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Market Scorecard
All good things have to come to an end. The eight-day green streak in the US ended yesterday with a red day for markets. Locally, our market was flat in the morning, then at 11:30 the Rand strengthened and stocks shot higher. That was the case for most of the day, but at 15:30, when the US market opened, our market dropped into the red.
Having a winning streak come to an end is normal though. Yesterday Apple narrowly missed having a 10-day green streak. In its history, the stock has only ever had four 10-day winning streaks, with its record being 12 straight days of gains set in May 2003. Think about that. Apple, the first listed company to be worth $1 trillion, has only had four 10-day winning streaks. Despite creating vast shareholder wealth over time, it has not all been happy days.
Yesterday the JSE All-share closed down 0.25%, the S&P 500 closed down 0.61%, and the Nasdaq closed down 0.56%.
Our 10c Worth
Byron's Beats
A team of Morgan Stanley analysts have predicted that Apple's healthcare business could have revenues of up to $313bn by 2027. That sounds very ambitious but I do agree the area is a great opportunity.
Just think of the potential preventative healthcare benefits that could come with wearable devices. Your heart rate is already being monitored but other factors such as glucose, cholesterol, even your sinus rhythm can be measured by a watch. Apple has a huge customer base. And everyone in their right mind wants to be healthy. Preventing a health issue is far nicer than curing it. That is the future of medicine.
Watch this space.
Michael's Musings
By data mining over 940 000 records, science is trying to identify one of the recipes for success. Scientists looked at three different databases to draw their conclusions.
- "This team has analyzed the nature of failure in three huge data sets following the fortunes of startup companies, researchers attempting to secure funding, and terrorist attacks."
They found that luck wasn't a prominent factor in people succeeding. They also found that simply learning from your mistakes was not enough to overcome the obstacles in your way. Their research pointed towards, how people learn from failure being a significant factor in ultimately achieving our goals.
There you have it. Make sure that when you fail you have the mechanisms in place to draw as much learning from the experience as possible.
Here is the article - How the data mining of failure could teach us the secrets of success
Bright's Banter
Jack Dorsey, CEO and co-founder of both Twitter and Square was on a podcast with Ben Greenfield sharing tips on his lifestyle and health routine which includes extended fasting to a point where he thought he was hallucinating.
If you don't have time to actually listen to the podcast I'll share some of his ways here. Your boy meditates for two hours a day, takes an ice bath as he wakes up, only eats one meal a day, like my dogs, on weekdays, and has picked up hectic fasting where he only drinks water on weekends.This man is a work of art, no wonder he looks like a billion dollars!
This hardcore hyper self-disciplined, military-like culture is actually fairly common in Silicon Valley with tech elites desperate to boost mental performance. They engage in microdosing, meditation and live on smoothies. We also know the story of the Zappos CEO who still lives in a trailer with his family after amassing a net worth of hundreds of millions.
The problem with this Spartan like life is that it has actually not been proven to have any incremental boost to your mental performance. The surest thing that has worked time and time again is consistency, the most underrated human characteristic in my opinion.
Personally I'd be a worried about colleagues, friends and loved ones who are forcing themselves down the path of malnutrition purposefully. There's nothing sexy about self inflicted hospital time!
Linkfest, Lap it Up
Reading algorithms which trade in forex markets, are having a problem knowing what to do with all the news from Brexit - Brexit headline blizzard overloads FX algos
Who says that computer games are not a real sport?
You will find more infographics at Statista
Vestact Out and About
Signing off
The JSE All-share is higher this morning. There is a whole host of data out today. There is UK GDP and manufacturing data, EU interest rate decision, US CPI and then the minutes from the last Fed meeting. A vote is also expected from the EU 27 about granting the UK an extension to Brexit. The key question will be, what strings will the EU attache to this extension?
Sent to you by Team Vestact.