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GE Announces Investment and Selloff Transactions

Shares of General Electric traded lower after the announcement of the recent acquisitions and business transactions.

General Electric and Iraq 

General Electric Company Oil & Gas has successfully sealed the partnership with Iraqi Ministry of Oil to take the energy sector of the country to the next level.

Based on the reports, the company will provide the most innovative equipments to empower the fleet of the Ministry and to make sure that the knowledge transfer, skills development are done with efficiency. Additionally, the agreement focuses on the creation of job upon the implementation and the building of skills of talented professionals and youth talents.

Fayadh Hassan Nima, Iraq’s Deputy Minister of Oil, explained that the oil and gas sector serves as the backbone of the national economy and they  are committed to strengthening it by leveraging the latest techniques.

“The Framework Agreement with GE Oil & Gas is planned to bring transformational growth to the industry by enhancing the operational efficiency of all our assets and boosting productivity” Nima added.

Another goal  of the partnership is to widen its familiarity in terms of Oil & Gas projects globally.

Rami Qasem, President and Chief Executive GE Oil & Gas, shared that the new GE-Iraq strategic plan further strengthens their long term partnerships with the Ministry of Oil and with the country and builds on the great capabilities they have built up in country over many years.

“The agreement also marks the first application of our advanced Digital solutions, flare gas solutions and financing. These are all landmark initiatives we are proud to drive forward with our Iraqi partners. The agreement is a strong demonstration of our focus on creating new jobs for Iraqis and to accelerate localization initiatives,” Qasem explained further.

General Electric will keep on delivering to its local customers through its local offices in Bagdad, Erbil and Basra.

General Electric and Western Alliance

In other news, General Electric announced the completion of the sale of GE Capital’s Franchise Finance US hotel business to the Western Alliance Bank.

Over the last 12 months, General Electric has increased by 14.78 percent despite the consolidated revenue on the downside due to the sale of financial assets. For the record, the firm has made around $166 billion signed deals and $148 billion were closed transaction. Technically, the current ending net investment stands at 1.3 billion including the deal.

GE Capital Chairman and CEO Keith Sherin said in a news report that they (General Electronic) will continue to make strong progress on closing their previously announced sales as they work to divest the majority of GE Capital Assets.

The conglomerate company also expressed their regards to their Franchise hotel business employees as they transfer to the Western Alliance.

The Power, Renewable Energy, Energy Connections and Aviation segments were among the driver of growth  of the firm. Adding to this, the company makes an effort on the industrial business.

Moreover, the General Electric also expressed their plan to invest around $340 million in the Egyptian market this 2016. It was confirmed by Ayman Khattab, GE President and CEO for North East Africa, that their company were having discussions with a foreign oil company operating in Egypt.

Recently, the shares of General Electric lost 0.29 percent or 0.09 points to $30.67 at the close after opening at $30.81. It has an intraday peak of $30.86 and an intraday low of $30.40. The multinational conglomerate corporation had a market capitalization of 282.75 billion and a price earnings ration of 45.93 with a dividend yield of 3.00 percent.

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Amazon Rises As India Imposes New Rule

On Wednesday, Amazon reported the upbeat data of customer orders for home services as the shares  of its shares came in strong despite the new rule implemented in India.

The e-commerce juggernaut confirmed that its orders in plumbing and TV’s escalated by 20 percent on a monthly basis after it opened the platform in 2015. In relation to this, Amazon also said that more than 85 million U.S. customers patronize products wherein installation is much needed afterwards.

Based on the estimate  of the spokesperson of Amazon Home Services, there has been around 36 million pre-packaged services, although the contractors who have signed up was undisclosed. The home service offered by the firm caters 30 metro areas and customer orders can reach Lon Angeles, New York and Washington specifically.

Amazon in India

The American e-commerce and cloud computing company did not expect the sudden amendment of the investment rule in India.

According to the notice released regarding the foreign direct investment (FDI) last Tuesday, the Indian government forbids the prominent e-commerce business in India to have above 25 percent sales from just one merchant.

Beforehand, India permits a hundred percent of foreign direct investment in online retail businesses which are considered as market places. After the notice, FDI will be banned from inventory based models and the e-commerce market won’t have any control  on the selling price for goods and services they offer.

Amazon India has not announced detailed response to these changes except that it was still in the process of examining the effect of the new rule.

On the other hand, Snapdeal immediately expressed its view on the modification. The Indian based marketplace  wrote on its e-mail that the guidelines recognize the transformative role that e-commerce marketplaces will play in the India market. It added that it was a comprehensive announcement, which later on can open doors for accelerated growth of the sector (e-commerce) in India.

Amazon performs well

Meanwhile, Amazon topped the list as the most reputable company in America for the third time on the recent ranking of Reputation Institute. The ranking was based on the commitment of the company to performance, innovation and in providing top products and services. Part of the criteria were also the workplace, citizenship and leadership within the company.

Around 240,000 people participated in the poll in countries such as Brazil, Russia, the U.S. China and many more.

Shares of Amazon opened at $580.05 before it settled at $593.86 with a market capitalization of 278.14 billion. It has a session high of 595.85 and a session low of 576.50 while its price earnings ratio was at 478.87.

The company has a consensus rating  of Buy and a consensus price target of $723.43. It has a 200-day moving average price of $592.81 and a 50-day moving average price of $553.76. Amazon has a 12-month high $696.44 and a 12-month low of $368.34.

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Will Facebook get in China?

Speculations arose that Marck Zuckerburg finally set the deal to create a localized version of Facebook in China after his photo in Beijing circulated in the social media.

Following the controversial photo is the information that the CEO of Facebook met with the Minister of Propaganda of China to discuss his business. One of the rumored reasons of his visit is to officially launch Facebook in China, which hasn’t been allowed to operate since 2009.

China limits the number of foreign companies who can run their business in the country. But aside from this, China implements limitation when it comes to internet freedom and does not welcome much the use VPN. Also, the government has been watchful about the released articles or any forms of materials against China in the online world.

Further to this , China operates under a set of rules imposed by the government, such as the China Cybersercurity Law to guide the foreign companies accordingly on their operations.

However, if chances side on Zuckerburg, he might be able to enter China, but it must comply on the conditions which China might lay. Based on the report released, Facebook needs to have a partnership with a local company, store user data in China and make the biggest firewall.

China prohibits certain contents of the internet and social media through its Great Firewall and by obligating the media companies to examine their own contents before posting. Chinese authorities do not allow any sensitive words to be broadcasted widely and in some cases, they even remove these type of posts.

If Facebook is to enter China, it must make necessary adjustments. One of which is finding the most accurate censorship apps to assure that its users are still guided in accordance to their rule. All the information which will be posted and available have to be screened properly before they get available on line. And probably, Facebook must hide the pages or accounts of the Chinese users worldwide. Thus, their accounts will be treated in a separate way.

Additionally, China asks all the foreign companies to tie up with the local companies. When it comes to Facebook, the country hoped that the social media will share experiences and improve mutual understanding with their internet firms. Practically, Facebook needs to instruct the domestic company it is partnered  just like how it runs its own.

Facebook also needs to accept the condition of China that all the data related to its citizens must be kept in China only. The government of China wants full control of the information of its constituents so that it can have a full access anytime. In response to this, Facebook released its side of the request. It was written on their statement that they may access, preserve and share information to address the legal request as long as the law requires  it.

On the trading session earlier, Facebook was up by 0.36 percent at $112.25. The stock opened at $111.36 and reached a peak of 112.88. Currently, it has a market capitalization of 320.64 billion and a price earnings ratio of 87.02.

It has an average rating of Buy from fifty six investment analysts and a consensus price target of $128.66. The company has a 12-month high of $117.59 and a 12-month  low of $72.00. Facebook’s 200-day moving average is $101.98 and its 50-day moving average is at $107.40.

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Apple loses on e-book price case, to pay $450 million

Apple loses on e-book price case, to pay $450 million

After the decision of the supreme court to dismiss the appeal of Apple in the e-book case, the multi-tech juggernaut company is required to pay $450 million to e-book consumers as it had been allegedly working Apple together with major publishers to augment the  prices of e-book.

Although the company reiterated that it did not do the allegation, the highest court of America had made its decision on the case. Apple is obliged to pay more than $560 million covering all the fees, including the payment to the state attorney. However, it was clarified that $450 million was intended for the consumers of e-books.

"Most e-book purchasers will receive reimbursement for the higher prices Apple's conduct caused them to pay through automatic credits at their e-book retailers. They will be able to apply these credits to future purchases,” explained by the Justice Department

In the statement released by the Supreme Court it explained that Apple orchestrated a conspiracy among the publishers to raise e-book prices. According to the government attorneys, the multi-tech company was found to be raising the price of e-book copy of the New York times best sellers from $19.19 to $14.99.

The publishers included in the conspiracy are Hachette Book Group Inc., Harper Collins Publishers LLC, Macmillan, Penguin Group Inc., and Simon 7 Shuster Inc.. Those who purchased the New York times best sellers will be given $6.05 to $6.54 for each e-book while those who purchased the non best sellers will receive $1.39 to $1.50 per e-book.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote explained that Apple was totally involved in the scheme and has violated the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act. Attorney Steve Berman added that Apple was caught red-handed performing the pricing scheme to increase the e-book prices and the case was a true statement to the tangible benefits the law can bring consumers.

Encryption case against the FBI

In other news, the encryption issue between Apple and FBI has not been resolved. And just recently, Even Hillary Clinton gave her side of the issue. The presidential candidate said that the case is considered to be the worst dilemma ever on her speech in Michigan. Clinton added that there might be a means to avoid breaking data and to solve the criminal activity and any act of terrorism.

The Justice Department made a new filing again to convince the federal judge to review the case. The department wrote in their filing that Apple may perform the  passcode-bypass in its own lab…without revealing to the government how it did so. “Therefore, granting the application will not affect the technological security of any Apple iPhone nor hand the government a master key,” the justice department wrote.

Apple shares slumps

Apple was down by 1.14 or 1.11 percent when it traded at $101.87 in the session earlier. The stock opened at $102.39 with a session low of 100.50 and a session high of 102.83. It has a market capitalization of 573.2 billion, with a price earnings ratio of 10.82. Currently, Apple has a dividend  yield of 2.02 percent and trading volume of 35,919,450.

The multi-tech company has a 50-day moving average  of price of $97.00 and a 200 day moving average price of $108.37. It has a 52-week low of $92.00 and its 52 week high is $134.54. Apple has an average rating of Buy from forty-five stock analysts and a consensus price objective of $136.48.

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Apple gets support from tech companies against FBI demand

Apple remained firm on their stand not to let the government break into their security measures as FBI handled a court order to unlock the iPhone of the killer at the San Bernardino shooting incident.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, stated in his interview that the case was not only about one phone, it was about the future.“For all of those people who want to have a voice, but they’re afraid, we are standing up and we are standing up for our customers because protecting them we view as our job” Cook emphasized on his interview.

The multitech company prioritized the privacy built in every iPhone released in the market. Thus, it shrugged away the idea of compromising the security of the iPhone users to comply with the request of the FBI.

In connection with the claim of the FBI, a couple killed 14 people and left 20 wounded in a shooting incident at a holiday celebration of the San Benradino County Department of Public Health on December 2 2015. From then on, the FBI has been seeking for the unlocking of the iPhone owned by one of the killers.

The California federal court has issued a federal court order, where Apple is requested to cooperate in the demand of the FBI to unlock the iPhone of the shooter. It was revealed from the reports that Apple has been creating an intensified security measures to hinder any access of the law enforcement the iPhones.

The FBI wanted Apple to create a software which can erase the security data after entering 10 incorrect passwords. Cook clarified that what the FBI wants them to do is equivalent to cancer.

“The only way to get information – at least currently, the only way we know – would be to write a piece of software that we view as sort of the equivalent of cancer. We think it’s bad news to write. We would never write it. We have never written it – and that is what is at stake here. We believe that is a very dangerous operating system.” Cook explained.

The tech companies were seen to be united with the current issues as most of them showed their support for Apple.

Bill Gates cleared his stand on the issue since his first statement was taken as a support for the government. The founder of Microsoft pointed out the struggle in determining where the right of privacy must be prioritized over the prevention of terrorist outbreaks.

Further to this, Reform Government Surveillance stated that tech companies shouldn’t be required to build backdoors to the technologies that keep their user’ information secure.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, expressed his support to Apple not to create backdoors in encrypted communications.

“Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users’ privacy. We know that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face significant challenges in protecting the public against crime and terrorism,” Pichai wrote on his Twitter account last week.

“We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders. But that’s wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent.” CEO of Google added.

As the quest for prioritizing either customer privacy or prevention of terrorist attack remained to be vague, some experts shared different opinions regarding the issue.

Steve Wilson, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, explained that both sides in debate clearly have a lot at stake. He also mentioned the inclusion of Michael Hayden, a former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, as one of the observers in the case.

“That level of disputation tells you this is largely a political issue, a test case, a precedent in the making,” the analyst concluded as most of the government observers have broken ranks in supporting the multi-tech company.

Phillip Rogaway of University of California said that the decision of Apple is part of the reason it has found itself in a precarious legal situation.

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Cisco pushes for another team-up

Cisco announced its latest team-up with Pivotal to improve and widen its cloud computing space on February 16.

Peder Ulander, vice president of Cosco’s cloud and the Managed Services unit, said that with the integration of Cisco Metapos and Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Cisco is pulling together the leading managed private cloud solution with the leading cloud-native developer experience to help customers quickly and easily modernize their IT along their digital transformation journey.

What does the partnership bring to the company?

Under the agreement, Cisco and Pivotal will sell the company’s cloud computing services  respectively to provide a complete cloud computing services to the customers which covers private, public and hybrid clouds. Futher to this, the traders will be asked to sell the open-source cloud development platform of Pivotal.

Pivotal is going to help the company in deploying a free and yet hard to use open source technology almost similar with the free operating system popularly known as Linux.

The company expects the Pivotal Cloud Foundry to deliver positive results. "As enterprises modernize for the cloud era, they can rest assured that Cisco Metapod provides a custom, managed solution that addresses the complex and unique constraints specific to their requirements. And with Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Metapod customers gain a comprehensive, modern, enterprise-grade cloud-native platform that delivers the flexibility, speed and scale needed to quickly build and deploy next-generation applications.”

However, market experts believe that the team up of the two companies is not in time as Cisco faces different strategic plans at the moment. Cisco has been expanding it’s network switch and router roots, providing better services for its retailers.Additionally, Cisco has been seeking for ways to go along with the challenge caused by software-defined networking and networking functions virtualization.

For the record, Cisco sold the majority of its stake with EMC Corp to provide cloud hardware. In connection with the above mentioned partnership, EMC holds majority of the stakes of Pivotal. Pivotal happened to be one of the considered possible stocks to hold an initial public offering in 2016.

Cisco current figures

Cisco traded at $25.84 per share in the session earlier with a market capitalization of $135 billion an a dividend yield of 1.04. The stock was able to trade 40,401,697 shares in the session as it changed hands higher for 2.91 percent.

The multi-tech company has  a one-year low of $22.46 and one-year high of $30.31 while its 50-day moving average is $24.38 and 200-day moving average of $26.50. Cisco has a price earnings ratio of 12.79.

In the company’s latest quarterly earnings report, it gained a total revenue of $11.93 billion  for the period. The stock  has $0.57 earnings per share, beating the analysts expectation of $0.03. On the other hand, Cisco gained a consensus rating of Buy and an average  objective of $30.22.

The senior vice president of the company has sold 88, 331 shares at an average price of $26.87 which led him to attain $2,373,453.97 worth of total shares in the company. In addition to, the executive president sold 67, 640 shares of the company as well, which left him a total of 378,053 total shares in the company.

Cisco designs and sells lines of products, provides services and delivers integrated solutions to develop and connect networks around the world, building the Internet. It is also involved in  in designing, manufacturing and selling Internet Protocol (IP)-based networking and other products related to the communications and information technology (IT) industry, and provides services associated with these products and their use.

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HP shares up, short interest declines

In session earlier, HPQ traded higher at $9.41, an increase of 0.39 or 4.38 percent with a market capitalization of $ 17.61 billion. The stock opened at $9.09 and obtained a session high of $9.44 while its session low was at $9.03. HPQ has a dividend yield of 5.27 percent and price earnings ratio of 2.48.

The American based global information technology company faced an unexpected short interest the previous month. The reports disclosed a drop of 12.4 percent with 34,513,975 shares short interest. It was revealed that the stock had 1.9 percent shares sold short at the moment an the short-interest ratio of the tech company fell to 1.6.

Out of thirty three analysts, the stock gained a consensus average rating of the Hold. One analyst issued a sell rating, nineteen of them rated the company with Hold rating while twelve analysts issued  a Buy rating. HP has a consensus price objective of $21.17.

According to the legal filing sent to the Securities & Exchange Commission, the director of the company, Rajiv Gupta bought 80,000 shares of HP at an average price of $12.00 per share. The total shares attained was $960,000.00 which gave the director a total of 105,766 shares in the techno firm.

HP surpassed the analyst expectation on its previous earnings report. Analysts issued a consensus estimate of $0.44 but the stock obtained $0.49. Likewise, the analysts released a revenue estimate of $25.71, however, the company was able to obtain revenue twice the projected figure at $25.71 billion.

On the list released by Zachs Investment, HPQ is included among the top value style scores. The analyst from the leading investment research firm, issued 2.47 rating for the techno company an indication median position on the rating scale of the firm. Technically, Zacks has a rating scale of 1 as strong Buy, 3 means hold and 5 is a Strong Sell rating. The stock is projected to follow a bullish trend at $18.

HPQ has a 50-day moving average  of $10.26 and a 200-day moving average of $12.17. It has a 52-week low  of $8.91 and attained a 52-week high of $21.17.

Recently, Hewlett-Packard introduced its newest printer in India. The HP DeskJet Ink Advance 4535 is speculated to be Rs. 8500 worth when released.

The techno company said that the printer delivers smudge and waterproof prints. "The inks have been changed from dye-based to pigment-based and the chemical composition of the these inks do not dry, or result in faded prints," the spokesperson explained.

Aside from being wireless, the printer has the same operating features which include mobile application support, scanning, high quality printing and scanning.

HPQ is set to release its quarterly earnings report on February 24 wherein most of the market analysts posted $0.41 EPS for the stock. The previous reported EPS was at 0.93 which covered the quarter until the end of December 2015.

HP Inc is popularly known as a global provider of products, technologies, software, solutions and services to individual consumers, small-and medium sized businesses and large enterprises which include customers in the government health and education centers. The American based company offers the largest portfolio products and services in the IT industry and it also designs its solutions to provide foundation in the areas of security, cloud, mobility and big data.

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Microsoft makes a big experiment in China

The multi-tech company is on its way  of developing a Turing test in China. Turing Test is a test conducted to see if a human can detect whether the person answering a question is human or a computer.

Dr. Yongdong Wang,  CTO of ARD and Managing Director of Appplications & Services Microsoft , said  that the company is working with Xiaoice which mean “little bing” in China.

"Xiaoice is teaching us what makes a relationship feel human, and hinting at a new goal for artificial intelligence: not just analyzing databases and driving cars, but making people happier,” revealed by Dr. Wang.

He added in his written statement that Xiaoice can exchange views on any topic, If it's something she (Xiaoice) doesn't know much about, she will try to cover it up. If that doesn't work, she might become embarrassed or even angry, just like a human would.

Xiaoice is not popular  outside Asia, although it has been introduced before and gain a slight interest from the market, but not long before it actually become sensational, the interest disappeared.

Microsoft has been investing in Artificial Intelligence. Notably, Microsoft Garage, the house application development project has used A.I. Technology on some of its applications made.

The biggest core components of Microsoft businesses have been utilizing artificial intelligence, the Cortana and the Office respectively.

"Through the tens of billions of conversations she's had over the past 18 months, Xiaoice has added considerably to her store of known conversational scenarios, and improved her ability to rank answer candidates. We can now claim that Xiaoice has entered a self-learning and self-growing loop [and] she is only going to get better," wrote by Dr. Wang.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has chosen ten tech accelerators  who are designed to help new companies to a running start, offering guidance, networking and funding. According to the company, each member of the current class of companies specializes in some component of machine learning or the computer science behind the algorithms that lets  software spot patterns and react accordingly. 

Further to this, The Startups range from an artificial-intelligence-powered doctor bot to a university recruiting tool.

Under the four-month program, the selected companies will have access to the machine-learning engineers of Microsoft and possibly an access to the cloud computing platform of the firm.

"When we started, what we had in mind is, 'What can we do (to help) great startups that will eventually put Microsoft in the center of the ecosystem?,” the spokesperson of Microsoft said.

In other news, it was reported that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sold around $250,000 to $500,000 worth  of Microsoft shares, marking the largest single stock sale by anyone on the court in more than a decade ever made.

Recently, the high court agreed to handle a case which involves rumored defects of the console of Microsofts very own Xbox 360. The decision of the chief justice to sell that large of stock would only mean his withdrawal from the case. Generally, federal judges are prohibited to take part in a case where a company they own shares is involved.

"We're not talking about grandpa's stock in the family business where a justice might have some sentimental reason for holding onto the shares. These are major corporations who regularly come before the court,"explained by Arthur Hellman, a judicial ethics expert.

For the record, the multi-tech company faced a case in 2011 whereas Microsoft shrugged off the patent claim of a Canadian firm. The Supreme Court sided with the Canadian firm, although Microsoft asked for a reconsideration of the validity of the patent information. Microsoft was forced to give off a $290 million payday.

In the heat of the controversy, a question was raised. Why does any justice continue to own individual companies’ stock if it will force him out of a case?

Microsoft Corporation is engaged in developing, licensing and supporting a range of software products and services.The Company’s products include operating systems for computing devices, servers, phones, and other intelligent devices; server applications for distributed computing environments; productivity applications; business solution applications; desktop and server management tools; software development tools; video games; and online advertising.

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Coke invests in a juice maker in Africa

Coca Cola has made a strategic business deal with Chi Limited, the Nigerian fast-moving consumer goods company which provides consumer products in the dairy, beverages and snack sectors, to  deepen the its influence in the African market.

The multinational beverage corporation has made a 40 percent equity investment with Chi Ltd. Also, it plans to widen this investment up to 100 percent to fully acquire Chi Ltd in three years upon the approval of the regulatory board. The two beverage industries decided to be engaged with long term goals and other opportunities to strengthen their business relationship.

In 2015, the Coca Cola Company had a total of 45 percent share of the $18.12 billion soda market in Africa and Middle East, while Tropical General Investment (TGI) had a 4.2 percent market share and covered $337 million in retail sales. This current investment of Coca Coca Cola in the African region marks the biggest acquisition of the company abroad since it purchased Dubai-based Aujan Industries in 2012.

Under the business deal, the two companies are permitted to leverage their respective investments and expertise to provide wider lists  of options and to escalate consumer availability. Furthermore, the agreement targets better route-to-market, innovation and efficiency.

Coca Cola has amplified its presence in Africa’s high-growth value added dairy category as it expands its company’s portfolio in West Africa. Way back in 2014, the firm bet $17 billion to accelerate its market influence in Africa. Included in the priorities of this  investment is funding new manufacturing lines, distribution capabilities and cold drink equipment. Also, it has created more jobs and opportunities for the said region.

“For more than 30 years Chi’s leadership has built a greatly admired business that has quickly grown to become Nigeria’s leading producer and distributor of value-added dairy and juice products and we are delighted to enter the next phase of our growth journey together,” Nathan Kalumbu, President Coca Cola Eurasia and Africa said.

“Coca-Cola and Chi share the same commitment to Africa, to investing in our operations and to continuous innovation, and our relationship will allow us to continue to provide Nigerian consumers the No. 1 beverage in each of the categories we serve” Kalumbu added.

The company aims to build relationships that will result into further expansions and would set a regional footprint and product portfolio.

In return, Chi Ltd will be able to attain its growth plans as it earns access to the product portfolio of the American beverage manufacturer with the help of the business relationship of TGI with the Coca Cola Company.

Cornelis Vink, Chairman of TGI Group and Chi Ltd, said that they stay firmly committed to growing  their investments in the Nigerian economy, increasing employment and local content while supporting the communities they operate in.

“Chi will continue to provide its consumers with innovative products in the dairy, juices and snacks categories,” Vink said further.

Moreover, the president of the Coca Cola Central, East and West Africa stated that they are extremely optimistic about Africa’s continued economic and social growth. The company also recognizes the significance of making sure they stay a step ahead of changing consumer tastes through new products and broader business portfolio.

Meanwhile, a World Health Organization commission pushes for special taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages after the same incident in Mexico, where taxes were charged against soda and junk food.  According to WHO, there are around 10.3 million overweight children younger than 5 years old in Africa, which actually went twice the number for the last 16 years.

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USD firms up after  Fed kept rates on hold

While most of the market experts were disappointed with then the decision of the Federal Reserve to maintain its interest rate, a basket of currencies appears to benefit as they were pulled higher.

The dollar traded higher than the Japanese Yen to 118.6, an increase of 0.17 percent, almost hitting the three-week high of 119.05 recorded on January 27. The U.S dollar index moved a bit higher at 99.92 compared to the seven-week high of 99.95.

The Fed stated that its committee is closely monitoring global economic and financial developments and is assessing their implications for the labor market and inflation, and for the balance of risks to the outlook. In relation with this, the central bank decided to maintain its interest rate during the end of its policy meeting yesterday. The last time the bank raised its interest rate was last December 2015.

The bank believed that the economy of the U.S. is still on track for moderate growth and a stronger labor market even with gradual rate increase.

Meanwhile, the US dollar experienced a bit of pressure in the vague direction of the central bank of its interest rate in the future.

In other news, investors keep their eyes on the outcome of the monetary policy assembly of the Bank of Japan happening this Friday, January 29. Market experts do not expect any changes to happen on the banks policy meeting, however, due to the current economic data and the condition of the Japanese economy, it might consider implementing necessary stimulus to alleviate the problem.

The kiwi recovers at the trading session

Amid the decision of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to keep its interest rate and the positive New Zealand trade report, the kiwi was able to edge higher in the session on Thursday morning. The currency recovered from its recent loss the past few days as the statement from the Fed had a slight effect on its U.S. counterpart.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand kept its interest rate unchanged at 2.50 percent although its governor stated that headline inflation will take longer to get back into the central banks target between 1 percent and 3 percent than the estimated figures before.  Moreover, the bank might need more rate cuts in the long run.

“Growth is expected to increase in 2016 as a result of continued strong net immigration, tourism, a solid pipeline of construction activity, and the lift in business and consumer confidence.” The bank reported.

Analysts estimated the trade deficit to decline to NZ$131 million last December, but according to the data from the Statistics New Zealand, it narrowed to NZ$53 million last month.

The  kiwi changed hands  higher than the greenback as the pair hit 0.6460 during the trading session. NZD/USD found support at 0.6398 and resistance at 0.6513.  The New Zealand dollar went higher than the euro as the pair hit 1.6846, up 0.58 percent.

The Aussie jumps during in the session earlier

The Aussie bounce back and almost hit the three-week high in the trading session on Thursday behind the Fed policy decision. With the release of its import data, import prices dropped by 0.3 percent still beating the expected 0.08 percent fall by the market analysts.

At the start  of the week, the Aussie was pulled higher by the positive inflation data of Australia, also the CPI also disclosed an increase of 0.4 percent during the fourth quarter.

The Australian dollar was higher than its U.S. counterpart when AUD/USD hit 0.7063 at the trading session, the pair found support at 0.6988 and resistance at 0.7081. Meanwhile, AUD/NZD hit 1.0941, up 0.11  percent.

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e-bay sets new office ahead Q4 earnings report

E-bay has announced another business venture in Indonesia ahead of the announcement of its quarterly earnings. The firm  also have set new performance standards as its shares traded higher.

E-bay’s new office in Indonesia

The US based e-commerce firm has a plan of  building a representative office in Indonesia as it is likely to begin a search for Head for Cross-border Trade. The plan is one of the expansion strategies of the company in Indonesia.

“We still need to decide [the best location and time for the office to open], as our goal for the moment is to find the best candidate,” explained by Daniel Feiler, Senior Director of Communications for the eBay Asia Pacific.

The head is tasked to represent the company in Indonesia and will also be the one who will look for local products which will be marketed globally.

Prior to this, e-bay had set business venture in Indonesia called Blanja with the supervision of state-owned telecommunication provider Telkom. The e-commerce company will keep on investing and pursues further development of Blanja.

The Director of Innovation and Strategic Portfolio at Telkom said that the Gross Market value growth has been good enough especially since December 2015. Indonesian government recognized the help of the e-commerce company in introducing Indonesia as a potential land capital for global players.

Ebay newest performance standards

E-bay will  start evaluating sellers based on a new system which will measure two aspects; defect rate and on-time shipping.

The e-commerce firm has announced that it has amended the way it carry out tracking for boomerang packages. These packages are those which are returned to a seller because of the buyer’s address mismatch. Ebay said that sellers could upload a second tracking number and won’t be penalized under the new On-Time Shipping metric which was opposite to what the sellers understand before.

"As of yesterday, the system has been changed so that second tracking number uploaded doesn't pre-empt the first tracking number. As long as the first tracking number shows that it's on time, the second tracking number will not change that,” one of e-bay moderators explained.

Furthermore, ebay  reiterated that its  customer service won’t be able to remove on-time shipping misses in case a seller indicated an issue and resulted into conflicting information that happened a week before they complain.

Ebay current figures

During the past week, the shares of the ebay increased by 1.63 percent,but dropped by 4.45 percent on a 4-week basis with a market capitalization of 31.38 billion.

The shares of the stock have outperformed the Standard and Poor 500 and even rallied to 3.27  percent for the last month and 7.3 percent for the last 52 weeks. The 12-month high of the e-commerce company is at $29.83 and its 12-month low is at $22.11.

The stock has 50-day moving average of $27.2 and a 200-day moving average of $27.15. According to the information from the Securities and Exchange, Lee Jae Hyun, an officer from e-bay sold 20 000 shares at $29.25 per share and a total of $588,000.

Ebay’s quarterly reports

Ebay is set to  disclose its fourth quarter earnings report on January 27. Analysts are expecting for a quarterly revenue of $2.3 billion and earnings of 50 cents per share. The e-commerce firm  benefits from the development of e-commerce business in the United States and around the world.

In the third-quarter earnings report of the company last October, it reported 43 cents per share on revenue of $2.1 billion.

eBay Inc., or popularly known as e-bay, is a global technology company which has created an open source platform that provides software developers and merchants access to its applications programming interfaces (APIs) to develop software and solutions for commerce.

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Mcdonald’s to open more restaurants in Russia

Mcdonalds announced its expansion plan in Russia as it is set to build more than 60 restaurants in the country right after the success of its affordable menus in the midst of unstable economic condition.  

The chief executive of Mcdonald’s Russia, Khamzat Khasbulatov, told the media that the eating-out industry has been stagnating since the beginning of 2015 but they have seen significant growth of their market share as they continued expansion.

Khasbulatov revealed that the company had to make serious adjustments to its business model after sanctions and the weakening of the rouble put pressure on its margins. The company had been raising prices below broader inflation and would continue with this strategy to remain competitive, the chief executive added.

Mcdonalds also puts extra effort on its local suppliers as the company believed that local supply has a big role to play in supporting their profitability.

Accordingly, the well-known fast food chain said that its capital spending will likely focus on modernization, investment in local supply and likely on opening more restaurants for this year. Moreover, the firm emphasized that it is not only important to localize the food processing but relatively its production.

"We intend to fully localize production in Russia, not because of sanctions but those being our long-standing plans," Khasbulatov said. The company will fully replace imported chicken  and cattle meat with Russian analogues within 2 years and will have its own production in Russia by 2017.

Mcdonalds has been  operating in  Russia for 26 years already and has successfully increased the share of the local supply to almost 85 percent. Last year, Macdonalds opened 59 restaurants.  Further to this, the fast food chain aims to achieve full localization, which will hopefully lead to a smoother impact of currency swings and to the food import ban of Russia.

Russia remained to be an interesting region in terms of capital allocation for Macdonalds. Additionally, the foundation that they have built gives the company a more positive outlook in the long run and pushes the company to prepare for even more intense development.

Meanwhile, McDonalds Corp chief Steve Easterbrook might be sending the company in a positive trend this 2016. The operations and customer service of the company are believed to have improved compared before plus the all day breakfast and other menu became better respectively. The success of the all-day breakfast is expected to increase the global same store sales by 3.2 percent.

The fast-food company is now trading almost $120 right after the 26 percent increase the previous year.

Last Monday, Macdonalds posted its quarterly earnings report, whereas the EPS for the quarter is $1.31 higher than the expected $0.08 claimed by the analysts. The reported revenue of the company for the quarter is $6.34 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $6.22 billion.

Mcdonalds has a 50-day moving average of $117.28 and a 200-day moving average price of $106.04. The 52-week low of the firm is at $87.50 and a 52-week high of $120.3. Some research analyst set a price target of $108.00 and issued a neutral rating for then fast-food chain giant. However, the firm has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target objective of $118.47

The company has a market capitalization of $108.72 billion and a P/E ratio of 25.64.  In the report disclosed by the Securities & Exchange, CFO Kevin M. Ozan sold 3,463 shares at an average price of $113.74 for a total of $393, 881.62. Vice President Richard R. Floeresch also sold 23,910 shares at an average price of $113.67, a total of $2,717,849.70.

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What could 2016 have in store for Tesla?

In 2015, Tesla was able to sell 50,000 of the Model S sedan and Model X crossover. The company confirmed a delivery of 208 Model X in the fourth quarter and 17,192 Model S sedan in the same quarter. Tesla explained that Model X deliveries were in line with the very early stages on their Model X production ramp as they prioritize quality above else.

Here is the forecast for Tesla in 2016.

Cash Flow

Despite the fourth-quarter free cash flow of -$596 million in 2015, the company can still attain free cash flow positive in 2016 considering the production increase  of Model X. The model wasn’t able to contribute greatly to the cash flow statement of the company in the previous year due to its launch in the nick of time.

New Model

Tesla has been planning to introduce its newest lower-cost Model 3 this March and might be available in the market by 2017. This is a manifestation of the goal of the company to increase it vehicle sales growth.

Sales growth

The company is expected to have a bullish year as its sales growth continues to climb up. Tesla had improved its vehicle sales year-over-year from 41 percent in 2014 to 60 percent in 2015, up more than 20 percent.

Although, the company managed to deliver more than 50,000 units last year, it can still push its deliveries up to 80, 000 for 2016. Tesla disclosed  at least 500 units of  Model X produced from its recent quarterly sales and are on their way to be delivered.

If the projected figures materialize, the firm can have a total of 30,000 deliveries of Model X.

In the report, the company will be launching its Gigafactory together with the Model 3. Gigafactory will be the world’s largest battery factory and one of the important investments that the company has in 2016.

Self-driving Autopilot

Elsewhere, Elon Musk, the chief executive and serial technology entrepreneur, announced that Tesla’s cars are on their way to be summoned and drive autonomously across the United States to pick up their owners in the next two years.

“It’s more like remote-control parking. But this is the first little step in that direction,” he added.

The system incorporated in the cars makes it possible for the owner to “call” their car and the car will make their way to them, within three miles.

The company has a market capitalization of $27.63 billion and the stock hit $211, down by  2.16 percent. Tesla gained positive ratings from 16 analysts when eight of them issued a Buy rating.

Tesla primarily designs, develops, manufactures and sells electric vehicles, electric vehicle, power train components and stationary energy storage systems. It’s technology includes cooling systems, safety systems, charge balancing systems, battery engineering for vibration and environmental durability, robotic manufacturing processes, customized motor design and the software and electronics management systems necessary to manage battery and vehicle performance.

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Intel acquires Altera, shares slide

Intel Corporation announced the completion of 16.7 billion business deal with Altera few days before 2015 ended. The deal marked the biggest acquisition the company made.

Under the transaction, Intel seeks to serve the computing concerns of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other web services that depend on its Xeon processors. The company would also push the idea of augmenting Intel’s processors with the FPGAs chips primarily sold by Altera.

Further to this, a Xeon chip and an Altera FPGA would be sold in a single package.

According to Wendell Brooks, president of Mergers and Acquisitions at Intel corporation, the combination could improve the performance and later would bring advantages for some jobs.

The initial plan could stimulate a 30 percent to 50 percent speed improvement, he said.

“The biggest impact of the deal is the way Intel can bring its manufacturing process to the FPGA business,” an analyst explained.

Initially, the acquisition plan was disclosed on June 1, 2015 and it was completed on December 28, 2015.

Altera is known for manufacturing programmable logic devices, reconfigurable digital circuits. Some of its products are Arria and Cyclone series FPGA’s, Stratix and Quartus II design software.

Some expect that the company might acquire Applied Micro, Micron and Qualcomm.

Intel Shares decline

The shares of Intel fell 1.39 percent before 2015 ended last Thursday. In the same trading day, the company traded 14,736,687 shares, leaving 4,719,000,000 outstanding shares at the moment.

Securities and Exchange commission disclosed that the CEO of Intel Corporation had sold 35,000 shares last December 1. According to the report, the shares were bought at an average price of $34.97 and the total value of the transaction was $1,223,950.

Although the company has outperformed the index by 0.92 percent, it has underperformed the S&P 500  by 0.69 percent last week.

The company recently has a market capitalization of $162,570 million. Its 52-week low is $24.87 and its 52-week high is at $37.489. The 50-day average price is $34.33 while its 200-day moving average is $31.36.

Intel in 2016

In the middle of the narrowing of PC demand in the market, Intel has been setting ways on how to accelerate through expansion and new technology implementation.

"Intel is taking a pragmatic approach in many of its newest areas where they are placing some people with the most experience in specific areas of expertise," he added.

Previously, the company stated its philosophy regarding capital allocation which includes stock buyback, dividend and invests in the business itself through R&D, capital expenditures and acquisitions.

Other experts believe that improved economic growth would somehow call for an increase of computing devices with high-powered processors. In line with this, the World Bank perceives an improvement of 2.5 percent to 2.8 percent of the global economic growth.

 Intel Corporation is engaged in the design and manufacture of digital technology platforms. It sells these platforms to original equipment manufacturers,original design manufacturers, and industrial and communications equipment manufacturers in the computing and communications industries. The Company also offers platforms that incorporate various components and technologies, including a microprocessor and chipset, a stand-alone system-on-chip or a multichip package.

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Alibaba receives a Buy rating, to turn bullish in 2016

As one of the e-commerce giants made a series of investments and acquisitions recently, the effect is expected to be seen next year. Experts perceive a bullish trend in the earnings of the business, leaving an optimistic hope for the investors. The company believes that it will obtain earnings from its investment on entertainment, sports, logistics and other industries.

According to a recent research, the company might spend around $38 billion for investment deals in 2016 which was twice higher than the 15 billion budget in 2015.

Moreover, the company might benefit from the rise of mobile take rate in the future. The increase might serve as a stimulus to increase the patronage of e-commerce among the mobile users.

Alibaba’s Buy rating

Alibaba received a Buy rating from the research analyst in Vetr, better than the Hold rating issued by the analysts previously. The e-commerce company also obtained a price target of $87.35 as the analysts perceive a surge of 4.35 percent based on the current session.

Zacks Investment Research improved the ratings of the stock from a Hold to a Buy with a price objective of $94.00. Meanwhile, The Deutsche Bank changed its price target for the stock, from $98.00 now to $99.00 and gave it a Buy rating. Alibaba obtained a consensus price target of $95.02 and an average rating of Buy.

Further to this, Alibaba traded at 83.71 earlier today and its market capitalization is at $206.01 billion, with a price-to –earnings-ratio of 22.38. From the recent report in the previous quarter, the company disclosed earnings per share of $0.57 and the stock earned $0.45 earnings per share. Still on the same quarter, the business had a total revenue of $3.49 billion, up 32 percent on a year-over-year basis.

The company has 50-day moving average price of $82.02 and a 200-day moving average price of $76.63. Its 52-week high is $107.66 and it had a 52-week low of $57.20.

Alibaba and Ele.me

The e-commerce company, Alibaba, has confirmed its investment of $1.25 billion in  Ele.me. The company will have a 27.7 percent stake in the Chinese online food delivery service.

The company keeps on broadening its influence through investing in services like this. Relatively, China has been more engaged in online shopping, booking restaurants and many others.

According to the media reports released in China, Alibaba will be the online to online startups biggest shareholders as the plan proceeds. The two companies remain silent on the matter.

Ele.me.com offers customer-to-customer meal-ordering services and  acts as a communication platform between users and restaurants.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, is principally engaged in online and mobile commerce through products, services and technology that enable businesses to operate and extend their reach to sell to consumers and businesses in the People's Republic of China (the PRC) and internationally. The Company provides retail and wholesale marketplaces available through both personal computer and mobile interfaces in the PRC and internationally.

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OPEC remains positive amid oil prices fall

Amid the up and down of oil prices and the output production cuts of the oil producers, OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri remained optimistic on oil price swing on his recent statement.

“I’ve been in the oil business all my life. I saw six cycles – I saw very high price, I saw low price, and this is one of them. This will not continue. In a few months or a year or so this will change,”  claimed by Badri at the first OPEC-India Energy dialogue held in New Delhi.

Furthermore, the secretary revealed that OPEC does not have a target price, but was looking for a fair value that meant “member countries can have a decent income and also where we can invest to (provide) more supply to the consumers.

Badri even said that if the United States government begins to allow more exports of crude, prices will not be weakened further and OPEC can continue to produce at current rates.

Last Monday, Brent crude slipped to its lowest level since 2004 when it changed hands at $36 per barrel.

On the other hand, most of the analysts expect that oil producers will keep on pumping oil exceeding its demand. Currently, the oil produced is around 2 million barrels per day, higher than it consumes. Despite the figures, OPEC remained on pumping close to record levels trying to push higher cost-producers like U.S. shale oil drillers out of the market.

At the start of 2015, the Non-OPEC annual supply growth was at 202 million barrels per day (bpd). However, according to the data from the International Energy Agency, it dropped to 300,000 bpd in November.

Crude prices slump

Crude oil dipped close to 11-year lows in the Asian trading session earlier as market players focus on the result of the Federal Reserve policy meeting. It failed to push the $1 gain last Tuesday.

USA benchmark West Texas Intermediate for January delivery made  a drop of 45 cents to $36.90 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest level since 2009.

In London, Brent crude slipped to 47 cents at $37.98.

A chief market analyst shared that with key benchmark commodity indexes below levels last seen in the 1990s, and Chinese demand set to remain weak, it is clear that commodity prices remain some way short of giving any evidence of bottoming out.

"There haven't been any great shifts in the fundamentals and clearly ahead of, not only the Fed rate decision, but the inventory read that we will receive, it wouldn't surprise me if we maintain a holding pattern until then. If we see a sell-the-fact reaction, which a lot of strategists are now looking for, we could see some pressure on the oil price easing in the overnight session " he added

Fuel Oil Supply

Elsewhere, the supply of  fuel oil will likely surge for more than 27 percent from West to Asia. The increase will be at least 4.5 million tons  in January, following the 3.6 million tons deliveries in December.  

After the drop of oil prices, there was a strong run of profit margins in refineries causing the price of the  feedstock to decline and a recovery in global demand for refined products. The event resulted in an increase in fuel oil production. Another  factor might be the permission of China for the probable use of crude oil as an alternative feedstock.

Since the fuel oil inventories reached a six-week  high in Singapore for the last week, the rise of deliveries in January can somehow worsen the overproduction in the market an expert thought.

A trader from Singapore shared that they were seeing a bit more flow from the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions.

Data from an oil researcher and analyst indicated that the sharp increase in Western arbitrage arrivals is also in part due to lower-than-expected December inflows caused by adverse weather conditions in the Caribbean that caused to spill into January instead.

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Cisco’s shares decline by 4.8%, pursues alliance with Philips

For the last 4 weeks, the shares of Cisco Systems Inc. have declined by 4.8 percent and based on its one year price it has lost -0.34 percent.

Last Friday, the company  traded at 26.16, its market capitalization is $132.79 billion and 5,076,079,000 remaining shares. Cisco has 50-day moving average of $27.83 and its 200-day moving average is $27.59. In  the third quarter, the revenue of the business increased to 3.6 percent to $12.68 billion.

Securities and Exchange Commission reported that during the third quarter Kovitz Investment Group reduced its stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. The investment group held $932,000 in Cisco as of its current filing with SEC was concerned.

The shares of the worldwide leader in IT were sold and bought by institutional investors. The institutional investors sold 835 shares and has 35, 488 shares remaining. Lowe FS purchased 500 shares of the company while Jennison Associates has 7,341,364 shares after purchasing 24, 930 shares.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank increased their price target to $16.00 while SunTrust lowered their price objective for the company from $34.00 to $32.00.

Also, Drexel Hamilton, set a price target of $30.00 and gave the firm a BUY rating. Cisco received another Buy rating from Oppenheimer and a price target of $32.00. The stock gained a consensus rating of Buy and an average price target  of $32.43.

Cisco has 52-week low share price of $23.03 while the 52-week high is $30.31.

Cisco Joins Philips

Cisco is on the move to set a strategic alliance with Philips that will produce new value in energy savings, building efficiency and employee productivity. The alliance would be possible through Internet of Things (Iot) in contemporary offices  wherein Philip’s LED based connected lightning system will be put together with Cisco’s IT network .

The plan to have a modern office lightning market is rumored to be worth EUR 1 billion.  Edwin Paalvast, Cisco and executive sponsor of the Cisco – Philips Alliance, believed that they are delivering a reliable PoE-powered LED lighting solution using a highly secure IT network. Cisco and Philipps want to help building owners more quickly digitize their lightning networks to drive better user experiences and efficiency.

“Our alliance has two of the world’s biggest and trusted lighting and connectivity brands working together to bring the Internet of Things to life in offices and commercial buildings across the world. Customers will receive the best energy efficient lighting experience in the connected world and be able to use information acquired from their connected lighting system to save energy, reduce costs, improve productivity and optimize their workspace environment,” Bill Bien, head of Strategy and Marketing of Philips Lightning claimed.

The global partnership targets to accelerate adoption of the technology in the market and deliver increased connectivity, comfort and efficiency by creating the most innovative features of a modern firm.

Technically, roughly about 40 percent of a building’s electricity usage was taken from its lighting. Through the help of the alliance, about 80 percent in energy savings and reduced building maintenance costs can be made.

Cisco’s competition with Arris

Upon the acquisition of Technicolor of  Cisco’s video CPE business, the competition between Arris and the company is seen to be tight.

In November, Technicolor successfully purchased the video CPE business from Cisco. The share of hardware revenues of Technicolor  would increase  up to 8 percent if the bought assets in Cisco are included. Cisco remains to one of the largest video hardware sellers considering its influence to the network hardware segments.

On the other side, Arris is about to acquire Pace. In the third quarter, Arris and Pace obtained generated video hardware revenues ---lower than 5 percent as compared with Cisco’s revenues.

A chief analyst believed that although the two companies will remain direct competitors, it is clear that their strategies are fundamentally different and they are heading in distinctly divergent directions.

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