Goldman tells its richest clients why 'FANG' stocks aren't really driving the rally

The role of the “FAANG” and “FAAMG” stocks have played in the rally is much more muted that investors might think, according to Goldman Sachs. “In addition to the misconception that this rally has been driven by easy money, irrational exuberance or the impact of Trump administration politics, we believe that there is a significant misconception about the role of FAANGs in boosting returns,” Goldman’s Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani and Brett Nelson wrote in their 2018 annual outlook that’s sent to the firm’s multimillioniare clients. Goldman noted that many have suggested that the FAANGs account for a vast portion of stock returns.

Apple earnings: Forget taxes and batteries, the $1,000 iPhone X remains the story

Apple Inc. has received a lot of attention for its statements about repatriating cash and slowing down older phone batteries, but investors remain focused on iPhone sales ahead of the company’s holiday-quarter earnings report. The world’s most valuable company is expected to report record revenues for its fiscal first quarter on Feb. 1, buoyed by sales of the $1,000 iPhone X. The flagship phone was in short supply during most of the quarter, but its lofty price should help lift Apple’s AAPL, +0.23%  top line. Analysts are calling for revenue of $86.8 billion, up 11% from a year ago. The iPhone X starts at $999 for a 64GB model, but survey data indicated that most early adopters willing to pay

• Analysts Expect Digi International Inc. (DGII) to Announce $0.06 EPS

  The Cerbat Gem
• CBRE Group Inc (CBG) Expected to Announce Quarterly Sales of $4.14 Billion

  The Cerbat Gem

This cryptocurreny is backed by physical gold

Robin Lee, co-founder and CEO of HelloGold, explains how the app lets people buy gold-backed tokens on an over-the-counter basis.

Hacked Tokyo cryptocurrency exchange to repay owners $425 million

Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc said on Sunday it would return about 46.3 billion yen ($425 million) of the virtual money it lost to hackers two days ago in one of the biggest-ever thefts of digital money. The theft underscores security and regulatory concerns about bitcoin and other virtual currencies even as a global boom in them shows little signs of fizzling. Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) sent a notice to the country's roughly 30 firms that operate virtual currency exchanges to warn of further possible cyber-attacks, urging them to step up security.

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  Japan's Coincheck to reimburse $535M lost in cryptocurrency hacking

  UPI
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  Japan Seeks to Clean Up Cryptocurrency Markets After $530 Million Coincheck Heist

  Fortune

Sex Harassment Claims Add to History of Issues With Wynn Board

Long before allegations of serial sexual harassment against billionaire Steve Wynn reverberated from Las Vegas to Washington and Asia, the board of casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd. had come under fire for weak corporate governance and deference to its founder and chairman. The board, which oversees an $18.5 billion company with casinos in Las Vegas and the Chinese territory of Macau, has been criticized for overpaying Wynn and other executives while allowing perks such as corporate jets and a land deal between the company and its founder. “A board’s governance committee, auditing committee should have been looking at him,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management.

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  Republicans Call on Party to Return Wynn Funds After Allegations

  Bloomberg
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  Republican official: Wynn stepping down from RNC

  CNN

Eight Ways to Prepare for the New Tax Law

The federal tax overhaul put in place by Republicans has produced an unusual show of bipartisanship now that tax season is here: We are a nation united in befuddlement.  One bit of confusion to dispel quickly: The changes don’t affect taxpayers for the 2017 filing season, which officially begins Monday when the Internal Revenue Service  accepts its first returns. That’s news to about 41 percent of the 2,000 Americans recently surveyed by tax prep chain Jackson Hewitt—they thought the tax law President Donald Trump signed on Dec. 22 would affect their filings this season (among millennials, it was 50 percent).  It should come as no surprise then that tax preparers and financial advisers are girding

• 
  Poll: Trump should talk about health care, economy in SOTU speech

  POLITICO
• 
  Republicans try to make hay on tax cuts with Pelosi’s ‘Armageddon’ and ‘crumbs’ | Jamie Dupree

  jamiedupree.blog.ajc.com

The S&P 500 Has Gone Parabolic, So Hurry Up and Buy These 22 Stocks

The stock market is on fire almost one full month into 2018, and if history is any indication the next 11 months may be quite lucrative for investors.  Year to date the S&P 500 has soared a cool 6% as investors have grown excited about the profit potential of big companies in the wake of President Trump's tax reform plan. Such a steep push higher in January has created what research outfit Fundstrat calls a "parabolic acceleration." Fundstrat notes that from Sept. to Dec of 2017, the S&P 500 rose 8%, or 1.98% a month. That marked an acceleration from the 1.24% average increase from Jan. to Sept. 2017.  Since 1928, Fundstrat says, this parabolic acceleration has only been seen eight times. Only

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  Australia shares led higher by financials; NZ gains

  Reuters
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  Most Asian markets carve out Moderate gains despite softer US Lead

  Medium

AMD earnings: Mining for crypto gold, more Spectre details

When Advanced Micro Devices Inc. reports earnings Tuesday, the results will hold clues about how cryptocurrency mining effected graphics-chip sales, and the forecast will give indications about the effects of flaws in AMD’s other core products. AMD AMD, +4.35% shares this year have been making up some ground lost in 2017, when rival chip maker shares skyrocketed. Gains may have been muted, though, by the January disclosure of chip design flaws that shook the industry as a whole, Spectre and Meltdown. When news of the exploits first broke, AMD played down its exposure, but has admitted that its central-processing units are vulnerable to the potential vulnerability. Shares were volatile following

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  Spectre & Meltdown Processor Vulnerabilities: What You Need to Know

  Medium
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  Intel warned Chinese tech firms of Spectre and Meltdown ahead of U.S. government

  Digital Trends

Asian shares close mixed as dollar edges up; greater China markets turn lower

Asian shares closed mixed on Monday after greater China markets gave up early gains to trade lower in the afternoon. Japan's Nikkei 225 reversed early gains to close nearly flat at 23,629.34, with energy-related stocks, trading houses and automakers mostly higher on the day. Toyota gained 0.46 percent by the end of the session. Meanwhile, other large caps closed mixed: Manufacturing company Fanuc rose 0.23 percent, Fast Retailing slipped 0.14 percent and SoftBank declined 0.2 percent. South Korea's benchmark Kospi index climbed 0.91 percent to end at 2,598.19. Samsung Electronics advanced 0.87 percent ahead of the announcement of its fourth-quarter results due later this week. Rival chipmaker

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  Tech stocks retreat from record high, bond yields rise again

  Reuters
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  Apple Supplier AMS Surges After 2019 Revenue Upgrade Linked to iPhone Demand

  The Street

China Stock Euphoria Enters New Stage

Jan.28 -- About a third of China's H-shares index are racking up fresh one-year highs. It's the biggest proportion since the 2015 stock bubble. It means that even some of the laggards, such as PetroChina and China Galaxy, are doing pretty well. Bloomberg's Sofia Horta e Costa reports on "Bloomberg Markets: Asia."

Here’s What to Look for in Tech Earnings This Week

In tech earnings from the last quarterly reports, there was a common theme: The sector knocked it out of the park. Shares in Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc. and others hit records following their last reports, and analysts are expecting much of the same when the season gets into full swing this week. A lot is riding on the success of tech companies. The sector accounts for more than a fifth of the S&P 500, meaning that stocks like Apple Inc., Microsoft and Amazon, which are the three largest holdings, could have a larger impact on markets as a whole.

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  Earnings: 5 Hot Stocks to Watch This Week

  Motley Fool
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  Tech Stocks Earnings Lined Up for Jan 30: CA, DOX and CDK

  Zacks

Massive Cryptocurrency Heist Puts Spotlight on Exchange Security

At 2:57 a.m. on Friday morning in Tokyo, someone hacked into the digital wallet of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc. and pulled off one of the biggest heists in history. The episode, disclosed by Coincheck executives at a hastily arranged press conference on Friday night, comes at an awkward time for Japanese regulators, who began rolling out a new licensing system for cryptocurrency venues just a few months ago. While Bitcoin and its ilk have mostly recovered from their selloff on Friday -- thanks in part to Coincheck’s assurances over the weekend that customers would be reimbursed -- market observers say concerns over security lapses at cryptocurrency exchanges are likely to persist.

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  AP Explains: Why are crypto exchanges vulnerable to hacks?

  Associated Press
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  Hacked Tokyo cryptocurrency exchange to repay owners $425 million

  Reuters

Tech stocks retreat from record high, bond yields rise again

Technology stocks were in focus on Monday at the start of a big week of earnings for the sector globally, while bond yields hit multi-year highs as investors braced for major central banks to step back from ultra-easy monetary policies. The MSCI's global information technology sector index hit a record high but retreated after a report that Apple had reduced production targets for its iPhone X. That dented share prices of a number of European companies in its supply chain, leaving the sector flat on the day. The early gains were fueled by Swiss chipmaker AMS , a key Apple supplier, which reported a doubling of annual revenue and upgraded earnings guidance ahead of expectations.

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  Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and More Major Earnings to Watch This Week

  247wallst.com
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  Apple reportedly halves iPhone X early 2018 production target

  CNET

U.S. stocks set to ease back from records ahead of blockbuster week

U.S. stock futures pointed to a modest pullback for equities Monday, with major indexes set to take a breather from their record-setting run since the start of the year. That caution comes as a busy week kicks off, with investors bracing for a Federal Reserve meeting, a speech by President Donald Trump, a monthly jobs report as well as a big dose of earnings. What are the main benchmarks doing? Dow futures YMH8, -0.14%  eased 49 points, or 0.2%, to 26,555 while S&P 500 futures ESH8, -0.21% slipped 7.50 points, or 0.3%, to 2,867. Nasdaq-100 futures NQH8, -0.21% were down 20.25 points, or 0.3%, to 7,009. All three major indexes closed at record levels on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average

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  Global Markets: Technology stocks retreat from record high, bond yields rise again

  Reuters
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  PRECIOUS-Gold edges higher on easier U.S. dollar

  Reuters

There’s been a spike in the number of working millennials with $100,000 saved

Nearly half (47%) of working millennials have $15,000 or more in savings and 16% have $100,000 or more in savings, according to Bank of America’s “Better Money Habits” report, which surveyed 2,000 millennials aged 23 to 37. The bank asked about the total amount of savings, including bank savings/checking accounts, IRA, 401(k) and other retirement or investment accounts. A nine-year bull market has clearly helped. That’s an encouraging improvement for this struggling generation, which is saddled with record student loan debt and has a hard time affording a first house. In 2015, just one-third of millennials said they had $15,000 or more saved and only 8% had $100,000 or more stashed away for a

These are the leading credit card processing companies (JPM, BAC, C, WFC, VNTV, TSS, BCS, FDC, WPG)

Credit card processors are mostly responsible for data transmission and security when you use your card at a store or online to make a purchase. Below, we've outlined the major players in credit card processing and described their major strengths.

Here are the Trump tax cuts’ hidden stock-market winners

There are winners under the new tax law — and then there are the really big winners. Any company that pays enough in taxes will save money because the corporate tax rate was cut to 21%. But the big winners are the ones that get a double shot of gains because they also have lots of deferred tax liabilities (DTLs), points out Charles Mulford, an accounting professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. Think of a deferred tax liability as a store of value to offset higher taxes in the future. This situation typically arises when companies take deductions on big-ticket items at a faster rate for the tax books than for the regular financial statements that we see as investors. Also see: How to find

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  Trump’s tax bill is besieging workers — with cash

  New York Post
• 
  Tax bill lowered corporate tax rate, so why are some companies announcing charges?

  MarketWatch

Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea's Swedish Billionaire Founder, Dies at 91

Ingvar Kamprad, whose boyhood business of selling pencils and seeds from his bicycle in Sweden eventually grew into the Ikea furniture chain, has died. He was 91. “One of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 20th century, Ingvar Kamprad, has peacefully passed away at his home in Smaland, Sweden, on Jan. 27," Ikea said in an emailed statement on Sunday. The founder of Ikea, as well as a bank for its customers, Ikano, “was “surrounded by his loved ones,” and died “following a short illness." Kamprad had an estimated net worth of $58.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the world’s eighth-richest person. The wealth was accumulated by producing furniture for the masses

• 
  The Latest: IKEA founder praised for taking Sweden to world

  Associated Press
• 
  Sam Armytage makes inappropriate joke about IKEA founder's death

  Daily Mail

A portfolio manager who has crushed his peers for the past half-decade identifies one stock every long-term investor should own (TROW, ILMN, AMZN, GOOGL)

Every long-term investor should own Amazon shares, according to David Eiswert, a portfolio manager for the $950 million T. Rowe Price Global Stock Fund. "A lot of the things that we bet on Amazon five or 10 years ago are more apparent to everyone today," he told Business Insider in an interview. One avenue to Amazon's profitability that has been overlooked is advertising, he said.

Alibaba earnings: Singles Day was a hit, but logistics and cloud will also be in focus

While other retailers were getting ready for the holiday-shopping rush, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. was already celebrating its own holiday success from Singles Day, a massive November shopping event that dwarfs Black Friday. Momentum from Singles Day is expected to provide a big lift to Alibaba BABA, +3.47%  sales when the company reports December quarter earnings on Feb. 1. Investors already know that Alibaba broke its own record during the 11/11 event, thanks to updates on a company live blog. There, the e-commerce powerhouse said its gross merchandise volume for the day exceeded $25 billion, up 39% from a year earlier. It took the company just over 13 hours to top its record volume from the

• Gentex (GNTX) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.01 EPS

  The Cerbat Gem
• Capital Southwest (CSWC) Set to Announce Quarterly Earnings on Monday

  The Cerbat Gem

Ford China chief in abrupt departure, a blow to recovery hopes

Ford Motor Co said its China chief, Jason Luo, has stepped down after only five months at the helm for personal reasons, a sudden resignation that raises questions over how the automaker will best tackle a sales slump in the world's biggest car market. Luo had been poached from Key Safety Systems, and it had been hoped that he would reprise his work at the auto parts maker where he engineered a significant surge in China revenue. "Jason offered his resignation for personal reasons that predate his time at Ford," Peter Fleet, head of Ford's Asia Pacific operations, said in the statement.

• 
  Ford China Head Departs After Just 5 Months on the Job (NYSE: F)

  247wallst.com
• 
  Ford Motor’s China Chief Quits, Citing Personal Reasons

  WSJ

Japanese crypto exchange set to repay victims of a $400 million hack

Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck is set to pay customers following a $400 million heist, according to a Bloomberg News report. Coincheck, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, is set to use its own money to pay back victims of a hack of its exchange. The company said Friday that more than 500 million NEM coins, the seventh largest cryptocurrency, vanished after being "illicitly" transferred off the exchange.

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  AP Explains: Why are crypto exchanges vulnerable to hacks?

  Associated Press
• 
  Hacked Tokyo cryptocurrency exchange to repay owners $425 million

  Reuters