• The Netflix Free Cash Flow Debate Is Over. Here's Why the Bulls Won
    Motley Fool

    The Netflix Free Cash Flow Debate Is Over. Here's Why the Bulls Won

    For years, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) has burned billions in cash to fund its giant appetite for new content. Below are some quotes from Netflix bears. "[Netflix] will probably grow total paid subs 15% in 2020, vs. 20% in 2019.

  • Near Its All-Time Low, Is Norwegian Cruise Line Stock a Buy?
    Motley Fool

    Near Its All-Time Low, Is Norwegian Cruise Line Stock a Buy?

    Without revenue from normal operations since March, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NYSE: NCLH) has seen its shares plummet as the COVID-19 pandemic turned the travel industry on its head. Costs have been cut dramatically, an entire fleet of ships idled, customers appeased with refunds or 125% credits toward new trips, and liquidity bolstered to survive 18 months without revenue.

  • Better Buy: Amazon.com vs. Google
    Motley Fool

    Better Buy: Amazon.com vs. Google

    It goes without saying that two of the very best companies in the world are Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), the parent company of Google. In fact, Google and Amazon ranked Nos. Amazon and Alphabet tend to compete more and more with each other as time marches on, but each company still has a dominant market share of their respective core businesses: e-commerce for Amazon; digital advertising for Google.

  • First Manned Flight Is Just One Step for SpaceX
    Bloomberg

    First Manned Flight Is Just One Step for SpaceX

    (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that’s orbiting the Earth with two U.S. astronauts is the picture of New Space Age glamour. It’s a sleek, stylish commercially made capsule that’s destined to be featured beside Italian sports cars in future design textbooks. Just don’t tell that to Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive and chief designer. “Is a Ferrari more reliable than a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic?” he once asked a space journalist. The answer, of course, is that the simpler sedans are far more reliable than the well-crafted sports car. So SpaceX, Musk made clear, was going to make Corollas.It’s a practically minded outlook for a company founded on the galactically large ambition to transform humanity into a multiplanetary species. But Musk and SpaceX implicitly understand something that national space programs haven’t really accepted: Success in space exploration isn’t, ultimately, about achieving “firsts” like the moon landing. Rather, it’s repeat business that will establish moon colonies and Musk’s Martian city. To get that business, SpaceX has to show that national space programs, with their expensive, Ferrari-like rockets, capsules and contractors, won’t get there. On Saturday, it succeeded.The 20th century space race wasn’t about the money, it was about the record books. The respective financial strengths of the U.S. and Soviet systems certainly played a role, but when national pride is at stake, performance matters more than costs. For decades, NASA, in particular, internalized that priority by adopting cost-plus contracts with its contractors. Under these arrangements, NASA agrees to pay the value of a project’s development costs, plus an associated fee (often about 10%). It’s an excellent system for encouraging contractors to invest in difficult, long-term projects with hazy costs.But if the goal is to create something that works repeatedly, and on-budget, cost-plus is a problem. After all, if a contractor’s fees increase during project delays, then that contractor lacks an incentive to control costs and finish on deadline. Making matters more difficult, expensive government programs must meet political requirements that no profit-seeking business would ever consider. The development of the 1970s-era space shuttle was spread out over states and produced an outrageously expensive “reusable” rocket that took thousands of hours to prepare for reuse. In 2012, Musk correctly called the shuttle “a Ferrari to the nth power.”By that point, Musk, too, was working with the U.S. government. But unlike traditional NASA contractors such as the Boeing Co, he was doing it on a fixed-fee basis. So, rather than get paid along the way, SpaceX accepted a fixed fee to build a technology, and whatever wasn’t used in development could be kept as profit.That doesn’t mean cutting corners. NASA requires that SpaceX’s technology meet its high safety standards (often to Musk’s chagrin). But it does mean that SpaceX has a strong incentive to find ways to control costs while building cutting-edge technology. For example, rather than try to perfect a single rocket for a flawless first launch, SpaceX opted for iterative design, whereby it launched — and failed — early prototypes repeatedly, as a means to learn from its mistakes and speed up rocket design. It’s an approach that differs substantially from traditional aerospace companies, which spend years and money perfecting a design before flying it (the Ferrari approach). Likewise, SpaceX, freed from political constraints, concentrated its design and testing in single locations, rather than spread it out geographically. It’s what any rational for-profit manufacturer would do.This approach has been fruitful. The rocket that carried the Crew Dragon capsule into orbit is a Falcon 9, from a family of rockets developed for $390 million with assistance from NASA under fixed-price contracts. According to a 2011 NASA report, the cost would’ve been $1.7 billion to $4 billion if the same rocket had been developed using traditional means. More dramatically, the development of the Falcon 9 has reduced the cost of a space launch by a factor of 20, at least. A kilogram launched on the space shuttle, which last flew in 2011, cost about $54,500. A kilogram on the Falcon 9 runs about $2,700.Of course, launching humans into space is more difficult and expensive than launching cargo. Even so, SpaceX managed to lap more traditional contractors. In 2011, NASA announced plans to build the Space Launch System, a massive new rocket to send Americans back to the moon. To save on costs and time, the rocket was to be built using engines and other components from the space shuttle program. Ominously, it was also to be built by the Boeing Co under a cost-plus contract. In 2014, NASA committed to a November 2018 launch date at a cost of $9.7 billion. Then the launch dates started slipping, all to the benefit of Boeing. By March, the launch date had moved to the second half of 2021, with costs escalating to $18.3 billion. If and when it flies, each rocket will exceed $1 billion — more than three times what it cost to develop the Falcon 9.For now, SpaceX’s approach is the clear winner, but its challenges are far from over. Above all, the company must demonstrate that its relatively inexpensive human-capable flights have a commercial market — an idea that’s far from certain. Similarly, the company will need to prove the business case for its longer-term, and substantially more expensive, ambitious exploration program. But today, at least, the Musk’s Corolla is beating the Ferrari by millions of miles.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of “Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade” and "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Trump is waging a regulatory war against Twitter. He may not have a legal case.
    Yahoo Finance

    Trump is waging a regulatory war against Twitter. He may not have a legal case.

    President Donald Trump’s increasingly heated feud with Twitter may be good for social media impressions, but may not be legally enforceable, according to experts.

  • 3 Buffett Stocks That Are Trouncing Berkshire Hathaway So Far This Year
    Motley Fool

    3 Buffett Stocks That Are Trouncing Berkshire Hathaway So Far This Year

    Three Buffett stocks, in particular, are trouncing Berkshire in 2020. While the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt many companies, Amazon's business has thrived. The impact of the global novel coronavirus outbreak has turned Amazon's business upside down -- mostly in a good way.

  • Amazon Calls Delivery Drivers Back, Closes Hubs Near Protests
    Bloomberg

    Amazon Calls Delivery Drivers Back, Closes Hubs Near Protests

    (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. is scaling back deliveries and adjusting routes in a small number of cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked demonstrations around the country, prompting curfew orders.“We are monitoring the situation closely and in a handful of cities we adjusted routes or scaled back typical operations to ensure the safety of our teams,” an Amazon spokeswoman told Bloomberg News.Amazon’s action shows how protests around the country are complicating operations for the e-commerce giant, which was still catching up from a surge in demand tied to the Covid-19 outbreak.In Chicago and Los Angeles, Amazon delivery drivers received messages Saturday night that said: “If you are currently out delivering packages, stop immediately and return home. If you have not completed your route, please return undelivered packages to the pick-up location whenever you’re able to do so.”Amazon was “in close contact with local officials and will continue to monitor the protests,” and would only re-open delivery stations when it’s safe and will plan delivery routes by monitoring demonstrations in every zip code, according to messages reviewed by Bloomberg.(Updated with additional cities in 1st paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Bloomberg

    The Golden Rule Is Dying of Covid-19

    (Bloomberg Opinion) -- As the coronavirus forced the western world into lockdown in March, humans were confronted with a moral test. Drawing on centuries of philosophical thought that produced the world’s competing modern value systems, each person had to decide which measures were justified to limit the medical and economic carnage. There was plenty of possibility for discord.Initially, people and leaders coalesced around a version of the biblical philosophy of the “golden rule” — that we should not do to others what we wouldn’t want done to ourselves. That was the basis for asking everyone to make personal and economic sacrifices to limit the death and suffering of the weakest and oldest. Governments of the left and the right made that choice, strongly supported by religious leaders up to and including the Pope.At the time, I wrote, “We are all Rawlsians now,” invoking the Harvard philosopher John Rawls who 50 years ago put a version of the golden rule at the heart of his influential theory of justice.I was wrong. Now the brief weeks of Rawlsian unity have given way to a bitter factional and cultural battle, with rival moral principles hurled like metaphysical grenades. Different countries have taken antithetical approaches while the U.S. has split itself almost into two nations, divided between those who wear masks and those who do not.“Quarantine is when you restrict movement of sick people. Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people,” Meshawn Maddock, an unmasked protester in Michigan proclaimed to Fox News.Masks, which were not at first recommended by the public-health authorities in the U.S., have created the deepest fault line. “Mask-shaming” started as a tactic by government-supporting mask-wearers. Early in the lockdowns, Jorge Elorza, a law professor who serves as the Democratic mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, encouraged people to speak up if they saw someone in public without a face mask. “You should socially shame them, so they fall in line,” he said.Meanwhile in Texas, chat-show host Brenden Dilley donned a Trump 2020 cap and took to Twitter to explain why he was not wearing a mask. “Better to be dead than a dork,” he said, throwing in some F-bombs for emphasis. “Yes, I mean that literally. I’d rather die than look like an idiot right now, you weakling.”It took North Dakota’s Republican governor Doug Burgum to remind citizens tearfully that those wearing masks might be doing so to protect a loved one who was vulnerable.What has gone wrong? What has the virus revealed about the moral principles that motivate us? The story can be told with the aid of an allegory, a novel by Steven Lukes, a British political philosopher who now teaches at New York University, called "The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat."Professor Caritat’s JourneyLukes’s allegory is simple but devastatingly effective. Professor Caritat is an expert in enlightenment philosophy in the country of Militaria, which emphasizes order above all else, and sounds like contemporary China. He is imprisoned for his subversive beliefs. Members of the opposition spring him from jail and send him on a trek through the neighboring countries of Utilitaria, Communitaria and Libertaria in search of the best way to run society. Everybody knows that they hate the military government, but what should they replace it with?These countries follow three great schools of moral thought:Utilitarians, following the Victorian reformer Jeremy Bentham, who believe in pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number, even if such an approach may bring harm to some. Communitarians, who believe that the sense of moral duty is rooted in a sense of community, and look for a concept of “common good.” Libertarians, who believe that individual freedom is paramount, and therefore resist attempts at paternalism or coercion. In Lukes’s words, “Each of these countries takes one of these ideas to an extreme to the exclusion of the others, and each one is a dystopia.”In Utilitaria, which is gleaming and prosperous, the elderly are routinely put to a humane death. Abortion is legal but decided on by the government, which rules whether any given birth would aid the general happiness.In Communitaria, everyone is divided into narrow camps, and it is almost impossible to do or say anything without causing offense (which will be punished as a crime).In Libertaria, which calls the contemporary U.S. to mind, citizens are left alone, which means that many are left to sleep on the street, city centers are full of sleaze, and a few rich people benefit from gambling.It is a brilliant tour of moral thought, and Lukes told me the book was most influenced by Isaiah Berlin, the 20th-century British philosopher and essayist. Both Berlin and Rawls were present at the lectures in which Lukes first told the fables of the different countries that would become the novel.“The book is really about pluralism: Is there an irreducible conflict between these values?” Lukes said. “Rawls is an attempt to somehow bring them together to give an overarching theory that somehow encompasses everything. You could contrast that with Berlin’s position that these are irreducible conflicts that aren’t going to be resolved, because that’s what life is. Instead you just have to choose what your ultimate values are.”By the end of Lukes’s allegory, Professor Caritat has come around to the Berlin point of view: The conflicts between these competing moral systems can’t be resolved.And looking at the real-life allegory acting itself out in the U.S., Berlin again seems to have been proven right. We are not arriving at a position of moral coherence, but instead confront moral conflict. How did this happen?Rawlsian PhantomsIt’s evident now that those early days of Rawlsian unity were an illusion. Yes, the calls for sacrifice to protect the elderly certainly sounded as though motivated by the golden rule. But in the months since, the scandal of those abandoned to die in nursing homes on both sides of the Atlantic has only grown.Moreover, getting people to sacrifice in the name of the golden rule requires trust in governments to make sure that those sacrifices are not wasted. In many places, that doesn’t exist. The deepening inequality across the western world would have been anathema to Rawls. In the U.S., long-standing casualties of inequality such as African-Americans and Native Americans turned out to be particularly susceptible to the virus, so the pandemic began to reinforce existing feelings of injustice.Other than in countries where the state could rely on its ability to coerce people, like China, lockdowns worked most effectively under governments perceived to be trustworthy and efficient, like Germany or Norway. In Norway, people believed that enforced self-isolation would pay off. In the U.S., public-health failures blazed a trail of skepticism.When governments are perceived to be unfair or inconsistent, Rawlsian discipline breaks down. Exhibit A is the remarkable story of Dominic Cummings, the Svengali-like political adviser to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Britain has a strong tradition of accepting authority, and the population had complied with a strict lockdown with minimal protest — until it was revealed that Cummings had broken the lockdown rules to drive 260 miles with his wife and child when he thought the family might have contracted Covid-19. It led to an outcry, especially as Johnson refused to dismiss him, claiming that Cummings had been concerned for his family and was entitled to use his discretion (opening the way for many more Britons to stop social distancing), and Cummings refused to apologize.For the many Britons who had gone without funerals or visits to elderly parents, this was a fatal philosophical blow. If Cummings had broken the golden rule, and the government had supported him, there was no reason why they should follow. The ministers defending Cummings were “telling the nation that Dom’s only crime was loving his family too much — and so implicitly telling every Briton who obeyed the rules that they loved their family too little,” the columnist Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian.A final problem for self-sacrifice a la Rawls was that people felt that governments were asking too much, stretching the golden rule too far. Ashley Radcliffe, a stay-at-home mother from the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Woods put it this way in an interview with the Detroit Free Press:The restrictions are too much. People want to work. They want their lives back. In the first couple weeks I was like, 'We're all staying in.' And we all did. Then that kind of wore off. She has restarted neighborhood play dates for her 5-year-old son. Liberty? Which Kind?Resisting authority is one thing. Fighting for liberty is another. Much depends upon exactly what liberty means, and Isaiah Berlin framed that moral debate. In a famous 1959 essay called "Two Concepts of Liberty," Berlin suggested that libertarians practiced either “positive” liberty, which entails the active freedom to do something, or “negative” liberty, which is freedom from interference. His point was that these two kinds of liberty are different. The U.S. Constitution is rooted in negative liberty, the freedom to be left alone. But the protesters who entered the Michigan capitol in Lansing with assault rifles in April and May were plainly pursuing positive liberty. Berlin, who was born in Latvia in 1909 when it was part of the Russian empire, believed that opened doors to totalitarianism.What, in any case, do the protesters want? A mandatory lockdown clearly violates any definition of liberty, but can this really be said of requiring people to wear a mask when entering a shop? In one incident, a man was caught on video demanding the right to enter a Costco unmasked “because I woke up in a free country.” In Albany, Minnesota, chanting protesters tried to pull the mask off a reporter, asserting their positive liberty to violate his negative liberty. Various people have been caught on camera deliberately coughing or spitting on people asking them to put on a mask.Libertarians often face criticism that they are justifying selfishness, and disregard for others. Such incidents confirm the stereotype and embarrass many libertarians. Resistance against incursions by an untrustworthy state does not justify violence against people who wear masks, or even going maskless in public. As Lukes put it: “You are putting other people in danger and you are putting yourself in danger. If liberty just means no restraint on something we might want to do, there are obvious deprivations of liberty that are totally justified. Like driving drunk.”Positive liberty also violates many American conservatives’ respect for their community and its norms, even if they share an instinctive distrust of over-reaching governments. Gary Adkisson, publisher of the Bismarck Tribune in North Dakota, wrote of how he would arrive dirty from work in the fields at a store with a “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” sign: There were rarely any other shoppers there, but my grandfather or uncles would not let us go inside shirtless or shoeless. It didn’t matter that no one else was there, or that the shirts were no cleaner than our skin, or that we would take them off as soon as we left. We wore them because that’s what the proprietor required. It was a matter of respect.Opposition to lockdowns and masks is led by libertarians, but — much as Berlin might have predicted — self-isolation also runs afoul of communitarian and utilitarian ideals. Communitarians, on the right as well as the left, sense that lockdowns violate traditions and harm the community. Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, was articulating a communitarian spirit when he said on a Sunday talk show: “We take the virus very seriously. It’s a risk. It causes death. But you can’t cloister yourself at home. That is just contrary to the American spirit.”And of course there is the powerful utilitarian argument that lockdowns are wrecking the economy. That can be attacked as preferring profit to people, but record unemployment numbers suggest a real risk of a mental health crisis that could counterbalance the public-health benefits of reducing the Covid-19 death toll. In Italy, where the disease swamped hospitals for a time, doctors resorted to utilitarian rationing of care.None of the great schools of philosophy appears to have been deemed adequate on its own for the great test posed by the pandemic. Principles and TribesIf no version of moral philosophy has triumphed, what ideas are left standing? Is rhetorical allegiance to principles, such as the golden rule, liberty or the “American way,” just a cover for tribalism? As the virus has so far hit the geographical regions where one tribe of Americans lives, while mostly sparing the other, principles tend to rationalize behavior instead of guiding it. For people in the densely populated cities of the Acela corridor, who tend to be politically liberal, wearing masks and following government instructions seems like a good idea. For the more sparsely populated states in the middle of the country, whose citizens are philosophically more inclined to distrust the government, it is different.“People can vote or take political positions for a whole variety of motives,” said Lukes. “But nevertheless, when it comes to justifying their ideas they reach out for principles. Whether those principles are truly important to them is different.”And that is what has happened. Governments, with some exceptions, couldn’t persuade their people that they were really following the golden rule and treating everyone with equal respect. They also failed to prove that it was worth doing so. Protesters lost their patience, and misused the notion of liberty as a cudgel against lockdowns, while also bringing valid utilitarian, communitarian and libertarian criticisms into the fray. All may claim to be motivated by principle. But in the U.S., at least, people seem to be taking refuge in tribes, and joining those with whom they already share grievances.At this point, it looks as though Isaiah Berlin has been proven right.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.John Authers is a senior editor for markets. Before Bloomberg, he spent 29 years with the Financial Times, where he was head of the Lex Column and chief markets commentator. He is the author of “The Fearful Rise of Markets” and other books.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Financial Times

    Amazon blames ‘bad actor’ for racial slurs

    Amazon said a “bad actor” was to blame after listings containing racial slurs appeared on its store within searches for Apple’s AirPod earphones and similar products. Shoppers using Amazon’s UK-facing site and app discovered listings had replaced the product image with an abusive message that contained several instances of the N-word. Many of the listings appeared on the highly coveted and trafficked first page of results for “airpods” or “bluetooth headphones”.

  • Bloomberg

    Riots Breed Chaos, Violence and Most Likely Covid-19

    (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Like so many Americans, I didn’t get much sleep Friday night. All night long, I kept refreshing my Twitter feed, watching and re-watching the videos of the rioting that took place in cities nationwide in reaction to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis earlier in the week.I saw a New York police officer throwing a young protester to the ground, calling her a vile name as he did; a police car going up in flames in Dallas; an assault on the CNN building in Atlanta; a police officer in Louisville, Kentucky, shooting a pepper-spray ball at a camera operator. And on and on.My feelings watching the riots unfold weren’t much different from most people’s: horror, revulsion and a powerful sadness that this is what it had come to, perhaps inevitably, three and a half years into the presidency of Donald Trump. I recalled watching the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. I thought about Ferguson, Missouri, and about the way so many police forces across the country seem to operate with impunity. I thought about that appalling tweet the president sent earlier on Friday: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”And I thought about one other thing: Philadelphia in late September 1918. The U.S. had entered World War I the year before, and the city had planned an enormous parade — It would stretch two miles — to raise money for the war effort. The 1918 pandemic, which would eventually kill an estimated 675,000 Americans, was in its early stages, just beginning to jump from military bases, where it began, to the broader population.Several doctors urged the city to cancel  the parade because the hundreds of thousands of onlookers it would attract would surely cause the virus to spread widely. John M. Barry, in “The Great Influenza,”(1) describes what happened in the city after the parade:On October 1, the third day after the parade, the epidemic killed more than one hundred people — 117 — in a single day. That number would double, triple, quadruple, sextuple. Soon the daily death toll from influenza alone would exceed the city’ average weekly death toll from all causes — all illnesses, all accidents, all criminal acts combined.On Friday night, the current pandemic seemed to be forgotten. Most police officers either wore face shields or masks, but most protesters did not. They crowded together, stumbled over one another as they ran from the police, engaged in shoving matches and more, ignoring weeks of warnings about the importance of social distancing.In the heat of the moment, it’s understandable, I suppose, that angry protesters would forget that we are in the midst of a pandemic. But the consequence is likely to be severe. In many of the cities where the rioting took place, it had begun to seem as if the worst was behind them, with the number of hospitalizations and deaths declining steadily. There is no question that adherence to social-distancing guidelines, the use of masks, regular hand-washing and the cancellation of professional sports and other events that draw crowds have played a huge role in getting the pandemic under some semblance of control.Over the next two weeks, as those infected during the riots show symptoms — and spread the virus to others — those gains are likely to be reversed. People have a right to be angry about Floyd’s needless death. But an upsurge in Covid-19 deaths is likely to be a result of the riots. It may not be as bad as Philadelphia in 1918, but it’s not going to be good.I spent a good portion of last week reading papers by economists that attempted to calculate how the country can reopen in a way that would maximize economic activity while minimizing Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths. Although the papers didn’t necessarily agree on the best way to proceed, they collectively offered hope — that we were far enough along that we could start calculating the best way to get back on our feet. Now, after the riots, those papers may have been wasted effort.I’ve seen suggestions on Twitter that the lockdown was part of the reason the riots took place. “When the only party youth is permitted to attend is a riot, we shouldn’t act surprised when they all show up,” read one tweet.  I’m no fan of full-fledged lockdowns, but I don’t think that had much to do with the riots.But I do think Trump’s lack of leadership since the beginning of the pandemic played a role. His refusal to wear a mask or insist on social distancing at his press conferences; his urging red states to reopen well before it was safe; his support of the armed citizens in Michigan who invaded the statehouse because they didn’t want to have their “freedom” curtailed — they all sent a message that he viewed the measures being urged by scientists as examples of “political correctness.” A real leader would have reinforced the message that measures aimed at tamping down a killer virus, however inconvenient, were in the best interest of everyone.Without that reinforcement from a trusted leader, it’s been all too easy for angry protesters to forget that we are still in the middle of a pandemic and that people who don’t take precautions can still die. Some surely will in the coming weeks.(1) The full title is: “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Joe Nocera is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. His latest project is the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

  • 10 Things to Hate About Canopy Growth's Q4 Update
    Motley Fool

    10 Things to Hate About Canopy Growth's Q4 Update

    After Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB) posted surprisingly positive Q3 results last week, some might have thought that Canopy Growth (NYSE: CGC) would have good news in its quarterly update this week. Canopy announced its fiscal 2020 fourth-quarter and full-year results on Friday and the marijuana stock fell more than 20% in intraday trading, which gives you an idea of how the company performed in Q4. Here are 10 things to hate about Canopy Growth's Q4 update, along with a couple of things to love.

  • 3 Ways to Invest in the Acceleration of E-Commerce That Aren't Amazon
    Motley Fool

    3 Ways to Invest in the Acceleration of E-Commerce That Aren't Amazon

    Online sales have exploded during the coronavirus pandemic, as consumers try to stay home more. Online sales at Walmart, Target, and Best Buy in the first quarter increased by 74%, 141%, and 155%, respectively. Meanwhile, the 800-pound gorilla that is Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) continued its steady march, growing global online sales by 24% (Amazon's fiscal quarter ends a month before the other retailers mentioned).

  • Where Will Tesla Be in 5 Years?
    Motley Fool

    Where Will Tesla Be in 5 Years?

    Since even before its IPO, top electric-car maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has faced tough questions about its future. After that, they were skeptical about the economics of manufacturing a mass-market electric car. Throughout it all, Tesla's reputation, its footprint, and -- for the most part, anyway -- its share price grew and grew and grew (as did its debt load; more on that later).

  • Data show why HBO Max's slow start may not tell the whole story
    Yahoo Finance

    Data show why HBO Max's slow start may not tell the whole story

    HBO Max made its official entrance into the streaming wars on Wednesday — and its day-one performance highlights how consumers are embracing the new platform.

  • Why Is Twitter (TWTR) Up 8% Since Last Earnings Report?
    Zacks

    Why Is Twitter (TWTR) Up 8% Since Last Earnings Report?

    Twitter (TWTR) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.

  • Why Is American Airlines (AAL) Down 12.6% Since Last Earnings Report?
    Zacks

    Why Is American Airlines (AAL) Down 12.6% Since Last Earnings Report?

    American Airlines (AAL) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.

  • Why Is Apple (AAPL) Up 8.2% Since Last Earnings Report?
    Zacks

    Why Is Apple (AAPL) Up 8.2% Since Last Earnings Report?

    Apple (AAPL) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.

  • Better Buy: Activision Blizzard vs. NVIDIA
    Motley Fool

    Better Buy: Activision Blizzard vs. NVIDIA

    Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) are pillars of the video game industry. Meanwhile, many of the millions of PC gamers are using NVIDIA's graphics cards, and the company claims to serve more than 200 million gamers with its GeForce family of graphics processing units (GPUs) and is the market share leader in the discrete GPU market. With more people at home since March, Activision Blizzard reported high engagement levels across most of its games.

  • 3 Stocks That Pay You Monthly
    Motley Fool

    3 Stocks That Pay You Monthly

    For retirees or those planning their retirement, stocks that pay their dividends monthly are particularly attractive investments. With its stock 66% below the 52-week high of almost $8.50 per share hit last September -- or even the $7 level it was trading at just before the COVID-19 outbreak struck -- investors have an opportunity to realize significant capital appreciation with Enerplus while continuing to receive their monthly dividend check.

  • Zoom Earnings: Will They Keep the Stock's Coronavirus-Fueled Surge Going?
    Motley Fool

    Zoom Earnings: Will They Keep the Stock's Coronavirus-Fueled Surge Going?

    Zoom Video stock has soared 164% in 2020, so expectations are high for the videoconferencing specialist's Q1 earnings.

  • Forget Boeing: This Aerospace Company Proved Its Stock Is a Better Buy Now
    Motley Fool

    Forget Boeing: This Aerospace Company Proved Its Stock Is a Better Buy Now

    Heico is a diversified, low-debt option for investors interested in buying into an aerospace recovery.

  • 3 Great Reasons to Buy Disney
    Motley Fool

    3 Great Reasons to Buy Disney

    Its new streaming service is a hit, theme parks and sports are restarting, and the current price looks like a great buy for long-term investors.

  • Instagram May Be About to Unlock Billions in New Revenue
    Motley Fool

    Instagram May Be About to Unlock Billions in New Revenue

    Instagram is going to share some revenue with users. The move could generate billions in revenue for the Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) subsidiary and put it in greater competition with Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) YouTube for both talent and ad sales. For reference, YouTube generated $15 billion in gross revenue last year.

  • Elon Musk Has Forgotten Tesla's Market
    Motley Fool

    Elon Musk Has Forgotten Tesla's Market

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