Month: June 2019

Digital Transformation: Survive and Thrive in a Era of Mass Extinction

by Fred Fuld III

Whether you are an investor or you manage a business, you need to read the book Digital Transformation: Survive and Thrive in a Era of Mass Extinction by Thomas M. Siebel.

In case you are not familiar with Siebel, he is the founder and CEO of the artificial intelligence software company C3. He was named Glassdoor Top CEO last year and is a three-time recipient of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Siebel discusses in detail, but in easy to understand language, the digital transformation that is taking place in the business world.

He covers four major areas of technology, why they are important, and how they should be incorporated in businesses. The flexibility of elastic cloud computing, along with hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud is discussed. He also describes why all big data must be used with real time deductions that can be put into place.

Siebel covers the Internet of Things and how important it is to make all devices a computer. Finally, he talks about incorporating natural language processing, deep learning, and supervised learning in artificial intelligence.

Time is of the essence with digital technology. If you want to get on the bandwagon, get Digital Transformation. I highly recommend it.

Here’s Where to Get Free Tickets to the San Francisco MoneyShow & Why You Should Attend

by Fred Fuld III

If you live in or will be traveling to California, especially northern California, you definitely need to attend the San Francisco Money Show, which will be held on August 15th through the 17th at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, at 333 O’Farrell Street in San Francisco.

Some of the keynote speakers include the following:

Gary Shilling
Forbes

Daniel Fuss
Loomis, Sayles & Company, LP

George Gilder
Gilder Publishing, LLC

Sam Stovall
CFRA Research

Marilyn Cohen
Envision Capital Management, Inc.

Bruce Johnstone
Fidelity Investments

John Buckingham
The Prudent Speculator

Tom Sosnoff
tastytrade

There will also be special events relating to:

Options Trading

Cannabis Investing

Women on Wealth

Metals & Mining

Real Estate

The Exhibit Hall will have dozens of participating companies. This is your chance to meet the speakers in person and get your questions answered. Whether you are a short term trader or a long term investor, it will be worth your while to attend.

To get free tickets to the event, go to the following link and click on the red Attend Free button on the upper right.

FREE TICKETS TO THE SAN FRANCISCO MONEY SHOW

UFO Stocks

by Fred Fuld III

Do you believe UFOs really exist? If so, would you like to invest in the UFO industry? Unfortunately, you can’t just yet but you can invest in the next best thing, space travel.

The business of traveling to outer space may be the next big long term industry for investors. But you may be asking, what are the best stocks to play this investment theme?

Unfortunately, a few of these companies are privately held, but there are some, many of which are small corporations, which are close to space pure plays.

One of these companies is Maxar Technologies (MAXR) which has three divisions, space systems, imagery, and services. The space systems division provides satellites, satellite payloads, and antennas.  This Colorado based company has been around since 1969. The stock trades at 42 times forward earnings by recent earnings have been negative. It has a very favorable price to sales ratio of 0.21, and sells at 76% of book value. This $442 million market capitalization company even pays a dividend, with a yield of 0.54%.

Another space related company with a much larger market cap of $5.3 billion, is Viasat (VSAT), which designs and develops satellites along with many types of communication services. The company, which has generated negative earnings, trades at more than two and a half times sales and book value. It does not pay a dividend.

The Englewood, Colorado company EchoStar (SATS) owns and leases in-orbit satellites. The stock has a forward price to earnings ratio of 28 and trades at 98% of book value.

There are several other companies that might fit into the space category such as IntelSat (I), Trimble (TRMB), and Iridium (IRDM). However, a better strategy might be to invest in the Procure Space ETF (UFO), which has cornered a great stock ticker symbol.

This ETF owns all of the above stocks plus a couple dozen more that have ties to the space industry. UFO just started trading this year.

Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.

Elon Musk & the Tesla Annual Stockholders Meeting

Tesla Gullwingby Fred Fuld III

Yesterday,  the Tesla (TSLA) Annual Shareholders Meeting was held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. After the official part of the meeting, which took about 15 minutes, Elon Musk came out and spoke to the large crowd of attendees, along with showing a slide presentation. There was also a question and answer period after the speech.

For the last four quarters, Tesla has been outselling all competitors combined. The Model 3 is the best selling car by revenue of any car and is outselling all direct competitors combined.

The Model S has a range of 370 miles and the Model X has a 325 mile range.

Currently, the company does not have a demand problem. Sales far exceed production. In addition, 63% of trade-ins are non-premium cars.

The total cost of ownership of Teslas is much less than gasoline cars, when you take into consideration maintenance and other costs.

Every Tesla produced since October has the ability of full autonomy with just a switch out of the computer.

Tesla S1Buying a non-electric car without autonomous capability is like “Riding a horse using a flip phone.”

Elon Musk spent a lot of time discussing the gigafactories, the solar roofs, batteries, and the V3 Superchargers.

He also mentioned the Mobile Service that can even handle minor repairs.

Numerous questions and suggestions were offered as that last part of the meeting, with Musk responding thoroughly to each one.

Disclosure: Author owns TSLA.

Learn from Howard Schultz, Ron Howard, Steve Martin, Malcolm Gladwell & Other Experts for a Very Low Price

Have you ever wanted to learn more about business and entrepreneurship? How would you like to take a class from Howard Schultz, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks (SBUX) for many years? Or maybe you want to write your own book. Your teacher can be best selling author of Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell. You might want to learn a little magic for a hobby and have Penn and Teller as your instructor. Or improve your cooking skills with the help of Wolfgang Puck.

How  much would you be wiling to pay for a class from any of these individuals? $500? $1,000? $2,000? They are all available to you, plus many others, through online classes for a very reasonable $180, offered by an innovative company called MasterClass. By the way, that’s not $180 per class, that’s $180 total, all-access for all classes!

I’m trying my best to not make this post sound like a sales pitch, but I signed up for the all-access pass to MasterClass myself, and I’m extremely impressed. MasterClass, based in San Francisco, was founded in 2014. The company offers classes in the areas of business, filmmaking, culinary arts, writing, entertainment, sports, games, and science. It currently offers over 60 classes, taught by experts in their fields.

Here is just a small sample of the instructors:

  • Howard Schultz
  • Dan Brown
  • Malcolm Gladwell
  • James Patterson
  • Gordon Ramsay
  • Wolfgang Puck
  • Ron Howard
  • Martin Scorsese
  • Spike Lee
  • Helen Mirren
  • Steve Martin
  • Diane Von Furstenberg
  • Steph Curry
  • Penn & Teller

There are many, many others. I’ve already taken several classes, and realized that a lot of the advice these instructors give, no matter what their field, can be applied to becoming successful in any type of business. As an example, Academy Award winner Ron Howard teaches a class on directing movies. But from the business standpoint, he teaches, planning, collaboration, and project management.

Currently, MasterClass is offering a $30 credit when you sign up with the following link:

https://share.masterclass.com/x/F1oPRt

This gives you an All-Access pass, allowing you to take any (and even every) course you want for a full year. Think about it. You could watch drivel on TV or watch a MasterClass and learn something useful.

 

 

Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the stocks mentioned in the article at the time the article was r=written. Links for MasterClass are affiliate links.