Sales & Marketing news

• China's army of investors haven't learned their lesson, and it looks like history is going to repeat itself

  30-04-2016 20:12 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  You might think the crazy roller coaster ride that is China's stock market would be too much for some mom-and-pop investors to stomach. 
  Think again. 
  According to a survey of 2,200 Chinese residents by Bernstein, individual investors in the country actually want more risk, not less. 
  And that looks like a recipe for disaster. 
  The nation's residents are planning to load up on high-yield, higher risk investments and wealth management product
  
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• LinkedIn spent millions on its new San Francisco headquarters, and that's a good thing (LNKD)

  30-04-2016 19:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Earlier this week, we got our first detailed look inside LinkedIn's new San Francisco headquarters, and as tech offices go it was pretty deluxe.
  If you're looking from outside, offices like these may look like a symbol of everything that's wrong with the current tech boom.
  San Francisco has become ridiculously unaffordable. Longtime residents are getting squeezed out by skyrocketing rents and evictions, while local lawmakers dither about whether and how to build more housing. A lot of
  
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• The 2 huge mistakes that sent Wall Street's nightmare stock into bankruptcy

  30-04-2016 19:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  You may have heard that SunEdison, the world's largest renewable energy firm, has filed for bankruptcy.
  There are a few fairly obvious ways it could have avoided this fate.
  It could have grown more slowly (but of course, then it wouldn't have attracted Wall Street's attention in the first place).
  It could have taken on less debt (but of course, without its $11 billion debt pile it wouldn't have grown as fast).
  It could have been more transparent with its shareholders and creditors as disaster un
  
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• China's economy is on steroids, and things could get messy when they run out

  30-04-2016 19:10 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  China's economy has been given a dose of steroids. 
  Lending in the country has exploded: Chinese banks have extended more loans in the last three months than the entire US corporate-financing market ever has, according to Deutsche Bank.
  There have also been several rounds of relaxation in property-purchase regulations, according to Morgan Stanley.
  The government has stepped up spending too, with the fiscal spending-to-GDP ratio increasing 2 percentage points&nb
  
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• Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger just destroyed Valeant at Berkshire's annual meeting (VRX, BRK.B, BRK.A)

  30-04-2016 19:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Warren Buffett is not a fan of Valeant Pharmaceuticals.
  And he never was.
  At Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on Saturday, Buffett expressed disappointment over the direction of the company and called it a "Wall Street scheme."
  "In my view, the business model of Valeant was enormously flawed," said Buffett.
  Buffett's partner Charlie Munger, who last year made headlines with comments about the company, also chimed in.
  "Valeant, of course, was a sewer," said Munger, adding that the di
  
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• Millennials are leaving these 10 big American cities in droves because of high home prices

  30-04-2016 18:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  High home prices are pushing three groups of people out of big, expensive cities: low-income workers, people in rural-based industries, and millennials.
  Trulia data scientist Mark Uh examined how the affordability crisis is pricing out various income groups.
  Using data from the 2014 five-year US Census American Community Survey, Uh looked into migration patterns away from the biggest — and often most expensive — cities.
  He wrote in a post Thursday, "Millennials accounted for the larg
  
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• BUFFETT: I haven't seen proof that I'm more likely to reach 100 if I stop drinking Coke (KO, BRK.B, BRK.A)

  30-04-2016 18:13 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  At Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on Saturday, the question of Warren Buffett's Coke consumption came up again.
  Coca-Cola is one of Berkshire's "big four" investments, and Buffett has been a fervent ambassador of the company's flagship soda over the years. 
  But he has been criticized for investing in Coca-Cola because of the health risks that excessive soda consumption pose.
  During the Q&A session, CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin forwarded a shareholder question on why Ber
  
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• BUFFETT: This is the 'time bomb' in the markets

  30-04-2016 18:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Derivatives have Warren Buffett worried.
  At Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting Saturday, Buffet and his partner Charlie Munger fielded a question on the use of derivatives by US banks.
  "It's still a potential time bomb if you were to get a discontinuity," said Buffett.
  Derivatives are financial tools that base their performance on a underlying asset. These can include things such as mortgage backed securities that track a bundle of home loans and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.
  Buffett
  
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• Warren Buffett explains the problem with one of his favorite rules for investing

  30-04-2016 17:51 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have often argued that it's smart to "invest in a business any fool can run, because someday a fool will."
  Or, as Buffett explained it in more detail back in 2010 in an interview with the FCIC:
  "If you've got a good enough business, if you have a monopoly newspaper, if you have a network television station — I'm talking of the past — you know, your idiot nephew could run it. And if you've got a really good business, it doesn't make any differenc
  
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• TOM LEE: Told you so — these 6 strategies are beating the market hands-down right now (UHAL, BIO, IWIM, SPY, FOSL, XOM, CAT, DOV, WD, XRX, ZION, IBM, MMM, DDD, HSY, KO, PFE, JNJ, MRK)

  30-04-2016 17:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Fundstrat's Tom Lee is taking a victory lap.
  In a note Friday, Lee highlighted six of his strategies and calls that are beating the market right now.
  "6 of 6 of our strategies are outperforming the S&P 500 quarter to date, by 170bp-510bp," he wrote to clients.
  Meanwhile, the stock market is trapped in a tight range, and has been for a while now. 
  Of course, Lee is one of the biggest bulls on Wall Street, and thinks stocks will reach all-time highs by the summer. But he sa
  
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• Warren Buffett's 'desert island' indicator of the economy is looking terrible

  30-04-2016 17:10 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Railroads are having a tough go of it, and Warren Buffett doesn't think it's going to get any better.
  "Car-loadings throughout the industry are down this year," said Buffett at his company Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting Saturday.
  Buffett went on to say that the industry is facing a tough time and probably won't recover for "the balance of the year."
  Buffett has called total carloads his "desert island" indicator of how the total economy is doing, but based on this the US economic outlo
  
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• T-Mobile's CEO says Verizon will make a 'stupid acquisition' in the next 6 months (TMUS, VZ, YHOO)

  30-04-2016 16:21 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  T-Mobile CEO John Legere thinks that Verizon will make a "stupid acquisition" within the next six months.
  Legere was not specific in his interview on CNBC on Tuesday, but he could have been referencing reports about Verizon's interest in Yahoo.
  He told CNBC: "Verizon's about to take over as dumber from AT&T. I make that prediction. In [the] next six months, they're going to do some stupid acquisition. Millennials still will hate them."
  Legere has frequently referred to competitors Verizon an
  
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• The brutal cull on Wall Street (probably) isn't finished

  30-04-2016 16:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The narrative for Wall Street bank performance is pretty well established at this point.
  January and February were awful. March was a bit better, but first-quarter results were still lousy.
  April seems to have been more like March than February, with an improvement in trading conditions, a reopening of the capital markets, and a resurgence in mergers-and-acquisitions activity.
  That now has Wall Street on a knife edge. We're four months into the year: Two months have been terrible, and two months
  
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• LIVE! Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting ... (BRK.A, BRK.B)

  30-04-2016 16:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is streaming its annual meeting on Yahoo Finance live for the first time ever.
  The Q&A session with Buffett and Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger will begin at 10:30 a.m. ET.
  Over the next six hours, Buffett and Munger will field questions from journalists, analysts, and the shareholders in attendance. 
  The Q&A will run from 10:30 to 1:00 p.m. ET, resuming at 2:00 p.m. ET after a lunch break and running until 4:30 p.m. ET. 
  Here we go...
  
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• The hilarious 'Damn Daniel' meme blew up sales for the company that makes white Vans (VFC)

  30-04-2016 15:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Daniel definitely helped the company that makes Vans sell a ton of white Vans. 
  In case you missed it, the "damn, Daniel" meme blew up in February. It's a video of one friend named Josh Holz calling out his teen friend Daniel Lara over and over for wearing Vans. Mostly white Vans. 
  "Dammmmnnnnn, Daniel, back at it again with the white Vans!" the tagline goes.
  Daniel and Josh gained a ton of Twitter followers, went on Ellen, made a website, and did all the other things vi
  
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• An unlikely source predicted Chipotle's disastrous quarter, and it says a lot about the future of investing

  30-04-2016 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Chipotle on Tuesday reported its first quarterly loss, along with a massive decline in sales.
  Comparable-store sales, or sales at locations open for at least one year, fell nearly 30%.
  The fact that Chipotle is suffering is not a surprise. Cases of E. coli last year were linked to some of the restaurant's locations in 14 states, and a federal criminal investigation is being carried out in relation to a norovirus outbreak in California.
  But most investors were still caught off guard by the scale
  
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• A 'global convergence' could change everything for investors

  30-04-2016 13:24 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  There's a huge trend that could change everything for the global economy, US businesses, and investors. You just have to ignore how bad it looks right now.
  In a recent note, Joe Quinlan highlighted the story of four middle class consumers in emerging markets and came to the conclusion that they exemplify the future of the world economy.
  "In the end, the world has changed—and for the better," wrote Quinlan.Join the conversation about this story »NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTE
  
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• The market's most crowded trades could be causing dangerous bubbles

  30-04-2016 12:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The market may be blowing up some bubbles through excessive crowding.
  Bubbles, simply put, are sins of excess driven by too many people reaching for too few goods.
  The tech bubble saw investors clamoring for a piece of internet gold, which drove valuation to a popping point. The housing bubble saw similar events occur in the real estate market.
  It is not unreasonable then to think that investors would be crowd-averse. Too much money rushing into too few assets has a history of ending i
  
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• Baby Boomers are facing a whole new retirement 'crisis'

  30-04-2016 05:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  FA Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that delivers the top news and commentary for financial advisors.
  Baby Boomers are facing a new retirement "crisis" (Wealthmanagement.com)
  One of the biggest things Baby Boomers have been concerned about over the last few years was having enough money to retire.
  But the markets have rebounded, and now boomers are worried about a totally new "crisis": living too long and outliving their savings.
  David H. Lenok reports that 50% of respon
  
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• China's housing bubble is starting to look a lot like the US before the crash

  30-04-2016 03:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  China's property market is staging a major turnaround as property prices in tier-1 cities have heated up quickly over the past few months.
  For the first quarter, residential prices in Shenzhen are up nearly 80% year-over-year, while those in Shanghai were up by roughly 65%, according to figures cited by Capital Economics analysts.
  And the surge in residential property sales throughout 2016 has been driven by the loosening of some purchase restrictions at local levels and rate cuts, which ha
  
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