Big Tech Earnings Boost NASDAQ

Hello traders everywhere. The NASDAQ has gained over 2% today spurred by fantastic earnings from the tech sector, which has seen substantial profit taking as of late.

Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) reported earnings per share of 52 cents a share, way ahead of Wall Streets estimate of 3 cents a share. Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud business, was its primary driver for growth, with sales leaping 42% on a year-over-year basis.

Amazon also received a boost in sales from its Whole Foods acquisition back in August.

MarketClub's Mid-day Market Report

Meanwhile, the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) beat Wall Street earnings expectations by 12 cents a share as its commercial cloud business topped $20 billion in annualized revenue for its fiscal first quarter. The stock was on track to post its biggest one-day gain since October of 2015. Continue reading "Big Tech Earnings Boost NASDAQ"

Stocks Fluctuate On LinkedIn News While The Fed Looms

Hello MarketClub Members everywhere. LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE:LNKD) shares have soared as high as 49% this morning after Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that it's buying the company in a deal valued at $26.2 billion. This has caused Microsoft shares to slip a little over 2% as investors digest the news.

MarketClub's Mid-day Market Report

All eyes will be on the U.S. Federal Reserve meetings that start Tuesday as they discuss fiscal policy and the trajectory of the U.S. economy in the wake of a weak employment report for the month of May. Many investors will be watching closely on Wednesday for Fed Chair Janet Yellen's statement, as she has dropped numerous hints that the central bank would introduce another interest rate hike this summer. Still, the central bank is unlikely to raise interest rates further this week due to the disappointing jobs data and unimpressive first-quarter economic growth.

Key levels to watch this week: Continue reading "Stocks Fluctuate On LinkedIn News While The Fed Looms"

And The Winners Are...

Hello MarketClub members everywhere, there are two big winners today. The first winner has to be Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), they announced earnings last night and blew away all the estimates by a wide margin. Amazon announced its first real profit in 20 years. In after-hours trading, the stock was up over 11% which made Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon a little over 20 years ago, the third wealthiest man in America right behind Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. I congratulate both Amazon and Jeff Bezos for sticking to their guns and providing an amazing, first-class service.

If you watched yesterday's video, MarketClub's Trade Triangles nailed Amazon's up move and I predicted that the stock would trade at $600 or higher. You can watch yesterday's video right here. For those of you who watched the video and took action, you just made a quick 10% on your money in less than 24 hours.

The second winner is Continue reading "And The Winners Are..."

What's Up With Apple?

Since April, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has lost over $113 billion in share value and is now only up about 3 or 4% for the year.

What is going on in the world's most heavily-held stock?

There are some things in life that cannot be explained. People trying to explain the fall in Apple will present logical reasons why, but the reality is, the market's expectations and perceptions often trump common sense.

Reality check: Apple is still a huge company and still making boat loads of money with over $200 billion in cash sitting offshore. Apple is not going to go out of business anytime soon.

Apple's cash cow is the iPhone. Sales growth, while good, is slowing down as the market becomes saturated. The last big market Apple has to conquer is China and that market is getting to be very competitive. Continue reading "What's Up With Apple?"

What Do McDonald's, Microsoft and Yahoo All Have In Common?

The simple answer is that all had new leaders in the last couple of years. But, here is the problem - they're all old school, old hat, and not so relevant anymore to investors.

Take a look at the latest casualty in the boardroom. Don Thompson was the CEO of McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD) and he held that position for just over two years, during which time McDonald's went nowhere and had zero growth. He is stepping down effective March 1st and Steve Easterbrook, will be taking over the reins of McDonald's. The problem I see with McDonald's is that it's associated with fast, unhealthy food when the entire food industry is turning to healthy eating. You only have to look at places like Baja Fresh, Chipotle and a host of new up-and-comers in the fast, casual, healthy dining service industry to see where McDonald's has completely missed the boat. Like the stock market, perception is everything and the perception is McDonald's just doesn't cut it anymore with most young parents and millennials.

Ray Kroc had a brilliant idea when he first stumbled on the original McDonald's in California back in 1954. Here he discovered Dick and Mac McDonald's fast food restaurant in San Bernardino, California. One year later he incorporated McDonald's Corp. and the rest is history. Now 60 years later, like a lot of corporations, it has lost its relevance in the marketplace and it's going to be extremely hard to play catch-up and change their image. What do you think?

When was the last time you were in a McDonald's?

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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) had a similar start to McDonald's, only this time, a young Bill Gates bought a program from a hacker for $50,000 (remember DOS?) and promptly turned around and licensed it out to IBM for a cool $1,000,000 a year. Continue reading "What Do McDonald's, Microsoft and Yahoo All Have In Common?"