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Blue Chip

Nike and Kaepernick team up – what now?

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Well, Nike has done it now… by putting their reputation on the line to back former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The seemingly unemployable QB will be part of the company’s 30th anniversary of its ‘Just Do It’ slogan. The use of Kaepernick represents a high-stakes gamble by Nike – and they are betting that enough customers are with his cause or at least indifferent to it.

 

Other faces include… Serena Williams, Odell Beckham Jr., and Shaquem Griffin. However, Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played professional sports since 2016, the year he began kneeling during the national anthem. In 2017, Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL claiming that owners conspired to keep him out of the league because of his protests.

 

So much unknown… surrounding how this advertisement will be received, not just by customers, but also but political figures. Donald Trump is going to throw a tantrum – that is a given. The rest will unfold over the coming days, weeks, and months…Nike shares were down as much as 3% on Tuesday. But we can chalk that up to the good ole uncertainty that we investors hate.

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Blue Chip

Well, that didn’t take long – Amazon is the next ‘trillionaire’

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Now Apple has company… and that “company” is Amazon. That’s right – Amazon, very quickly, hit the trillion dollar mark and has become the second company to do so. Apple and Amazon account for 8% of the S&P 500, collectively. To put this in perspective, you would need to add the market cap of the 14 largest big-box retailers to equal Amazon.

 

Investors invested without… profit for quite some time. However, over the past year, the tech giant has been showing investors the money. In 2017, second-quarter net income was $197 million; in 2018, second-quarter net income was $2.5 billion – how is that for results? There are plenty of ways to increase that income, as well, with Amazon Web Services, cloud revenue, and advertising revenue all padding those stats.

 

Not just hype… as Amazon continues to flex on just about every company out there. Does this mean the company will have nothing but success going forward? Not necessarily – but they are in good position to continue to do exceedingly well. So Amazon shareholders can continue to count their money because all is going according to plan…

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Miscellaneous

Trick-Or-Treat: Stock Market Edition

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Everyone is coming back… from vacation and going back to school, work, or whatever else it is people do with their time. We had a good summer…scratch that – we had a great summer in the stock market. But before anyone gets too excited, I think this would be a good time to look at what could be in store for investors this fall.

 

Trade, trade, trade… yes, the global trade war still looms large and could be devastating to the markets. If trade tensions escalate, it could become difficult for businesses to get the materials they need. If prices are too high, executives could decide to cut back on spending. Reduced spending would be bad news for the economy and could even lead to a recession.

 

But we’re okay, for now… because the S&P 500 is up 8% and the Nasdaq up 17% this year. However, September has been hard on investors in recent memory, and the midterm elections could add to the September woes. Summer was hot for stocks – but the fall could be downright scary.

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International

Here’s more on JD.com (because we LOVE scandals)

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Trending on Weibo which is China’s ‘Twitter’ so-to-speak where users are spreading CEO Richard Liu’s mugshot around like wildfire. Apparently, founding a multi-billion dollar company makes you very well-known in China, like a celebrity of some sort. In most other markets, this news would be uninteresting at best.

 

What makes JD.com so special… compared to its other competitors like Alibaba? Well, for one, the company vows to sell only authentic goods through its platform, and knock-off goods represent a significant problem that has plagued Chinese rivals for quite some time. JD.com is also freaky fast and delivers 90% of products within the first or second day they are ordered (remind you of anyone?).

 

From humble beginnings… which included Liu dreaming of eating meat because his family was so poor, they could only eat pork once or twice a year. When the future-CEO got into Renmin University, a high-ranking university in Beijing, his village donated 76 eggs and 500 yuan to send him there. Now, $7 billion later, is eating well and [allegedly] breakin’ all the rules!

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