The SS Journal

Google has recently redesigned the Google Finance site. They have not only disabled the portfolio function but also taken away the interactive chart function. By the look of the new site design, it is obviously not for the stock traders. It now emphasis news and contents. The charts are simple line charts only. The people in Google are obviously very smart people and I don't think they would have committed such large design error. On the other hand, I think it's more like a PR error as they have "misled" the market that this is an improvement but instead it's an "exit" from the portfolio and chart contents. If google has announced that they are existing it would have earned my respect cause I always think that stock quotation and charts are not advertising friendly content properties. Basically trader like me is simply not a good reader for advertisement filled contents. Anyway, since Yahoo does not look to me like it's going to be strong for lo

In the week ending March 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 226,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 1,000 from 231,000 to 230,000. The 4-week moving average was 221,500, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 250 from 222,500 to 222,250. Claims taking procedures in Puerto Rico and in the Virgin Islands have still not returned to normal Source

As Amazon pushes for delivery speed, major retailers face pressure to match the e-Commerce giant. Retailers are requiring highly sophisticated logistic and inventory management strategy to be competitive. For eCommerce business, one of the major cost is the expenses for returning the merchandise. So to reduce this return-shipping cost,  Prologis Inc. is building a multistory building warehouse in the downtown Seattle instead of building it in outskirt of the city. In doing so, they hope to provide better experience in products deliver to win more business while cutting the cost of shipping cost of returned merchandise. I guess one of the biggest factor in this strategy is to make sure the cost is kept down. It's another story where technologies will be a key element to make this strategy works. I can speculate that a whole school of technologies will be deployed: Building technologies : letting trucks to drive up to second floor to load and unload merchandise means that the bu

Despite of my negative opinion about current crypto currency technologies requiring too much energy to maintain the ledger, retailers of Square ($SQ) are increasingly willing to accept Bitcoin for payment. That makes Square a growth stock. I do expect the world is moving towards crypto with improving technologies in the future. My opinion is more about "overly done" in building the check and balance system to use every computer participated to maintain the ledger. While I am no expert about blockchain technologies and bitcoin, I believe that some kind of modification can evolve in the future. When that happen, the world of currency is going to have huge change! I obviously don't have a cryptal ball about the outcome of the future. However, there is no harm for payment platform to embrace the crypto currency for payment transaction. It's the next step of technology that a payment process cannot ignore.  What I am more careful with is to invest in Bitcoin as an ap

In today's news Google just joined Facebook to band Crypto related advertisements. Along with other news about crack down or regulation of ICO and Crypto Exchanges, it is even more clear that what the cryptocurrencies originally set out to do is simply NOT doing its job, at least not in its current form or will stay in a niche segment. The reasons why I think Crypto has a difficult job in doing what it's supposed to do is due to one simple factor: Open Source technologies. As long as crypto is based on open source technologies, it means that anyone can use it to create yet another crypto currency. That goes against the original objective of establishing a highly trust worthy and value protected limited supply currencies. Crypto is supposed to give the power back to the people where every transaction is to be completely transparent and nobody can lie to anybody. However, the very act that so many company can create crypto will create quality variations which lead to trust

China’s gross domestic product is forecast to reach about $13.2 trillion in 2018, beating the $12.8 trillion combined total of the 19 countries that use the euro, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2017, the euro cohort edged China by less than $200 billion.  Read Full Story in Bloomberg

Japan’s navy on Tuesday appointed the first woman to command a warship squadron as it tries to lure more females to make up for a lack of male recruits in an aging Japan. Source:  Reuters Even in the very much male dominate culture of Japan, the Japan's navy is trying to require more female to make up of under supplies of men for the navy. I believe that this is not just a trend of gender equality but also in technologies enabler for modern war fare or even commercial competitions less reliance on the human physical. As long as you have sounds mind, technologies can be leveraged to support and enable your strategies, no matter you are a man or woman.

I focus my investment on technologies related companies. The reason for this focus is not just because tech has been one of the most most performing sector, but because I believe human development is all about some form of technologies improvement. From homosapiens to modern human, human has never been the strongest amongst the animal kingdom. Yet we rise to the top of the animal kingdom because we have been able to leverage technologies (as a tool) for enhanced productivity and to safe guard ourself from harmful factors from our environment. Not only that but we can do it in a mass scale. Human have been able to organise ourself in a team size of cities or nations which is is much larger than a pack of wolf. Now with internet as a communication tools, our coordination effort will be on a global scale. Our only challenge is ourself. Our population will grow to be too big to manage if we are not careful. We will be so over populated in a way that we will simply destroy our habitats