My Daily Notes

My unfiltered thoughts from 11/15/2017

Caleb Dismuke

Published in

SAM-

4 min readNov 16, 2017

11/15/2017

Business and economic news

Time launches Sports Illustrated T.V.|Axios

From the article:

Time Inc. is launching its Sports Illustrated TV tomorrow on Amazon Prime. The channel will include five original shows, original documentaries featuring stars like LeBron James, exclusive interviews, and sport-related shows and movies acquired by Amazon.

How much will it cost? 7-day free trial, then $4.99/month.
There will also be an exclusive SI swimsuit series.

Target’s sales rise, but spending pinches profits.|WSJ.

Target posted higher quarterly sales but profits fell and the retailer gave a disappointing earnings outlook for the holiday period, as the big-box chain spends heavily to revamp stores, lower prices and raise wages.
Target plans to spend $7 billion over the next 3 years in stores and improvements.

Home Depot beats across the board and raises forecast.|Some highlights per Business Insider.

Home Depot beat on both the top and bottom lines as the hurricanes boosted demand for emergency products and rebuilding materials.
Same-store sales came in at up 7.9% year-over-year, ahead of the up 5.9% that Wall Street was expecting.
The company raised its full-year forecasts.

WSJ headline: “American Industry picks up Steam”.|WSJ. Some highlights below. H/T Axios.

Business investment has risen, a sign companies are spending to increase productivity.
In the first quarter, investment in plants climbed a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 14.8%, the highest since early 2014. Investment in equipment climbed 8.8% in the second quarter, the highest in almost two years.
Stanley Black & Decker CEO James Loree cited a shrinking wage differential between U.S. and foreign workers and rapid technological advances in the sector. In his particular business, “end users love locally made products,” Mr. Loree added in an interview on Tuesday.

Mario brothers is coming to the big screen.|WSJ

From the article:

Illumination Entertainment, which makes animated films for Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures, is close to an agreement with Nintendo Co. to make an animated “Super Mario Bros.” movie based on the 32-year-old videogame series about a pair of sibling plumbers who fight evil turtles and mushrooms in a fantasy kingdom, said people with knowledge of the discussions.

Chinese tech giant Tencent, owner of WeChat posted a 69% rise in profit last quarter in part because of its expanding ad business and hit game Honour of Kings. Ad sales grew 48% as mobile gaming almost doubled. The company recently acquired a 12% stake in Snapchat.

Senate tax bill-Winners and losers.|Axios.

PPI came in higher than expected at 2.79% on expectations of 2.40%. What is PPI and why is it important? It can be a leading indicator of future inflation. Will producers pass their price increases along to the consumer? If so, it will show up in monthly CPI data.

Buffalo Wild Wings shares soared 26% after the company received a $2.3 billion dollar takeover bid from Roark Capital per Reuters. The price of $150/share was a 28% premium to Monday’s close.

David Swensen, Yale University’s CIO said the lack of market volatility in the current geopolitical environment is a major concern and warned another crash is possible.

The list is too long to name all the big time finance guys warning about a crash. Sure, sooner or later stocks will fall, but for investors with a long-term horizon, it is meaningless to worry about.

Bloomberg will launch their Twitter network on December 18th.|Axios