H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (23 January 2019) – The Art of Decision-Making: Your life choices aren’t just about what you want to do; they’re about who you want to be.

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (23 January 2019) – The Art of Decision-Making: Your life choices aren’t just about what you want to do; they’re about who you want to be.

Companies

• Tencent Music Stock Upgraded: What You Need to Know (MF)
• Apple Supplier Han’s Laser Loses Half Its Value But Foreign Funds Just Won’t Sell (Bloomberg)

BATTSS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Samsung, Softbank

• Baidu Takes a Beating on Citi Price Cut, China Fears (Barron’s)
• Tencent looks for growth after year to forget; Chinese tech group focuses on enterprise and the cloud after losing a third of its value in 2018 (FT)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

• Microsoft Seeks to Restrict Abuse of its Facial Recognition AI (Bloomberg)
• DJI and Microsoft are working on AI drones that can recognize objects (TIA)
• Apple Pay is a sleeper hit (qz)
• Amazon Go, One Year Old, Has Attracted a Host of Cashierless Imitators (Bloomberg)
• Netflix Flexes (Stratechery)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• Shanghai’s hotly anticipated tech board vital to China’s global financial ambitions, says top official (SCMP)
• Hong Kong’s property surveyors just about survive the onslaught of automation in the industry … but for how long (SCMP)
• Japan Is Getting Serious About Flying Cars; The country’s once-envied government skunk works has set its sights on speeding up the arrival of aerial taxis and trucks. (Bloomberg)
• Toyota Finally Has the Power in Electric Cars; Bringing battery production in-house through a majority-owned venture with Panasonic is a smart move. (Bloomberg)
• Tinder, not just a dating app in Korea (Investor)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• Unicorns Are About to Chew an $80 Billion Hole in the Surface of Stocks (Bloomberg)
• Just Eat acquires restaurant software platform Flyt for £22M (TC)
• Logitech Raises Its Profit Outlook on Strong Gaming Market (Barron’s)
• Viacom will buy Pluto TV streaming service for $340 million (Reuters)
• Hedge funds push for overhaul at eBay (Reuters); EBay CEO Has a Stark Choice: Show Growth or Break Up Company (Bloomberg); Elliott Has a Point When It Comes to EBay; Marketplaces are critical to e-commerce, and the company could do more to compete with Amazon and Walmart. (Bloomberg)
• Waymo says it will build self-driving cars in Michigan (Reuters)
• Gene-Editing Stocks Plunge on Editas CEO Exit, Crispr Downgrade (Bloomberg)
• Lime and Bird Raise Millions, But at Far Lower Valuations Than Hoped; Scooter startups chastened as winter weather deters travelers (Bloomberg)
• Lam Research Supply Chain Flashing Bearish Signals Into Earnings (Bloomberg)
• SatNav’s Fallen King Gets $1 Billion to Play With; It’s just possible that TomTom’s founders may be trying to find a way to buy the 53 percent of the company that they don’t own already (Bloomberg)
• UPS Expands Keyless Apartment-Building Entry Started in NYC; The efficiency gains from not having to resend packages or fumble with a ring full of keys prompted UPS to extend the service to 10 other cities where high-rise residential towers are common (Bloomberg)
• How Wall-E inspired the delivery robot coming to your city soon (FastCo)

Life

• Life as a Work of Art (Zat Rana)
• The Art of Decision-Making: Your life choices aren’t just about what you want to do; they’re about who you want to be. (New Yorker)
• China Companies Suspected of Buying Own Bonds to Spur Demand (Bloomberg)
• Hong Kong’s Billion-Dollar Plunges Highlight Share Pledge Danger (Bloomberg)
• The Things John Bogle Taught Us: Humility, Ethics and Simplicity (NYT)
• Detecting Opportunistic Special Items. Abstract: The frequency of special items has increased dramatically over time, offering a convenient conduit for the inappropriate classification of past, present, and future recurring expenses as non-recurring. Identifying this misclassification is especially important in light of the pervasive use of non-GAAP earnings in recent periods, as special items offer camouflage for excluded recurring expenses. Building on prior research, we propose a method for identifying the predicted level of special items, attributing any excess to opportunism, and demonstrate the importance of this partitioning for financial statement users. In particular, we provide evidence that the opportunistic portion of special items is associated with lower future earnings, cash flows, and returns. We conclude that this portion of special items is more likely to contain opportunistically misclassified recurring expenses that should have been recognized as such in prior, current, or future periods. Thus, we provide a meaningful partition of special items that should be useful to investors, analysts, creditors, auditors, and regulators, as each of these parties must assess the implications of special items. (SSRN)