed by different existing currencies like the dollar, rather than having one single digital token tied to a basket of currencies.

The tech giant had initially proposed one synthetic unit of value that would be tied to a basket of currencies and government debt. But according to Reuters, David Marcus, the executive leading Facebook's blockchain initiative, told a banking seminar that he was open to looking at alternative approaches.

"We could do it differently," he said, according to the news agency. "Instead of having a synthetic unit … we could have a series of stablecoins, a dollar stablecoin, a euro stablecoin, a sterling pound stablecoin, etc."

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are usually pegged to government-backed currencies like the dollar. Tether is the world's best-known stablecoin, backed by the dollar, though it has garnered some controversy over whether it has a sufficient amount of dollars in reserve, as well as the suggestion that it could have been used for market manipulation.

Such currencies aim to reduce the volatility seen in virtual currencies like bitcoin and ether. In libra's case, the objective is to create a more efficient cross-border payments system.

But the Switzerland-based Libra Association, which oversees the proposed cryptocurrency, has faced numerous setbacks since the start of the month, with various original member companies including payments giants Mastercard and Visa backing out.

And as payments companies withdraw from Libra, there are no immediate signs that banks could be willing to join. J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon on Friday called the group's currency "a neat idea that'll never happen."

Libra has also been met with fierce regulatory pushback, with authorities around the world worried the currency could heavily disrupt the financial system and potentially be used for money laundering or terrorist financing.

Last week, the Group of Seven (G-7) said in a report that no stablecoin project — Libra included — should be allowed to go ahead until the attached legal risks are addressed.

Meanwhile the Financial Action Task Force, a global watchdog on illicit financing, said that such digital currencies could inhibit efforts to clamp down on money laundering and terrorist financing.

Facebook could find some solace in the fact that the chief of Germany's financial regulator doesn't think libra will go away anytime soon. BaFin President Felix Hufeld told CNBC over the weekend that he doesn't think the social media firm's digital token is "dead in the water." Meanwhile, fellow tech giant IBM has said it's open to working with Libra.

WATCH: Don't think Facebook's libra is dead in the water, BaFin president says

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/facebooks-david-marcus-libra-could-use-currency-pegged-stablecoins.html

2019-10-21 07:04:28Z
52780413829659

Facebook says Libra could use a series of cryptocurrencies pegged to different currencies - CNBC

A "Zuck Buck" is displayed on a monitor as David Marcus, the executive leading Facebook's blockchain initiative, is questioned by U.S. lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on July 17, 2019.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Such currencies aim to reduce the volatility seen in virtual currencies like bitcoin and ether. In libra's case, the objective is to create a more efficient cross-border payments system.

Last week, the Group of Seven (G-7) said in a report that no stablecoin project — Libra included — should be allowed to go ahead until the attached legal risks are addressed.

Meanwhile the Financial Action Task Force, a global watchdog on illicit financing, said that such digital currencies could inhibit efforts to clamp down on money laundering and terrorist financing.

WATCH: Don't think Facebook's libra is dead in the water, BaFin president says

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/facebooks-david-marcus-libra-could-use-currency-pegged-stablecoins.html

2019-10-21 06:34:21Z
52780413829659

Illegal vapes traced to California woman who was CBD pioneer - Yahoo Lifestyle

FILE - In this May 8, 2019, file photo, a Yolo! brand CBD oil vape cartridge sits alongside a vape pen on a biohazard bag on a table at a park in Ninety Six, S.C. More than 50 people around Salt Lake City had been poisoned by the time the outbreak ended early last year, most by a vape called Yolo!, the acronym for "you only live once." (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File)