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Dairy Farmers Think Almond Milk Is Bogus But Americans Love It

This article by Leslie Patton and Lydia Mulvany for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Almond milk is boosting the nut’s popularity, too. Last year, Americans bought $890 million of the stuff, three times the amount of soy milk’s $286 million, according to IRI. By contrast, consumers bought $9.2 billion of lowfat and skim milk. Retailers have caught on to the trend. Starbucks Corp. is adding almond milk to its lineup of non-milk alternatives, which already includes coconut and soy milk. And as of last month, Dunkin’ Donuts offers it in all its stores.

Milk alternatives have faced scrutiny for not containing very many nuts or natural ingredients. WhiteWave Foods Co.’s Silk brand of almond milk, for example, also contains sugar, salt, gellan gum and sunflower lecithin.

A lawsuit filed last year against Blue Diamond Growers, which supplies Dunkin’ Donuts, said its almond milk contained just 2 percent almonds. Blue Diamond’s U.K. website confirms the product’s almond content. Water and sugar are listed as ingredients before almonds. Alicia Rockwell, a company spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Among the biggest almond-milk sellers are WhiteWave and Blue Diamond, along with retailers like Target Corp. and Aldi Inc. that have private-label brands. Niche companies are also riding the wave, like NüMoo Nut-Milks, which makes an organic, cold-milled chocolate almond milk.

 



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What Samsung's Disastrous Galaxy Note 7 Recall Means for Apple

This article by Chris Nolter for TheStreet may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The announcement of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus was "lackluster," in the view of Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen, who expressed skepticism that the problems with Samsung's flagship smart phone will lead to an outflowing of customers to Apple.

"We've chosen our battlegrounds already," Nguyen said, suggesting that U.S. users are mostly either in the Android an iOS camps. Shifting from one to the other is "at the least annoying" and involves relearning the quirks of a new platform and accounting for apps that have been bought or downloaded.

"I feel it's more likely that the Samsung incident will push people towards other Android makers like LG more so than towards Apple," Nguyen said. Shifts to a new platform could be more pronounced in emerging markets with burgeoning middle classes who may not have been able to afford iPhones before.

 



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IBM's Watson supercomputer creates a movie trailer

This article by Rich Hardy for Gizmag may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

But perhaps the most beguiling, and subversive, aspect of Watson's trailer was how much it de-emphasised the monstrous nature of the human/nanotech hybrid. The irony of this entire project is that we have a film where a form of AI turns violent and kills humans, but the AI tasked with making the film's trailer ends up playing down that entire facet of the narrative.

Aside from being a fun experiment in computer-generated creativity, this project also proposes a speedy alternative to a generally costly and time-consuming process. The construction of a film trailer is usually an intensive practice taking several weeks to produce, but this trailer took only 24 hours to construct, from Watson "watching" the film to a human editor delivering the final product.

Making a good film trailer is a delicate balance between art and commerce. If anything this experiment still goes to show that a strong human hand is necessary even when producing what many would determine to be a disposable advertisement. Still, I wouldn't mind getting Watson's perspective on a few sci-fi films that vilify artificial intelligence. Maybe there is a Terminator trailer on the cards that sympathizes with Skynet or a view on 2001: A Space Odyssey where HAL 9000 is the film's hero?

 



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How the European Commission calculated 13bn tax bill

This article by Suzanne Lynch for the Irish Times may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Ms Vestager said on Tuesday that the commission had concluded that the splitting of Apple’s profits between the two parts of the AOE and ASI companies “did not have any factual or economic justification.”

In short, the commission has concluded that Ireland gave illegal state aid to Apple, in breach of EU law.

It will now fall to lawyers for the accused to contest this.

The refrain from Government circles has long been that the EU may not have liked the tax structures that were in place at the time when the Apple deal was struck but that does not mean that they were illegal.

It may be some years before a definitive answer on this question will be reached.

 



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Ports, a Sign of Altered Supply Chains

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

“The running joke going around is that flat is the new growth,” said Jett McCandless, chief executive of transportation-technology startup project44.

Freight volumes are stagnating despite strong consumer spending, which rose for a fourth-straight month in July. The problem for traditional retailers: More of those dollars are being spent online, or on entertainment and services such as health care.

Many retailers are stuck with large amounts of unsold goods as a result, reducing their need to import more merchandise. Even after a year of attempting to slim down inventories, retailers’ ratio of inventories to sales, a measure of excess stocks, touched 1.5 in June, close to a seven-year high, according to the Census Bureau. In their most recent earnings reports, Target and Lowe’s reported inventories up more than 4% over the same period last year.

J.C. Penney is placing “slightly smaller orders…or holding back quite a bit” to reduce inventories, Mike Robbins, J.C. Penney’s executive vice president for supply chain, told investors in June. The company has reduced the size of some orders at the beginning of major shopping seasons by as much as 70%.

The focus on reducing inventories is proving to be a drag on growth because it signals that businesses are spending less, and might be pessimistic about future demand. Inventory drawdowns cut second-quarter growth by 1.26 percentage points, to just 1.1%.

Shipping lines are struggling to plan their routes as order volumes become more difficult to predict, said Niels Erich, spokesman for a group of 15 major shipping lines known as the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement. In the past, carriers could count on the peak summer months to make up for slower winter trade.

 



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The Frozen Concentrated Orange-Juice Market Has Virtually Disappeared

This article by Julie Wernau for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Americans drank less orange juice in 2015 than in any year since Nielsen began collecting data in 2002, as more exotic beverages like tropical smoothies and energy drinks take market share and fewer Americans sit down for breakfast.

When they do drink orange juice, they aren’t drinking it from concentrate.

Frozen concentrated orange juice was invented in Florida in the 1940s, primarily as a way to provide juice for the military, readily storable and easy to ship. But frozen juice has been losing favor for years.

Not-from-concentrate orange juice surpassed the concentrated orange-juice market in the 1980s. Now, the 1.4 million gallons of frozen concentrate that Americans drink each month pales in comparison to the 19.1 million gallons of fresh juice consumed each month, Nielsen said.

Louis Dreyfus Co. is scaling back the one citrus facility in Florida that is devoted entirely to concentrated orange juice. The commodities giant is laying off 59 of the plant’s 94 workers as its sells the operation that packs frozen concentrated orange juice into cans for retail.

 



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Global Equity Strategy Who sells where in 2016

Thanks to a subscriber for this heavyweight 118-page report from HSBC covering the international exposure of major companies on a global basis. Here is a section:

 

European equity markets are by far the most global, more than their economies, and are most exposed to Emerging Markets (EM)

US equity market is the most closed of the Developed Markets (DM), a key ingredient to the US’s relative ‘safer-haven’ status

Japanese overseas revenues have grown sharply in recent years, but are now threatened by yen strength

EM stock markets are the most closed, accounting for the bottom seven countries in our ranking
Economies are not stock markets. DM and EM have similar exports/GDP levels, but DM stock markets are twice as global

Chinese corporates going abroad, but only generate 10% overseas today. Brazil corporates only 20% overseas after commodity slump 

Italy and India have ‘globalized’ the most in recent years

IT is the most global US sector; Healthcare the most global European sector. Utilities and telecom are respectively the most local

Overall overseas revenue contribution has stalled (at 44%) the last three years, as globalization has come under pressure

Looking at indices based on revenue rather than domicile transforms the investment universe: EM much larger, whilst US a lot smaller

 



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Macy's is closing another 100 stores

This article from Money.com may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

Macy's closures come amid a sixth-straight quarterly decline in sales. However, sales fell less than feared and the company said it's "encouraged" by recent sales trends. Wall Street applauded the dramatic store closures, sending the stock surging 17%, its best day since 2008.

Macy's said its new strategy is to concentrate its financial firepower and talent on its best-performing locations. The department store plans to invest in strong stores by highlighting new vendors, increasing the size and quality of its staff and investing in new technology.

"We operate in a fast-changing world, and our company is moving forward decisively to build further on Macy's heritage," Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren said in a statement.

Macy's said the store closures could result in the loss of about $1 billion in sales, even after accounting for shoppers who would go online and to other Macy's locations. The company plans to offset that loss in sales by cutting costs, even beyond shutting down these stores.

It's not clear how many jobs will be impacted by these moves. Macy's told CNNMoney it won't detail layoffs until it finalizes its store closure list.

 



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"Speedfactories" to the US

This article by Stu Robarts for Gizmag may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

Group executive board member at Adidas Eric Liedtke acknowledges that the firm has been producing goods in Asia "for years," helping it to keep costs down. He explains, however, that a new business model based on the Speedfactories will allow it to "decentralize" production to regional locations – in this case the US.

“We're fueling design at the ground level of creativity in Brooklyn and reinventing manufacturing with the first adidas Speedfactory in Atlanta," says Liedtke. "This allows us to make products for the consumer, with the consumer, where the consumer lives in real time, unleashing unparalleled creativity and endless opportunities for customization in America."

New customization options brought to consumers will include fit, comfort and look. The facilities will also allow Adidas to source materials and produce goods locally, helping to reduce transport emissions.

 



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Alibaba's revenue beats estimates; mobile revenue soars

This article from Reuters may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

Alibaba's total revenue rose to 32.15 billion yuan, or $4.84 billion, in the quarter ended June 30 from 20.25 billion yuan a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected revenue of 30.17 billion yuan, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Mobile revenue from the company's China commerce retail business increased 119.3 percent to 17.51 billion yuan, while monthly mobile active users increased 39 percent.

"We passed an important milestone this quarter in achieving higher monetization of mobile users than non-mobile users for the first time," Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu said.

The company said its gross merchandise volume (GMV) - the value of transactions carried out by third-party sellers on the company's platforms - rose 24.4 percent to 837 billion yuan.

Alibaba said in June it would in the future only release GMV figures on an annual basis. The change followed the disclosure that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was looking into the company's accounting practices. 

 



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