David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Autonomies

    Inside Amazon's plan for Alexa to run your entire life

    This article by Karen Hao for the MIT Technology Review may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    In another scenario, you might ask Alexa through your communal home Echo to send you a notification if your flight is delayed. When it’s time to do so, perhaps you are already driving. Alexa needs to realize (by identifying your voice in your initial request) that you, not a roommate or family member, need the notification—and, based on the last Echo-enabled device you interacted with, that you are now in your car. Therefore, the notification should go to your car rather than your home.

    This level of prediction and reasoning will also need to account for video data as more and more Alexa-compatible products include cameras. Let’s say you’re not home, Prasad muses, and a Girl Scout knocks on your door selling cookies. The Alexa on your Amazon Ring, a camera-equipped doorbell, should register (through video and audio input) who is at your door and why, know that you are not home, send you a note on a nearby Alexa device asking how many cookies you want, and order them on your behalf.

    To make this possible, Prasad’s team is now testing a new software architecture for processing user commands. It involves filtering audio and visual information through many more layers. First Alexa needs to register which skill the user is trying to access among the roughly 100,000 available. Next it will have to understand the command in the context of who the user is, what device that person is using, and where. Finally it will need to refine the response on the basis of the user’s previously expressed preferences.

    “This is what I believe the next few years will be about: reasoning and making it more personal, with more context,” says Prasad. “It’s like bringing everything together to make these massive decisions.”

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    Expedia and TripAdvisor Lead Sharp Sell-Off in Online Travel

    This article by Ryan Vlastelica for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:  

    According to Piper Jaffray, “the most concerning trend” in the quarter was “the reduced efficiency of SEO,” or search engine optimization. Google, part of Alphabet Inc., is favoring its own “Hotel Finder” platform, along with paid links for search results, and this trend could require higher marketing costs.

    D.A. Davidson noted that Expedia is exploring alternatives to mitigate its “reliance on search/Google,” but wrote that it sees “no alternatives that will be able to efficiently ‘move the needle’ from a volume perspective anytime soon.” Morgan Stanley wrote that Alphabet is now the “best way to invest in travel.”

    TripAdvisor’s adjusted earnings and revenue both missed the lowest analyst estimates. The results “more than disappointed,” Jefferies wrote, reiterating its underperform rating. Analyst Brent Thill added that TripAdvisor’s preliminary 2020 outlook “is not encouraging,” in part because of “continued SEO pressure from Google.”

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    Rates Could Soar or Go Negative as Fed Pause Divides Wall Street

    This article for by Liz Capo McCormick Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    The message from the Fed, combined with solid U.S. job creation last month and optimism about U.S.-China trade talks, has pushed expectations for the next rate cut well into 2020. Fed fund futures aren’t penciling in a full quarter point cut until about September.

    The yield move London-based Panigirtzoglou envisions would mirror what happened when the Fed engineered a similar three-quarter-point cut in a counter cycle maneuver in 1995. JPMorgan’s U.S.-based rates team is more sanguine, lifting its Treasury yield forecasts to 1.65% for year-end 2019 and 1.85% for mid-2020. That would be little changed from around 1.79% Monday.

    Panigirtzoglou did add some big caveats to his bolder prediction. It assumes that the U.S. macro picture remains consistent with a mid-cycle adjustment, with resilience in employment and consumer confidence, as well as a rebound in manufacturing.

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    State of AI Report 2019

    Thanks to a subscriber for this report for stateof.ai which may be of interest. Here is a brief section on robotics:

    Certain Chinese industrial companies have automated away 40% of their human workforce over the past 3 years. This could be due in part to China’s annual robot install-base growing 500% since 2012 (vs. 112% in Europe). However, it’s unclear to what extent AI software runs these installed robots or has contributed to their proliferation.

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    Shell Shares Continue Slide After Tense Call With Analysts

    This article by Kelly Gilblom and Javier Blas for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    At one point, van Beurden quipped that the buyback program would be cheaper now because the shares were falling, which invited a terse response from an analyst who said: “I agree.”
    “Please help me with my confused state,” said Christopher Kuplent, an analyst at Bank of America Corp., before asking the penultimate question on the call about whether they are
    disclosing information in the right way.

    Van Beurden responded that they could have avoided the cautionary note about the buybacks completely. He said that people could have done the math that lower oil prices make life more financially challenging for Shell, however, he said it was better to acknowledge a likely stormy year ahead to the market.

    Then he offered another mind-bending answer as shares slipped further. “That macro does actually have an effect on our cash flow is obviously a statement of the obvious. So we could also have said: ‘Well that’s hopefully all understood isn’t it?”’ he added. “But not making a statement of the obvious it is also making a statement.”

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    GE Soars as Another Boost to Cash Forecast Buoys Turnaround

    This article by Richard Clough for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    General Electric Co. surged the most in eight months after the manufacturer raised its 2019 cash-flow forecast for the second straight quarter, giving Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp’s turnaround effort a much-needed boost.

    The industrial businesses will generate as much as $2 billion in free cash this year, GE said Wednesday as it reported third-quarter earnings. The company previously projected no more than $1 billion in cash flow.

    The revised forecast bolsters “another quarter of progress” as GE also works to improve operations and bring down debt, Culp said. That came despite headwinds from tariffs and a cash strain on the jet-engine business from the grounding of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max.

    “There’s still a lot to do, it is a reset year,” he said in an interview. “But net-net, we’re pretty encouraged.”

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    Microsoft Rallies as Results Beat "Virtually Every Metric"

    This article by Ryan Vlastelica for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Growth in commercial bookings highlight “an impressive start” to the year. The results also featured a strong second-quarter earnings outlook, operating margins that “significantly outperformed,” and “solid” growth with Azure. “Microsoft remains the best positioned name in tech for the emerging Hybrid Cloud architecture, with improving margins sustaining a durable mid-teens total return profile.” Overweight rating, price target raised to $157 from $155.

    Bernstein, Mark Moerdler
    The company “beat virtually every metric driven by strength in Cloud, Sever & Tools, and Windows Pro.” Outperform rating, price target raised to $167 from $162. The analysts “remain positive & like buying” the stock.

    RBC Capital Markets, Alex Zukin
    This was “a strong start” to the year, “with bookings strength across the board” and “no macro weakness.” The revenue outlook “was lower than expected but with stronger margins, as gaming is expected to be weak.” Outperform rating, price target raised to $163 from $160.

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    California's Gasoline Panic

    This article from the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    But about 95% of gas stations with convenience stores are independently owned, which includes mom-and-pops that license brand names. Some consumers will pay more for brand-name gas as they will for Prada purses or Starbucks lattes. As gas prices rise, consumers may also burn more money than they save driving in search of the cheapest stations.

    Notably, the commission ignores that retail margins include labor costs, utilities, rent and taxes. In 2012 the state increased taxes on high earners, which hit many small businesses. California’s minimum wage has increased by 50% since 2013. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, worker wages at California gas stations over the last five years have increased 50% more than nationwide.

    Mr. Newsom has threatened legal action against oil companies to “protect the public.” But liberals have long wanted higher gas prices so folks will ditch gas-powered cars. The Governor last month ordered revenue to be redirected from the last gas tax hike, which was supposed to fund highway construction, to projects that “reverse the trend of increased fuel consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

    So Californians in the future can look forward to paying more to drive on deteriorating roads as they head to homes without electricity due to blackouts. How long will it take California voters to figure out that these are problems made in Sacramento by politicians?

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    Normal Yield Curve Doesn't Mean Everything's Normal

    This article by Mohamed A. El-Erian for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    The more that markets internalize this shifting monetary policy sentiment inside central banks, the more that they will unwind the policy expectations that fueled several forces acting to invert the U.S. yield curve, including indirect ones such as the enormous pressure on foreign investors to flee negative yields in Europe and Japan and go into longer-dated U.S. bonds. Look for this phenomenon to also maintain the yield spread between German and U.S. bonds at its current lower range despite what will continue to be relative economic outperformance by the U.S.

    Just as I argued in March that it was unwise to react to the inversion of the Treasury yield curve with extreme anxiety about a U.S. recession, it would be premature to celebrate the recent partial reversion as an indicator of significant strengthening of U.S. economic prospects. Instead, both are reminders of the extent to which traditional economic signals have been distorted by a prolonged period of extraordinary central bank policies. And they should also been seen as just one of the unusual consequences of a monetary stance that, imposed for several years on central banks by the lack of proper policy action elsewhere, will now see the hoped-for benefits give way to a broadening and deepening recognition of the unintended consequences and collateral risks.  

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    U.S., China Said to Reach Partial Deal, Could Set Up Trade Truce

    This article by Jenny Leonard for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:   

    The U.S. and China reached a partial agreement Friday that would broker a truce in the trade war and lay the groundwork for a broader deal that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping could sign later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

    As part of the deal, China would agree to some agricultural concessions and the U.S. would provide some tariff relief. The pact is tentative and subject to change as Trump prepares to sit down with China’s Vice Premier Liu He later Friday.

    Stocks jumped Friday after the news. Equities had advanced globally earlier in the day amid growing conviction that the U.S. and China would negotiate a trade truce. Trump tweeted earlier Friday that “good things” were happening in the meetings -- and that if the countries did reach an agreement, he would be able to sign it without a lengthy congressional approval process.

    On Thursday and earlier Friday, Liu and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer held the first senior-level discussions between Washington and Beijing since a previous agreement fell apart in May and tariffs were raised in the months after. The world’s two biggest economies have been trying for the past year and a half to settle their trade dispute.

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