Takeaways
+ Two themes are doing well for us – Ai , as in Nvidia and Smart Micro and obesity drugs, as in Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. They will continue to do well.
+ The Magnificent Seven has lost some of its mojo. Apple finally closed its ultra-expensive car adventure, while Tesla discovered that the bloom is coming off EVs. I sold my Tesla and trimmed my Apple.
+ My bitcoin is up 55.8%. Here’s the last year.
Bitcoin still has no intrinsic value — like earnings or use (other than money laundering). But it has buzz and ETFs. Lots of them. I’m staying in for this “ride.”
+ My greatest pleasure has been listening to Acquired podcasts. They’re engrossing, They highlight great companies and tell their stories. Four of the best — Nvidia, Novo Nordisk, Costco, and Visa — the world’s most profitable company. Every Acquired episode is great, and long. You will thank me big-time for turning you onto Acquired. Just as I thanked my son Michael for turning me onto Acquired. For a listing of the great Acquired podcasts. click here.
Acquired podcasts do the long-in-depth research that you and I can’t do because we’re busy with our lives and family. Acquired does months and months of research. Far better and far more in-depth than any stock analyst — even those from the major investment banking firms.
There are two great ways of listening to Acquired podcasts — Apple Car Play and these fantastic noise-cancelling earbuds from Bose:
To buy them (and you should), click here.
+ My second great pleasure has been re-discovering ping pong. This is a truly magnificent way to get free exercise. Almost as good as tennis.
+ My friends have “discovered” their health ills are self-inflicted and are taking up exercise and giving up wine, sugar, salt, processed foods and half the portions they find on their plates. The world has an epidemic of overweight which is good for our NOVO and LLY stocks, but not good for our enjoyment of life and longevity..
+ There are companies whose stock price exploded faster than NVDA (but not SMCI) –e.g. ELF. I’ve learned I’m not stupid for missing them. When I begin to feel stupid (or miss an easy overhead in tennis), I play my favorite Taylor Swift song:
Enthusiasm is much better than intelligence (!)
All stocks move in flows of enthusiasm. Also called momentum. The hottest fad has been generative AI.
The Economist reports, “The big winners so far seem to be a bunch of Western early adopters, as well as startups in San Francisco and America’s “magnificent seven” tech firms, which include Microsoft and have together added an astonishing $4.6 trillion to their market value since Chatgpt’s launch in November 2022.”
Talk about enthusiasm…
Within a week of ChatGPT’s launch, a million people had used it. Within two months, 100 million had tried it. This was the fastest take-up of any new technology ever. It was soon being used to write school essays, wedding speeches and love poems to my special Valentine, Susan Newton:
I’ve been mucking with desktop computers (and later laptops) since Microsoft’s MS-DOS was introduced in 1981. That’s nearly 50 years. My desktops could do what was inside them — write letters , do spreadsheets, print, and do flimsy emails at 0.03% of today’s speed. They worked within their own little world.
Later we hooked them up to each other via a local area network (long before the Internet) and dubbed one as the “server” It was our mailing list, our subscription list, our CRM system. When we sold the company I felt our biggest asset was our customer/prospect mailing list which I backed up each night onto eight 8-inch floppy disks. (They were big and floppy.) I needed that many because the things were so unreliable I had to keep junking them until I found one that worked, then re-formatted them and start all over again. Our early computers were Radio Shack and KayPro. (Both companies later died.)
Now shift 45 years forward to today. We have powerful laptops with huge, reliable hard drives on our ultra-fast, ultra-reliable laptops and the cloud to back our stuff onto. We have the Internet to move stuff around and to send this blog out.
Then Nvidia came along and redefined computing. Today a Nvidia computer can easily be a million times faster than this miserable Intel machine I’m typing this blog on. (Years ago, Intel rejected he idea of making Nvidia type GPU chips, because Intel thought the gaming business was too small. They’re now trying to catch up. Good luck. I wouldn’t touch Intel’s stock for all the money in China.)
This blog and the resulting updated web site sits somewhere in the cloud. (I think it’s Atlanta.) But I don’t care. It works.
It’s this speed, power and ubiquity that enable ChatGPT, and the new AI that’s changing the world.
My friends who run businesses ask me “How should they best benefit from AI in their businesses? I say “look for repetitive tasks,” like sending “customized” proposals. Look at your miserable call center. I bet you’re losing more customers because of your call center’s horribleness than you ever imagined. One company fired 700 people in it call center and replaced them with AI. Sales went up.
Suffice there isn’t a company that can’t benefit from the new AI. For more ideas, listen to any one of Nvidia’s Jensen Huang’s presentations. You’ll be blown away.
I asked ChatGPT which public companies were benefiting from AI. Here’s his/her reply:
As of my last update in January 2022, several public companies were benefiting significantly from AI. However, please note that the landscape may have changed since then. Some of the notable companies leveraging AI for significant benefits include:
Alphabet (Google): Alphabet is heavily investing in AI across its various subsidiaries, including Google. Google uses AI extensively in its search algorithms, Google Assistant, Google Photos, and other products.
Amazon: Amazon uses AI for its recommendation engines, logistics optimization, Alexa voice assistant, and AWS AI services. Amazon’s AI capabilities help it improve customer experience, streamline operations, and drive growth.
Microsoft: Microsoft is leveraging AI across its products and services, including Azure AI, Office 365, and Dynamics 365. The company uses AI for various applications, including natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning.
IBM: IBM has been investing in AI for decades, with its Watson AI platform being one of the most prominent examples. IBM offers AI-powered solutions in areas such as healthcare, finance, and cybersecurity.
NVIDIA: NVIDIA specializes in GPUs, which are essential for AI training and inference tasks. The company’s GPUs are widely used in data centers for deep learning applications, making it a key player in the AI ecosystem.
Salesforce: Salesforce integrates AI into its CRM platform through its Einstein AI technology. Salesforce uses AI to provide insights, predictions, and automation to help businesses improve sales, marketing, and customer service.
Tesla: Tesla utilizes AI for its autonomous driving technology, which is a key differentiator for the company in the automotive industry. Tesla’s AI-powered features include Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities.
Baidu: Baidu is often referred to as the “Google of China” and is heavily invested in AI research and development. The company offers AI-powered services such as Baidu Search, DuerOS (voice assistant), and Apollo (autonomous driving platform).
Tencent: Tencent, a Chinese tech giant, utilizes AI across its various businesses, including gaming, social media, advertising, and fintech. The company leverages AI for user behavior analysis, content recommendation, and personalized services.
Alibaba: Alibaba incorporates AI into its e-commerce platforms, cloud services, and logistics operations. The company uses AI for product recommendations, fraud detection, supply chain optimization, and customer service automation.
These are just a few examples, and there are many other public companies across various industries that are leveraging AI to drive innovation, improve efficiency, and gain competitive advantages.
Old warnings
+ China. Xi is nuts. He meddles in everything. He messes things up with his meddling — tech, real estate, investors, etc. He destroys confidence and investments. Latest piece — “As their losses pile up, Chinese investors are losing confidence not only in the stock market but in the government’s ability to turn the economy around.” Click here
+ Telecom providers — like Cisco, AT&T, Verizon — with the one exception — T-Mobile.
+ Fintech. It’s too hard, too expensive and too much competition. Just look at the PayPal disaster.
+ Scams. Don’t open attachments. Don’t download anything. Check email sender addresses. If they’re not from the company and look fishy, they are. Don’t believe callers who say they’re from Amazon, the FTC, the CIA, Best Buy, your bank. For more, click here.
+ Re-set. Everything has a computer in it — from cars to routers to phones. They all need to be rebooted. When in doubt, turn it off, count to 30. Then turn it on.
Navalny is killed
The Economist wrote:
A man of formidable intelligence, Mr Navalny identified the two foundations on which Mr Putin has built his power: fear and greed. In Mr Putin’s world everyone can be bribed or threatened. Not only did Mr Navalny understand those impulses, he struck at them in devastating ways.
His insight was that corruption was not just a side hustle but the moral rot at the heart of Mr Putin’s state. His (Navalny’s) anti-corruption crusade formed a new genre of immaculately documented and thriller-like films that displayed the yachts, villas and planes of Russia’s rulers. These videos, posted on YouTube, culminated in an exposé of Mr Putin’s billion-dollar palace on the Black Sea coast that has been watched 130m times. Despite the palace’s iron gates, adorned with a two-headed imperial eagle, Mr Navalny portrayed its owner not as a tsar so much as a tasteless mafia boss.
Health stuff
+ Napping works for me. The studies say 8 hours sleep a night will help you live longer.
+The CDC says if you’re 65 or older you should get an extra dose of the latest Covid vaccine. Yesterday I got two shots — updated Covid and Pneumonia. CVS is the best.
Favorite Super Bowl Pictures
If you’ve gotten this far in this long blog, you deserve a Silver Certificate.
After my recent colonoscopy, my doctor gave me a Silver Certificate for my family. It testified that doctor hadn’t found my head up there.
I’ll be back. And soon. Promise. — Harry Newton
