BII REPORT: Why Mobile Video Is Set To Explode

“Mobile video has historically been held back by a single factor: bandwidth. But 4G LTE is changing that, and mobile video is already more popular on the faster wireless networks.

Mobile video is quickly becoming a mass consumer phenomenon, much as digital photos were earlier in the smartphone adoption cycle.

In a recent report, BI Intelligence analyzes the impact of 4G LTE and device design improvements on mobile video growth, examines who watches mobile video and how they watch it, and details the mobile video monetization opportunity.

Access the Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>>

Here’s why mobile video usage is set to explode…”

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“Ever wary of market risks, David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff highlights 4 signs of investor complacency as the equity market soars to new highs on a near daily basis:

• The Investor’s Intelligence Survey is flashing 52%, doubling in 6 months and at a two year high.
• Even the usually more dour AAII poll of individual investors shows a higher share of bulls than at any point in the last two years.
• Lipper reported that flows into equity funds have been a whopping $14.9B in the past three weeks, the largest for any such period since 2001.
•  The S&P 500 has traded up to a 14X PE multiple (though it is likely higher than that since the double digit growth estimates for the second half of the year are ripe for cutting) is at the high end of this cycle’s range and at the level that touched off the interim peak last Spring (the market looks “fairly valued” because consensus EPS projections are for a 10.3% YoY profit surge in Q3 and +16.7% in Q4…with sales growth at 2-4% at best, these numbers will be next to impossible to attain without some massive cost-cutting).”

“(MoneyWatch) If you’ve ever wished you could merge several Internet connections — like Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and even 3G — into a single, faster and more reliable pipe, then you’ll want to check out Connectify Dispatch, which does exactly that.

Connectify Dispatch is an app (no hardware required) that mimics an enterprise-grade load balancing solution. It combines whatever Internet connection you have available on your PC and lets Windows treat them as a single, fast connection….”

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“(MoneyWatch) When it comes to buying basic liability coverage — the type of coverage required by law in 49 states — you’ll pay more if you’re single, poor and less educated. It doesn’t matter how well you drive.

In fact, drivers who had at-fault accidents, but had a spouse, a college degree, continuous insurance coverage and home ownership paid less — sometimes dramatically less — than a single receptionist with a high school education and a perfect driving record, according to a new survey by Consumer Federation of America.

“State insurance regulators should require auto insurers to explain why they believe factors such as education and income are better predictors of losses than are at-fault accidents,” said J. Robert Hunter, CFA’s director of insurance….”

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“San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos plans to request a hearing today to examine whether city investments were harmed by manipulation of a key lending rate, his aide said.

The lawmaker will ask the city’s financial team to examine the effect on its investments of efforts to rig the benchmark London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and whether any losses can be recovered, said the aide, Jeremy Pollock.

“We know the banks colluded to rig interest rates resulting in significant losses to taxpayers across the nation,” Avalos said in a statement. “We owe it to our city residents to find out how much this type of bank fraud cost San Francisco.”

Barclays Plc (BARC), Britain’s second-biggest lender, paid a record 290 million-pound ($470 million) fine in June for manipulating Libor, used to set rates for more than $300 trillion of securities. Some interest-rate derivatives known as swaps, used by municipalities to hedge against losses, were tied to Libor.

San Francisco’s general fund “has no swaps in its portfolio,” said Nadia Sesay, the city’s director of public finance…”

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” New finds of natural gas from shale and other unconventional resources are having a considerable impact on the economy. “You’re seeing service companies, drilling companies, independent oil and gas companies moving into these areas where historically we haven’t had production in over a hundred years,” said Professor David Dismukes, associate director of the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University (LSU). In a recent interview with Mike Chriszt, a vice president in the Atlanta Fed’s research department, Dismukes described the United States as entering an energy renaissance period, with a bright outlook for future reserve development, production, and capital expenditures….”

Full report

“Of the major indexes, the venerable Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled out the white flag Monday, signaling that an imminent reversal is now likely. Of the five major indexes, it was the only one to provide a test of the prior day’s high and fail on price and volume.

That, in and of itself, wouldn’t be enough to concern me, but when I look at the 11 major sectors, seven of the 11 also triggered the same two-bar reversal failure. Seven of 11 is worth taking note of.

A plethora of two-bar reversals in the major sectors in an extended market is a clear warning sign that a retracement is not only likely, but highly probable. In fact, only one of the 11 remains bullish with partial failures on the others as well.

As background, a bullish two-bar reversal occurs when today’s high exceeds the high of yesterday and then proceeds to close under the prior high with volume contraction and all of this comes after an extended move. The more extended the move, the better the signal. This one is quite extended.

The great thing about this reversal pattern is that, at worst, you usually get at least a pause, if not an immediate pullback, and many times the immediate retrace is what happens.

As an example, on Friday, the materials sector signaled a two-bar reversal. It was the first to do so. On Monday, volume expanded and prices slumped lower. Here’s that chart.

Enlarge Image

Monday’s sector reversals were everywhere, ranging from energy to consumer discretionary, from chips to utilities. Stocks move sectors and sectors move the markets. For this reason, unless the majority of these reversals fail, then I would expect the indexes to follow….”

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“Consumer confidence decline to 58.6 from 66.7 in December.

That was well below expectations.

So the question is simple.

What caused it?

Was it the fact tht the payroll tax jumped, and people were reacting to their new, lower take-home pay?

Or was it about DC uncertainty.

Nomura writes:

While the cutoff date of the January survey was January 17, the political agreement on the fiscal cliff did not help consumer sentiment improve. Because we think that many households still have not fully realized the impact of the expiration of the payroll tax holiday as yet, there is the possibility that consumer confidence could decline further in the coming months. The Conference Board said “The increase in the payroll tax has undoubtedly dampened consumers’ spirits and it may take a while for confidence to rebound and consumers to recover from their initial paycheck shock.”

Here’s a chart which shows the dive….”
Full article and charts

“JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) fell the most in about two months after fourth-quarter profit tumbled 96 percent, more than analysts projected, as superstorm Sandy forced flightcancellations and reduced travel demand.

JetBlue dropped 1.9 percent to $6.11 at 10:14 a.m. in New York, after earlier falling as much as 5.4 percent, the largest intraday decline since Nov. 14.

More than half of JetBlue’s departures are from New York’s John F. Kennedy International and the carrier was forced to cancel 1,700 flights there and at other airports over five days in October when Sandy hit the northeastern U.S. People living in the area were slow to resume travel in November, the carrier has said.

“Overall an uninspiring quarter, in our view, though not particularly surprising given heavy New York concentration and significant short-term demand pressures associated with Hurricane Sandy,” Jamie Baker, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst in New York, said in a report today.

Net income dropped to $1 million, or break-even on a per- share basis, from $23 million, or 8 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based carrier said in a statement today. That compared with the 2-cents-a-share average estimate from nine analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Sales rose 4.2 percent to $1.19 billion from $1.15 billion a year earlier as passenger traffic increased 4.3 percent….”

Full report

“As President Barack Obama prepared to deliver his speech on immigration reform Tuesday, key points of tension were already emerging between what the White House wants andwhat the bipartisan Senate “Gang of Eight” proposed Monday. The most important difference between the two plans may be on the Southwest border commission, a panel of regional leaders described in the Senate plan, and whether or not it will have to assert that the border is secure before undocumented immigrants can begin acquiring citizenship.

Obama reportedly opposes the idea that border security conditions would have to be met before immigrants can seek citizenship. Even within the “Gang of Eight” itself, as theWashington Post‘s Greg Sargent reported Tuesday, it’s unclear what security conditions must be met and if the Southwest border commission would have the final say on when the citizenship process can begin.

If he’s serious about immigration enforcement, why does Obama oppose security condiditions? Because for the past four years, the Obama administration has broken deportation records for four years running, deporting around 400,000 people a year for a total of about 1.5 million deportations since the president’s first day in office. (The administration says that 55 percent of these deported immigrants had been convicted of crimes. But the vast majority of those crimes were minor.) President George W. Bush deported two million undocumented immigrants over the course of eight years, and Obama has reached nearly that number in his first term. As far as the Southwest border is concerned, net migration from Mexico in 2012 was zero,according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The United States “allocates more funding for border enforcement than all of its other immigration enforcement and benefit programs combined,”according to the Migration Policy Institute.

In other words, it’s actually very difficult, given the record numbers of deportations and the massive amount of money already being spent on the border, to see what more can be done by enforcement alone to stop illegal immigration. …”

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Doves take the cake….

“The Federal Reserve will shake up its roster at its meeting this week, just as it does at the beginning of every year.

Four regional presidents are rotating into voting roles on the FOMC (short for Federal Open Market Committee). This year’s rotation brings two doves and two hawks to the table.

In the current environment, the hawks are those who sound the loudest warnings that stimulative policies now could fuel rapid inflation later.

Doves, on the other hand, tend to argue that inflation is not a major risk any time soon. They would prefer the Fed focus on stimulating the economy and aiding the job market….”

Full article and infograph 

“The Dow Jones Industrial Average has surged 6 percent so far this year, and Thomas Lee, chief U.S. equity strategist for JPMorgan Chase, says the party can keep going for a long time.

He predicts to CNBC that the Dow may hit 20,000 within four years, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index 2,400 to 2,500.

That would represent a 44 percent gain for the Dow and as much as a 67 percent increase for the S&P 500.

Lee is impressed with the market’s ability to hit five-year highs, despite the reluctant participation of individual investors.

“There are a lot of reasons investors are sort of fighting the tape,” he says. “There are still a lot of memories of ’08 [the financial crisis]. We still have a taint on owning stocks.”

However, crucial statistics argue for a continuation of the stock rally, Lee says. First, S&P 500 earnings now total about $100 a share. But, “the [historical] cycle peak in earnings is closer to $150.” …”

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“The fact that the overall stock market has risen convincingly in the face of Apple’s sharp drop raises questions about the predictive power of a stock that was once investors’ darling.

“The company just isn’t the market bellwether,” Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group, tells The New York Times.

Since Jan. 2, Apple shares have plunged 18 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has climbed 3 percent.

Apple also hasn’t correlated much with the overall market when the stock has soared, Hickey says. His data show IBM is the real market leader.

During the last 10 years, on the day after IBM announced earnings, the S&P 500 matched the direction moved by its stock 75 percent of the time.

That represents the highest score for any company in the index, and is twice Apple’s 37.5 percent.

To be sure, Princeton economist Burton Malkiel says the stock market generally doesn’t move in a predictable manner.

“If it did, money managers would be able to beat the market regularly. But the vast majority of them can’t,” he tells The Times.

In any case, not everyone has turned bearish on Apple’s shares….”

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A dispute between Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (NYSE: MSO) and Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) over a licensing deal between Stewart and J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) is set to go to court next month. In the meantime, J.C. Penney’s rollout of its Martha Stewart-branded goods will be crippled by the store’s decision to leave her name off a wide variety of products in its home decor and housewares lines…”

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“Opentable, the online restaurant booking service, has just announced that it is acquiring Footspotting, the mobile app that lets users record and link to what they’re eating in restaurants and at home. The terms of the deal were not disclosed in a blog post on Foodspotting’s site or on Opentable’s post, but Alexa Andrzejewski has confirmed a pricetag of $10 million in cash directly to TechCrunch.

Before you start getting worried that this is a classic acquire-and-close down job, catch your breath: Opentable intends to keep Foodspotting going as a standalone business.

The two already worked together somewhat…”

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“We are coming closer to a reality where no politician can ever spread well-known lies. Today, exclusively with TechCrunch, The Washington Post has launched a fully automated fact-checking program, Truth Teller, that displays “TRUE” or “FALSE” in real time next to video of politicians and pundits as they speak. Given the fact that almost one-fifth of registered voters still believe Obama is a Muslim, a tool to curb widespread myths could benefit our democracy. Check out a demo below…”

Full article and video demo

“Facebook yesterday updated its iOS app to version 5.4, giving users a few new features in what could be one of the world’s most complex and layered mobile apps.

The update brings with it the ability to share voice messages, much like iOS’s Voice Memos, letting users record a cute little message and send it through the app to friends. The update also lets users record and share video from right within the app.

Facebook users have long had the ability to send 60-second voice messages within Facebook’s Messenger app, but the functionality has been brought over to the main app.

Users can send a voice message by tapping the plus button under the Messages tab. From there, click Record and simply hold the button to record your message. When you release, your message will be automatically sent unless you slide your finger off the button, in which case the message will be canceled.

Along with video and voice functionality…”

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“Now instead of doling out free money, should we not have been doling out incentives to retool and retrain America ?

A bipartisan group of four senators are unveiling a bill this morning that will make Silicon Valley very happy, The Hill reports.

The Immigration Innovation Act, if passed, would nearly double the number of H-1B visas made available to highly skilled foreign workers. It would also let foreign students at U.S. institutions apply for green cards while on their student visas. 

Already, Microsoft has come out in support of the plan….”

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“As President Obama said in his inaugural address last week, America “cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.”

Yet that continues to be the direction we’re heading in.

A newly-released analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that the super-rich have done well in the economic recovery while almost everyone else has done badly. The top 1 percent of earners’ real wages grew 8.2 percent from 2009 to 2011, yet the real annual wages of Americans in the bottom 90 percent have continued to decline in the recovery, eroding by 1.2 percent between 2009 and 2011.

In other words, we’re back to the widening inequality we had before the debt bubble burst in 2008 and the economy crashed.

But the President is exactly right. Not even the very wealthy can continue to succeed without a broader-based prosperity. That’s because 70 percent of economic activity in America is consumer spending. If the bottom 90 percent of Americans are becoming poorer, they’re less able to spend. Without their spending, the economy can’t get out of first gear….”

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