Stocks & Equities

How Video Game Stocks Perform Heading Into The Holiday Shopping Season

Posted by Dave Royse

on Monday, 11 November 2019 10:30

Video game stock performance in the two months heading into the holidays has given investors about an even shot at gains and losses over the last decade, historical price data show.

Unless you include Microsoft Corporation.

When looking at six video game stocks’ performance during October and November each year since 2009, Microsoft (which also makes plenty of other consumer goods that holiday shoppers buy) skews the data quite a bit.

Shares of Microsoft have gone up during the two-month period in eight out of the last 10 years.

The other five video game stocks aren’t as sure of a play in the fall. Stocks in the sector fell during the two months slightly more often than they rose….CLICK for complete article

Canadian Cyberattack Prevention Firm Working On US & Canadian Defense

Posted by MoneyTalks Editor

on Friday, 8 November 2019 11:10

Privately owned Plurilock Systems in Victoria BC is quietly becoming a key player in the ever-growing anti-cyber attack security space. Recent contracts with the US Department of Homeland Security and Canada’s Department of National Defense will see the company at the forefront of machine-to-machine anomaly detection technologies. Plurilock in the only Canadian company to receive funding from DHS’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program.

“Our behavioral, anomaly detection, and AI capabilities, give us a head start in developing machine-to-machine authentication tools,” says Plurilock CEO Ian Paterson. “We think this technology will become more and more critical as the ‘internet of things’ era matures, so we’re excited to continue to collaborate with the Silicon Valley Innovation Program. Obviously, DHS and SVIP are world-class partners to work with.”

The Canadian DND contract tasks Plurilock with advancing state-of-the art, real-time cyber-attack detection and advanced persistent threat (APT) prevention.

“It’s hard to overstate the need for real-time threat detection and response in today’s critical systems,” says Paterson. “Plurilock will significantly enhance this capability, and we’re excited to be able to demonstrate our leadership across multiple kinds of security-driven anomaly detection in our work for DND.”

Plurilock began in the research labs of the University of Victoria with breakthroughs in biometric identity verification. This early “behavioral-biometric” science was applied to the movements involved in computer use—mouse and keyboard activity to start—and a new, advanced form authentication for computing systems was born.

10 Reasons Why Productivity Is Declining

Posted by ZeroHedge

on Friday, 8 November 2019 9:16

Economists debate whether the decline in productivity is real. It is real, let’s investigate 10 reasons why…

Facebook a Productivity Killer

Google searches are indeed a time-saver. But what the hell is “produced” by them. And where do the searches and Facebook playing take place?

At work perhaps. After discussing the above Brookings did come to this conclusion: “In large part, the productivity slowdown—and the associated productivity paradox—are real.”

It never explained why. Rather Brookings remains puzzled: “While recent research suggests that mismeasurement, although sizable, does not explain most of the observed decline in productivity, it must be noted that there remain unknowns and gaps in data.”

Real or Imagined

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) asks Is the U.S. Productivity Slowdown a Mirage?

Labor productivity in the United States—defined as total output divided by total hours of labor—has been increasing for over a century and continues to increase today. However, its growth rate has fallen. One explanation for this phenomenon focuses on measurement difficulties, in particular the possibility that current tools for measuring economic growth do not fully capture recent advances in the goods and services associated with digital communications technology.

One reason some analysts believe that labor productivity is understated is that price inflation may be overstated for digital goods and services.

As with Brookings, the NBER concludes there is some mismeasurement but fails to figure out why.

As an aside, the NBER group is the official arbiter of recession dates in the US….CLICK for complete article

Drone Deliveries Just In Time For Christmas

Posted by Michael Scott

on Wednesday, 30 October 2019 7:19

If you’re reading this, you’re probably already gearing up for the holiday season and getting ready to make some purchases. And you just might have them delivered by … drone.  But only if you’re a member of the “tight-knit” 22,000-strong community of Christiansburg, Virginia.

Commercial drone delivery is here, but only for the select few. In fact, it’s probably the first time in history that the newest tech advancement hits the small-town before it can go urban.

Wing, an offshoot of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is launching a pilot program this fall with Walgreens and FedEx to eligible customers in this small town, whose claim to drone fame is that it doesn’t have any high-rise buildings or other architectural obstructions….CLICK for complete article

Tesla’s Tipping Point: Breaking Into China

Posted by Jon LeSage

on Monday, 28 October 2019 10:26

Tesla chief Elon Musk believes China be the tipping point that will lead to his company’s global domination of the electric vehicle stage, but it’s become a very tough sell.

China has had close to two-thirds of the booming global EV sales market so far this year — 61.8 percent with 872,000 units sold through September 30. Tesla’s US home market only made for 236,067 EVs sold this year — 16.7 percent of the total.

But the stakes are quite high for this to become a win-win for Musk. Tesla’s new Shanghai plant started selling its first Model 3s on Friday, but the small electric sedans were given a starting price of Rmb 355,800 ($50,320). That’s roughly 3 percent less than the cost of the same model imported from the US with import tariffs sitting at 15 percent…CLICK for complete article