Todays Stock Market Summary Chart of the Day Thursday February 2, 2017

Todays Stock Market Summary Chart of the Day Thursday February 2, 2017

   February 02, 2017       prabhakardalvi

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Note : Any blog OR content suggestion you have , please mail me on prabhakara.dalvi@gmail.com

The markets reacted strongly with a near 500-point gain for the Sensex yesterday. But how should smart investors react to this budget? The dust settles and we take a closer look at it, one conclusion is unavoidable: Despite all of the speculation, hype, and hoopla in the days leading up to the budget, there's nothing really earth-shattering about it. It's just business as usual on most counts.

Yet, the kind of attention this exercise gets here in India, especially in stock market circles, it is only to be expected that the markets react strongly.

But from personal experience, I can tell you this: For many on D Street, it has become an outright excuse for speculation. The surrounding hoopla makes it difficult for investors to see through it. And easy to believe that they must 'do' something in response to it.

It is at times like these that it is most important to rise above the noise. Make no mistake, it is an important exercise and does affect some businesses more than others. But these differences in most cases are marginal and incremental. And seldom of the 'make or break' variety.

All put together, the annual budget exercise is very much a part of the 'normal' business landscape of companies. The multitude of tweaks made in it either help or harm the cause of a given company ever so slightly. But then again, that's true for all the continuous developments, both global and domestic, throughout the rest of the year.

Its collective approach to stock picking, its devotion to large safety margins in the purchase prices, and its dynamic debt component (fixed deposits/bonds) renders most developments that the economy throws at the business world, government budgets included, trivial.

MCM strategy as a sort of 'Chinese Wall' between the rough and tumble of the business world and our subscribers' returns. It ensures that over the longer term, our returns remain not just protected, but well ahead of the general market's returns.

Chart of the Day  

The Union Budget for 2017-18 was presented by finance minister, Mr Arun Jaitley yesterday. 

The markets seem to give a thumbs up to the budget, the Sensex closed up 486 points for the day. Does the budget play a crucial role for a serious long term investor? What role if any do the valuations play in prospective returns. We looked at the price to earnings ratio of the Sensex on the budget day as a proxy for valuations and noted the following 3 year compounded annual return going forward.

Budget or Not - It is the Valuation That Counts  -       

We found that the market returns are agnostic to the budget in the long run. What mattered more was the valuations at that point in time. Cheap valuations are a big driver of future returns.

Be it the Union Budget, GST or a great monsoon, you always got to ask the all-important question: Everything said and done, am I paying too much for the stock in relation to its intrinsic value?

For even though the budget may be path breaking and the economy may have some great years ahead of it, when you pay too much, even a good stock can quickly turn into a bad investment.

 After opening the day on a flattish note, the Indian stock markets fell below the dotted line. At the time of writing the BSE-Sensex was trading lower by about 42 points (down 0.2%), while the NSE Nifty was trading lower by 15 points (down 0.2%). Sectoral indices are trading on a mixed note with stocks in the metal sector and auto sector witnessing maximum selling pressure.     

                    Today's Investing Mantra         

"Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down" - Warren Buffett

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Dr Dre Joins Apple In $3bn Beats Acquisition - celebrity

Dr Dre Joins Apple In $3bn Beats Acquisition - celebrity

   May 28, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Dr Dre and recording impresario Jimmy Iovine have joined Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) after the completed $3bn acquistion of Beats Electronics.

The announcement comes nearly three weeks after deal negotiations were leaked to the media.

At $3bn (£1.8bn), the deal for the headphone and streaming music company is the most expensive acquisition in Apple's 38-year history.

It includes $2.6bn in cash and $400m in Apple stock that will vest over an unspecified time period.

Apple broke into the music streaming business last year with the launch of iTunes Radio, but with $1.1bn in revenue last year, Beats should boost the tech giant's earnings once the new fiscal year begins in October.

"Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a media release.

"That's why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world."

Iovine, a co-founder of Interscope Records, said: "I've always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple.

"The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple's unmatched ability to marry culture and technology. Apple’s deep commitment to music fans, artists, songwriters and the music industry is something special."

The growing popularity of music streaming services such as Pandora (Other OTC: PNDZF - news) and Spotify has been reducing sales of songs and albums, a business that iTunes has dominated for the past decade.

US sales of downloaded songs slipped 1% last year to $2.8bn while streaming music revenue surged 39% to $1.4bn, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Mr Cook says Beats Music has more than 250,000 subscribers.

Beats also commands 62% of the $1bn US market for headphones priced above $100, according to market research firm NPD Group.

The acquisition will see both Dre, 49, and Iovine, 61, become executives in Apple's music divisions, though Mr Cook said their roles have not yet been determined.

Dr Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, started his career in influential rap group NWA before co-founding Death Row Records and going on to produce some of the biggest names in hip hop.

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Work For Apple, Microsoft, Or Google - Join this School

Work For Apple, Microsoft, Or Google - Join this School

   May 28, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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For all the talk of "cognitive ability" and "behavioral interviewing," tech firms like Microsoft and Google have a similar hiring pattern to just about any other business: proximity. 

That's according to Wired, which found that  recruitment is typically tied to how close a college campus is to the corporate campus, with a few notable exceptions. 

To find this out, Wired did a little poking around LinkedIn to find the top five "donating" schools for seven tech firms. The magazine's mission was "to see if non-Stanford grads have a chance at Silicon Valley firms (they do) and whether Ivy Leagues dominate (they don’t)." 

Take Microsoft, for instance. Bill Gates's empire is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Correspondingly, lots of recruits come from that state. Judging by Wired's infographic, Microsoft employs approximately: 

• 5,000 University of Washington grads
• 1,000 Washington State grads
• 800 Western Washington University grads
• Then there's Apple. The house that Steve Jobs built has this employee breakdown: 
• 900 University of California, Berkeley, grads
• 800 San Jose State grads
• 300 University of Texas, Austin, grads
• Lastly, let's look at Google. The prestigious search giant has loads of California connections, with some East Coast schools thrown in. The approximate numbers are: 
• 2,500 Stanford grads
• 2,000 University of California, Berkeley, grads
• 800 Carnegie Mellon grads
• 800 University of California, Los Angeles, grads

Why would big, global companies hire from their nearby colleges? While we don't have anyone in HR at Microsoft, we do know hiring trends. Namely, people hire people they know, and it's easiest to know the folks who are nearby. 

And if you didn't go to Stanford, fret not; you can still end up at Google. Just spend a stint at Microsoft: Wired reports it's the top feeder company to Google. 

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Apple Buy Rising Music Brand for $3.2 Billion talk to source

Apple Buy Rising Music Brand for $3.2 Billion talk to source

   May 09, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Apple Said to Be in Talks to Buy Rising Music Brand for $3.2 Billion - NY  - BEN SISARIO, BRIAN X. CHEN and DAVID GELLES

Apple is in discussions to buy Beats Electronics, the company behind the popular Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, for $3.2 billion, according to people briefed on the talks, in what would be the biggest acquisition in Apple’s history.

The deal would also include the new Beats Music streaming service, which was introduced in January as a competitor to Spotify and Pandora, and could signal an effort by Apple to transform its approach to music more than a decade after it opened the iTunes download store.

A deal has not been consummated, and the negotiations could still fall apart, according to these people, who declined to be identified speaking about it publicly. But if it is completed, the sale could be announced as early as next week, the people said. Apple and Beats declined to comment.

For Apple, whose revenue growth has slowed sharply in the last few years, the deal could point to a headlong move into the frontier of streaming music. The company, which only last year released its streaming product, iTunes Radio, has been slow to enter the streaming world.

A purchase of Beats would also give Apple a hot product and an even hotter brand, founded by the rapper Dr. Dre and the music executive Jimmy Iovine. After its enormous successes with the iPhone and iPad, Apple has been under intense pressure from investors to unveil new products, but none have yet been released.

At over $3 billion, the Beats acquisition would be a major departure for Apple, which under Steven P. Jobs, its co-founder, favored smaller deals. However, Timothy D. Cook, who took over as chief executive of the company shortly before Jobs died in 2011, has been vocal about the company’s acquisitions and the strategy behind them. In its most recent earnings call, Mr. Cook said that Apple had acquired 24 companies in the last 18 months.

“We are expanding Apple’s products and services into new categories, and we are not going to underinvest in this business,” Mr. Cook said in the earnings call.

Beats began to sell its sleek, bass-heavy headphones in 2008 as an alternative to the lightweight earbuds that Apple included free with its iPod players. And even at prices of up to $450 apiece, they quickly became fashion statements. The company’s headphones have fat profit margins. Headphone designers estimate the cost of making a fancy headset is as low as $14.

Annual sales of Beats products, which also include speakers and other audio items, have been estimated at more than $1.5 billion. Last year the private equity firm Carlyle Group invested $500 million in Beats, valuing the company at more than $1 billion.

Silicon Valley has lately been rife with multibillion-dollar acquisitions that have caused some investors to worry about excessive valuations and an inflating technology-industry bubble. In January, Google paid $3.2 billion for Nest Labs, which makes Internet-connected home devices, and in February, Facebook bought the messaging service WhatsApp for more than $16 billion.

For Apple, which has a $159 billion cash hoard, a $3 billion deal would have little effect on its purse.

Ben Bajarin, a consumer technology analyst for Creative Strategies, said that a purchase of Beats would not be a big departure from Apple’s strategy of buying companies for their technology and talent to help develop future products. In other words, it is unlikely Apple would just ship Beats headphones with an Apple logo on them.

“This would have to fit into a much longer, more innovative strategy around perhaps the hardware and the service,” Mr. Bajarin said.

Apple has recently struggled in developing new products. It has been working hard to develop a smartwatch, but problems like poor battery life have plagued that project, according to multiple people briefed on the company’s plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity. And for years, rumors have abounded that the company has been working on a smarter, Internet-connected television set to become a stronger player in the living room. But that product has not been released either.

The Beats deal, which was earlier reported by The Financial Times, also suggests that Apple may want to shake up its approach to digital music. Through the iPod, which first went on sale in 2001, and the iTunes store, which opened in 2003, Apple transformed the music business, making downloads a viable, large-scale business that has sustained the music world as sales of CDs have plunged.

Apple is still the largest seller of downloads, and its store operates in more than 100 countries around the world. But its market share has been slowly eroded by Amazon and other sellers, and the download market itself is beginning to cool as consumers shift their listening behavior to online streaming. Last year some 28 million people around the world paid for a subscription music service, bringing in $1.1 billion, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a trade group.

Beats Music arrived in January as a competitor to streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody, Deezer and Rdio, which have begun to spread rapidly around the world. Like the others, the Beats service makes millions of songs available for streaming over the Internet. It trumpets its expertise in creating playlists, highlighting the involvement of prominent music figures like Dr. Dre, Mr. Iovine and the Nine Inch Nails’ leader, Trent Reznor.

Apple’s iTunes Radio competes with some aspects of Spotify but is seen as a more direct rival to Pandora, which has become the dominant Internet radio service, with more than 75 million regular users every month.

Beats’ music service and audio products division are organized as separate companies with overlapping management but different investors. Beats Electronics, the headphone company, is said to have accounted for most of Apple’s proposed $3.2 billion purchase price.

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Tim Cook Answer For Why iPad Sales Appear To Be Stalling

Tim Cook Answer For Why iPad Sales Appear To Be Stalling

   April 24, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Apple's iPad sales for last quarter fell far below expectations. It sold 16.35 million of them, but analysts were expecting about 19 million.

On the surface, 16 million sounds like a lot of iPads, but growth in Apple's iPad business has flatlined. In fact, growth was negative for last quarter.

So, what the heck happened?

On a call with analysts this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook did his best to explain.

For last quarter in particular, he said the company reduced its iPad channel inventory compared to the same quarter last year, so sales were actually in line with the high end of Apple's internal expectations.

Speaking on the iPad business as a whole, Cook made some really interesting points to remain bullish. First, he said the iPad is Apple's fastest-growing product in the company's history. Apple has sold 210 million of them so far, which is almost twice as many iPhones Apple sold in the same period of time.

Cook also made a strong case for the iPad in the enterprise market. He cited one study that said 91% of tablets activated in the enterprise are iPads. Meanwhile, nearly all Fortune 500 companies use iPads. He also said it was a smart move of Microsoft to finally release Office on the iPad, which should help with enterprise adoption since many businesses rely so heavily on the software. In fact, Cook said Microsoft should've released Office for iPad earlier than it did.

In education, Cook said the iPad has a 95% market share, but the challenge now is to get more schools to buy them and gain penetration.

Finally, Cook still believes tablet computing is the future.

"I believe the tablet market will surpass the PC market," he said on the call.

source : Why iPad Sales Appear To Be Stalling

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The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson

The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson

   April 22, 2014       Unknown

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The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson, Career Curveballs

I like to think that I have been in charge of my own life, that I am in the driving seat rather than in the back seat along for a scenic ride – observing but not participating. But I confess that if it were not for other people’s actions, I would not be doing what I’m doing. I wrote about this particular curveball some months ago in "Can You Fire Your Boss?"

A career can be a series of Sliding Door moments: one door closes, another one opens, and often we are not quite sure which door is next. One thing is for sure there have been plenty of curveballs flung at me. I think my workday is going to go in one direction – and then before I know it I am off in another direction. Ultimately these sliding doors did lead to me start my own business.

In the early 1990s I worked in the aviation industry during the deregulation of the industry in Australia. I was proud and excited to get this job for such a prestigious iconic Australian brand, I called all my friends – there was no Facebook in those days – sharing the great news. I was jump-for-joy happy. It took me four hours to work out what to wear for my first day, wanting to make a good impression.

Yet within six months I lied about where I worked, and before the year was out I knew that this was not a long-term career company for me. It was the curveballs that made me realize this.

My role was as marketing manager for the loyalty club program and I was then asked to join the launch team on the first points-based frequency program to ever exist in Australia. It was a big deal back then; we thought it might even make front-page news. I was putting every ounce of effort I had into doing great work, even though I had to do two jobs at the same time. My workload had more than doubled, my salary stayed the same.

Month after month I toiled endless hours to get the program launched. My immediate colleagues saw my contribution. But my superiors had no idea of the work involved in getting the launch right whilst keeping the marketing effort for my original role in full flight.

After many months waiting to be acknowledged and see my salary reviewed, I finally got up the courage to go upstairs to the general manager's office:

“I’m enjoying the work, but my role has doubled. I have now been managing the two roles for more than six months. In what time frame would a salary review be undertaken?” I asked.

“Who do you think you are to come into my office and ask for a pay rise?” he retorted. “How do I know what value you add to this business?”

I left his office trying to hold back the tears, feeling not only diminished, but also angry and hurt. I was indignant – How could he not know my contribution?

Was it management’s job to notice what I did? Was it my peers? Or was it mine to speak up and share what I achieved? In hindsight of course it is a mixture of all these things. One thing I knew is I never would allow this to happen again.

Finally, my direct manager negotiated a salary review of my role. The outcome was a $5 per week pay rise. This was as insulting as the lack of recognition for my work. The general manager received my resignation the next day. Door closed!

Within weeks I joined Apple as a marketing manager. Door opened. And the rest, as they say, is history.

What I do know is this curveball galvanized what I believe about work places:

• I believe that everyone deserves to have a great day at work.
• I believe that if people know what they are there to do, if someone notices and they go home feeling like a winner, then they are likely to play full out.
• I believe that appreciation is the simplest and most effective way of valuing the contribution made by an individual.
• I believe that what gets noticed gets repeated.

And that is why I preach what I practice and work to support other businesses on their 'best employer' journeys. It is all about RED (Recognize Every Day) and without the curveball of having a mean, nasty, small-minded general manager as a boss 25 years ago, perhaps I would not have created such a successful business.

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers share how they turned setbacks into success.

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Star Walk - ipad calls interactive astronomy

Star Walk - ipad calls interactive astronomy

   May 07, 2012       Unknown

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Internet Giant Social Media

A new ipad calls for a brand new batch of apps that show off the gadget’s new powers –a  screen that allows ebooks to be sharper than the printed word. To show off that high-density Ratina display and a fancy new A5X processor, these are the apps you need on your new iPad .......

[[[ Category: Education
Updated: 20 April 2012
Version: 5.7.2
Size: 151 MB
Languages: English, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish
Developer: Vito Technology Inc.]]]
Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 3.2 or later

Star Walk  for  $4.99

The astronomy app Star Walk is not a new app but when used on the new iPad it is nothing short of stunning. Star Walk can identify up to 300,000 stars on the iPad’s screen and is ideal for youngsters and adults alike. By simply holding your iPad into the sky, the app labels out the constellations, the solar system, stars, and satellites.

The app also includes a celestial calendar that informs how to plan star gazing by listing events such as full moons, meteor showers and upcoming partial eclipses.

The most interesting feature of the app is the Augmented Reality technique where it overlays data from the app on top of the image (of the sky) as captured by the iPad camera. Using this, user can align the image of the sky with that of the sky in the app.

This helps in pinpointing the position of satellites, finding stars or constellations.

You get the social bragging rights to show off your iPad and how a photo of your current location is overlaid with the app-generated sky, giving you real time results of what is right above you. There are some stunning pictures of the day (sun, etc) that makes for a super high resolution view of a celestial scene.

note :

Winner of Apple Design Award 2010, featured by Apple as Best Apps of 2009, 2010 and in iPad TV commercials***

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