CEO SPOTLIGHT - KURT EKERT OF SABRE

Here is the link. 

Kurt Ekert joined Sabre as president in January 2022 and became CEO in April 2023. Prior to that he had been president and CEO of CWT, chief commercial officer at Travelport and held executive positions at GTA, Orbitz Worldwide, Cendant and Continental Airlines.

During the company’s recent call to report its Q1 2024 financial figures, Ekert said the results “exceeded expectations,” with quarterly revenue of $783 million. 

A year into taking up the CEO role at Sabre, the metrics are going in the right direction for Kurt Ekert. Revenue is up alongside EBITDA in the first quarter, and all the business units are reporting gains.

But more than that, as Sabre continues to execute on its growth strategy Ekert sees significant opportunity for further growth across hotel and air distribution as well as Sabre's payments and IT solutions business units.

In a broad ranging interview with PhocusWire, Ekert discussed the current mood of the distribution landscape, advances in new distribution capability and how penetration might grow in 2024 and the move to "offer and order" sales.

He also talks about Sabre's partnership with Google and the importance of the move to the cloud and modular technology.

Finally, he touches on artificial intelligence and, more specifically, generative AI and how Sabre is using the technology now as well as its potential going forward.

Watch or listen to the full interview with PhocusWire senior reporter Linda Fox.

CEO Spotlight - Kurt Ekert of Sabre

Here is the link. 

440 views May 6, 2024

Sabre president and CEO Kurt Ekert talks to PhocusWire senior reporter Linda Fox for the "CEO Spotlight" feature. Full story: https://www.phocuswire.com/ceo-spotli...

炒股常见的心理弱点

 

炒股常见的心理弱点，你中了几个？我们共同克服。

来自必涨哥清福的雪球专栏

炒股常见的心理弱点，你是否存在？不妨在评论区留言留下您的投资感悟和经历吧。【收藏+关注】，投资不迷路。

1．恐惧心理

从心理学角度来讲,恐惧是一种有机体企图摆脱、逃避某种情景而又无能为力的情绪体验。恐惧是一种复杂的心理情绪,当一个人处于恐惧之中,其行为举止常表现为愤怒、敌意等一些否定性情绪,具体表现为：神经高度紧张,内心充满害怕,注意力无法集中,脑子里一片空白,不能正确判断或控制自己的举止,变得容易冲动,从而产生极大的破坏力。

股市中,恐惧主要表现在两个方面：

一则害怕损失。投资者进入股市就是为了盈利的,当投资发生亏损时就会产生恐惧心理。但是股票市场本来就是一个具有风险的市场,进入股市前就应该做好亏损的准备,以平和的心态面对得失,如果心态不好,盲目追涨杀跌,只会错上加错,在亏损的时候要反省自己,理性对待,方能减少损失。

二则害怕踏空。当市场行情好转,股票出现大幅上涨的时候,投资者没有介入,这时投资者便会有一种错失机会的感觉,尤其是当原来处于亏损状态,自己由于恐惧提前出来时感觉会更加明显。这个时候投资者往往会不顾一切盲目投入,失去对市场的判断能力,让投资者忽略了市场还有其他投资机会,结果导致更大的亏损。

2．贪婪心理

贪婪是人类的一种本性,也是影响人们心理平衡的一个重要的影响因素。特别是在股票交易市场,由于股价的上下波动迅速,会对投资者的心理产生更多的紧张感,从而容易失去对股票操作交易的客观性判断。

一般来讲投资人的信心会随着股价的上涨而增强,随着股价的下降而减弱。在股票交易中,当股票下跌时,人们总想以更低的价格买人,到最后坐失良机；

当股价上涨时,总期望股价继续上扬,想以更高的价格卖出,导致利润回落甚至亏损。股票的价格不会一直跌,也不会一直涨,最终都会回归相对合理的价位。每个人购买股票时都应该有一个合理的心理预期价格,当股价达到这个心理预期价格时就应该获利了结。人的欲望是无穷的,当欲望膨胀的时候永远都无法满足当前的利润。控制贪婪,方为上策。

3．选择性判断

在股票市场中,当人们持有某只股票时,通常会过滤掉那些对该股票的不利消息,关注并放大对该股票有利的消息,主观地认为该股价会持续上涨。

相反,倘若人们将持有的股票卖出时,通常会选择性地过滤掉该股票的利好消息,放大该股票的不利消息,并认为该股价会继续走低。人们往往会选择那些对自己决策有利的证据来证明自己,选择性地筛选信息判断股票的走势。

4．过度交易

大多股市投资者每天都沉浸在市场中,时刻盯着所持有股票的交易行情,担心错过获利的机会,所以时刻关注着股价的每一次波动。他们把市场当作赌场一样,寻求心理的刺激,股价的波动以及股市的消息无时无刻不在刺激着他们敏感的神经,以至于他们频繁地交易。目前大多数投资者都偏向于短线交易,时刻关注着价格波动,情绪也随着股价的波动而战战兢兢,往往一天下来,如同经历过数次牛市和熊市的转换,身心疲惫。这使投资人的理性思考能力受到影响,极易受到一点坏消息和较大的价格波动而终止投资行为。股票的日常波动价格是难以预测的．价格的反复无常只会让过度交易者患得患失,失去对市场的正确判断能力。

5．性急心理

在股票市场投资中,很多人总想着能够快速致富,今天买的股票,明天就必须要大涨,倘若买了几天都没有大涨甚至还跌了,内心便开始躁动、不安。当这种不安达到一定程度时便会选择将股票卖出。股票投资需要耐心,没有人能做到一买人就大涨,股票的涨跌都是市场行为,是没有绝对的规律的,因为耐心不足而终止一次投资,往往失去该次投资可能的机会并浪费了时间。因此在股市投资中,要有充足的耐心,才能更好地理性参与股市投资。

6．定式心理

定式心理是指人们由于过去的经验作用,而在心理和行为上出现固定的倾向。在股市投资上,通常表现为投资者对某一类股票格外钟情,对某种操作方法十分偏爱,即便由于情况发生变化,原先的操作方法和钟爱的股票类型已经和当前形势不相宜时,他们仍然会继续保持原来的操作方法。

其实这就是我们常说的习惯,习惯一旦养成便很难更改。但是股票市场瞬息万变,热点、题材、操作理念总是在不断变化,投资者的思想必须不断适应市场的变化,不能一成不变。但是习惯的养成是日积月累的结果,需要投资者在投资过程中不断总结经验,不断学习,让定式心理逐渐改变。

炒股常见的心理弱点，你有吗？不妨在评论区留言留下您的投资感悟和经历吧。看看有没有和你一样的阶段和感悟的人

作者：必涨哥清福
链接：https://xueqiu.com/5625533434/242991056
来源：雪球
著作权归作者所有。商业转载请联系作者获得授权，非商业转载请注明出处。
风险提示：本文所提到的观点仅代表个人的意见，所涉及标的不作推荐，据此买卖，风险自负。

TFSA | SABR | Loss over $35,000 US dollars | May 12 2024

 

NCLH | May 2024

 

GEHC | May 2024 | Jim Cramer | Investing club

 

Questrade.com | May 9 2024

 

May 9 2024 | Charles schwab | Trades

 

Akamai Technologies, Inc.

 Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an American delivery company that provides content delivery network^[3] (CDN), cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, and cloud services.^[4][5] Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it operates a worldwide network of servers whose capacity it rents to customers running websites and other web services, with the goal of providing end users with greater speed and availability via Akamai-owned servers located closer to them.

History[edit]

The company was named after akamai, which means 'clever,' or more colloquially, 'cool' in Hawaiian. Co-founder Daniel M. Lewin found the term in an Hawaiian-English dictionary after a colleague's suggestion.^[6]

Akamai Technologies entered the 1998 MIT $50K competition with a business proposition based on their research on consistent hashing,^[7] and was selected as one of the finalists.^[8] By August 1998, they had developed a working prototype, and with the help of Jonathan Seelig and Randall Kaplan, they took steps to incorporate the company.^[9] Akamai Technologies was incorporated on August 20, 1998.^[10]

In late 1998 and early 1999, a group of business professionals and scientists joined the founding team—most notably, Paul Sagan, former president of New Media for Time Inc., and George Conrades, former chairman and chief executive officer of BBN Corp. and senior vice president of US operations for IBM. Conrades became chief executive officer of Akamai in April 1999.^[11][12][13] The company launched its commercial service in April 1999 and was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market from October 29, 1999.^[14]

On July 1, 2001, Akamai was added to the Russell 3000 Index and Russell 2000 Index.^[15]

On September 11, 2001, co-founder Daniel M. Lewin died in the September 11 attacks at the age of 31 when he was stabbed by one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center. He was seated closest to the hijackers and may have tried to stop them.^[16]

In 2005, Paul Sagan was named chief executive officer of Akamai, taking over from Conrades. Sagan worked to differentiate Akamai from its competitors by expanding its breadth of services.^[13] Under his leadership, it grew to $1.37 billion in revenue.^[17]

In July 2007, Akamai was added to the S&P 500 Index.^[18]

In 2013, co-founder Tom Leighton was elected chief executive officer, replacing Sagan.^[19]

On February 9, 2021, Akamai announced it would reorganize into two internal groups, Security Technology and Edge Technology. It also re-established the role of chief technology officer, and named Robert Blumofe to that role.^[20] Long-time chief security officer (CSO) Andy Ellis announced he would leave in March 2021.^[21]

Akamai's headquarters are in Kendall Square. It started in Technology Square and later expanded to multiple buildings in Cambridge Center. It consolidated its offices in a purpose-built building at 145 Broadway in December 2019.^[22]

Par 401 K | 10 year performance

 

J.J. Feldman, co-head of wealth management, Helium Advisors

 J.J. Feldman, co-head of wealth management, Helium Advisors: A lot of our clients are in California, so on the cash-management side we’re using a lot of Treasury bills, which are paying over 5% and are state-income-tax free. And you can use ETFs as well, as the tax treatment flows through. One we like is the Goldman Sachs Treasury bill ETF, GBIL.

For their businesses, a lot of our clients have used one bank or credit union. So essentially if a client’s business has $2.5 million dollars, it’s all in one bank. We work with a program called Cantor Cash, where your money is spread out between multiple banks, with yields in the 4% to 5% range, and total deposits up to $25 million are covered under FDIC insurance. It’s almost like a fintech, where it looks to you like it’s just one balance. We also have some clients who are on the board of nonprofits and with last year’s bank scare, they said, “hey, our nonprofit has $5 million in one bank, we’re worried.” Their yield was about 50 basis points, and we’ve got them now to 4%-plus, and we’ve got it all FDIC insured under one platform.

Credit card interest rates have gone up dramatically, from about 15% to 25%. Some clients with large balances have come to us asking for the best solution. One of those clients had a life insurance policy with a cash value that was more than enough to pay off the credit cards. We borrowed from the policy, which had a borrowing rate of 5% but where the borrowed money still earns interest from the dividends from the life insurance company. So it was essentially a 0% loan to themselves, and they were able to pay off the credit card.

Benjamin Pace, chief investment officer, Cerity Partners

 Benjamin Pace, chief investment officer, Cerity Partners: The Fed is going to eventually be able to declare victory on inflation. It’s just that going into the year, we thought rate cuts were going to start in March, and now June seems to be off the table too in favor of September. In that environment, there are a couple of things we’re recommending to clients. When you talk about cash management, make sure you’re availing yourself of these higher short-term interest rates. The big banks especially have not felt compelled to increase their short-term rates to the same extent that the regional banks and the money-market funds have. So make sure you’re at least taking advantage of these 5% short-term interest rates.

The second thing is that if the Fed does decrease interest rates, the inverted yield curve should rectify, with short-term rates coming down. That means your cash rates will come down. So it might be a good time, as the 10-year Treasury is sitting at 4.5%, to extend your maturity a little bit. It’s easier said than done though, because you’re asking clients to give up a 5% yielding vehicle to go into a 4.5%- yielding vehicle. But the thought is that the 4.5% yield will stay that way, and the 5% one will come down into the low 4% range in the foreseeable future.

How to Thrive in a Higher-for-Longer Rate Environment. Here’s What Investment Pros Say.

Jamie Battmer, chief investment officer, Creative Planning: As far as an asset allocation strategy, there is just no historical empirical data that would support maintaining a large long-term cash position. For any client who has a longer term time horizon, cash has underperformed equity 100% of the time over any trailing 20-year period. Even those people who are on the brink of retirement have a 20-year time horizon ahead of them. It’s nice that cash isn’t the dead-end street it was in a zero-interest rate environment. But relative to the other investment opportunities out there, cash should still be a minimal part of the portfolio and it should only be designed to fund short-term needs or upcoming withdrawal needs.

In terms of the fixed-income portfolio, it’s really interesting that no one’s talking about essentially the four-year bear market we’re now in for bonds. Imagine if we were in a four-year bear market for equities, how the world would be on fire. A lot of people trying to attach themselves to that trade this year [buying bonds in anticipation of rate cuts, which would boost their value] have been punished for it. Extending the duration on a fixed-income profile adds a lot of risk to the portfolio that we think is better suited to the equity side, where you will be rewarded better over the long run. Even if the inverted yield curve straightens out, we don’t think the opportunity is worth the risk. 

Finviz.com | Hardwork | May 9 2024 | Notes for others

#ToBeginner #StockMarket #Trade #GetUpEarly #EarningSeason #EarnsDateBeforeMarketOpen #Finviz.com #IBDDigital

1.       Get up at 6:00 AM
2.       Open finviz.com -> screener -> use two filters: one is called Earnings date, one is called Market cap
3.       The idea is to find today before the market open – what stocks are down most – sorted by Market cap, focus on those stocks bigger than 10 billion or more, 2 B to 10 B
4.       Next is to sort the stock by industry
5.       Finviz.com is a free website tool
6.       Next is to work on your research, and those panic most today like ALGM, dropped 18% first 30 minutes, RBLX 25%, choose two or three stocks to work on
7.       Work on IBD digital tool, (Paid version, or Morningstar), because it is to trade, bet your luck and understand the market
8.       I chose to bet on ALGM, and search in wechat and find a few good articles about ALGM to read quickly
9.       Place 30 shares bets, it went up $30 dollars, and then bet another 400 shares, and then sold 0.60 * 400 shares = 240 us dollars in first four hours of the day
10.   Move on the other target, I bought 50 shares of pypl, $63.67
11.   I will get back to trade on SABR stock. It takes a lot of research to work on small capital stock. Do not take risk.
12.   I do believe that hard working is most important. Get up early, and read a lot of books about trading, focus on how to set stop loss, and also learn to evaluate yourself. Do not be shy from stock market.
13.   Give feedback to others, and it helps others and make yourself feel better. 

100 Million People Pay Google for Extra Storage. Can It Get Them to Pay More for Smarter AI?

Here is the article. 

GOOGLE GOT TO where it is mostly by offering free services stuffed with ads, but it has increasingly experimented with a different business model: selling subscriptions for extra perks. Its first subscription offering, debuted in 2006, provided additional photo storage for users who didn’t want to have to hit the delete button. You can now pay Google for extra space for emails and documents, too, or to keep recordings from Nest security cameras and remove ads from YouTube. Today the company added a major new pitch to its subscription slate—it’s asking people to pay extra to access a smarter AI chatbot and more capable productivity helpers.

Gemini Advanced, Google’s most powerful chatbot yet, launched today behind a paywall. It costs $19.99 a month in a new tier of the Google One subscription plan known as AI Premium. It combines access to the new chatbot with existing Google One offerings like 2 terabytes of extra storage, a VPN, and other perks.

AI Premium is similar in price to OpenAI’s $20 a month ChatGPT Plus, but includes Google One benefits that otherwise cost $9.99 a month. Subscribers already on pricier Google One tiers will get the new Gemini Advanced features through July 31 at no extra cost; it’s unclear what happens after then.

Google has said Gemini is at the heart of its plans for an AI-enhanced future. If AI Premium finds an audience, that future could also include Google drawing a significant new revenue stream from subscriptions, as people pay to access more powerful AI tools much as gamers shell out for more powerful hardware.

Convincing consumers to cough up for AI could also be imperative for Google. Though hard drive costs generally keep falling, prices for powerful chips such as the Nvidia GPUs and Google TPUs needed for cutting-edge generative AI projects are shockingly high as demand outpaces supply.

Shimrit Ben-Yair, vice president and general manager for the Google One business, tells WIRED that defraying the costs of the computing power behind Gemini is “definitely part of the thinking” in requiring a subscription to access the most advanced version. And it won’t be the last time Google launches an AI feature behind a paywall. “It's just the first step in many more of these generative AI features coming to the market through Google One,” she says.

Google announced last week that Google One was about to cross 100 million subscribers. Ben-Yair says that AI Premium is central to how Google expects to land its next 100 million.

New Model

The generative AI chip crunch also explains why AI Premium comes with a significant restriction despite being an expansion of Google One: While established Google One benefits such as storage can be split among six Google accounts without additional fees, only the plan manager will have access to Gemini Advanced. “We want to build a really sustainable long-term business here,” Shimrit Ben-Yair says.

In an interview with WIRED about Google’s AI strategy in the Gemini era, CEO Sundar Pichai says the company projected costs and potential efficiencies 25 years out when determining pricing for the AI Premium plan. The aim was to keep fees, in the company’s view, compelling, while also providing cash to support new development. “We're building it in a way so that over time it’s what will allow us to invest more in the models and create that virtuous cycle,” Pichai says.

Expanding its subscription empire that is generating $15 billion in sales on an annual basis from Google One and other offerings would help Google make up for the stalling fortunes of one part of its ad business. The unit that sells ads on partner apps and websites brings in annual revenue of about $30 billion, but has been squeezed by rivals and new rules on data collection imposed by mobile platforms such as Apple and lawmakers in Europe. Google parent Alphabet generated 77 percent of its revenue through ad sales last year, down from 79 percent in 2022, extending a years-long slide.

It’s possible that ads could become standard in chatbots or virtual assistants across the tech industry and lessen the drive to sell subscriptions. Google might also do both and target subscribers with ads, too. Both Google and Microsoft are experimenting with including ads into shopping tips and product advice generated by chatbots or other AI systems.

Google and other giants might also feel that the ads business is increasingly outdated and overregulated, especially when some companies are managing to persuade consumers to load up on subscriptions that offer providers healthy profit margins.

Apple has grown its own services business aggressively in recent years, and last year introduced and found customers for an eye-watering $60 a month plan for 12 terabytes of iCloud storage. OpenAI had so many people willing to pay for its $20 a month ChatGPT Plus offering that it had to temporarily halt sales last year until its computing capacity caught up. Microsoft’s coding assistant GitHub Copilot ended 2023 with more than 1.3 million subscribers, the company says, up 30 percent over the previous quarter.

Google has found it can draw new signups by adding advanced photo-editing features to Google One, like the ability to edit out pesky photobombers. “Those were really well received in the market and drove a lot of usage of Google One as well,” Ben-Yair says.

Charging for features is proving to work so well for Google that the company now wants to make the potential for a new idea to draw subscribers a key factor in deciding what to develop in the first place. “If it's good enough for them to pay for, then that puts together a really great way for us to say, ‘Great, let's build more of what is exciting to people and [what] they're willing to pay for,’” Ben-Yair says. “It kind of aligns incentives really well.”

Billions of people use Google products without paying anything and the company is still committed to keeping basic versions of its services freely available. “It's about offering users that choice,” Ben-Yair says.

But over time she expects Google One subscriptions to become more enticing as her team looks to collaborate with outside partners and the other Google units that offer their own subscriptions. “Up until now, we've mostly focused on offering them separately,” she says of the offerings across Google. “But I could totally see us doing more of those cross-products collaborations for the people who want to enjoy more than just one of these subscriptions.”

Hyatt Hotels Corporation

 Hyatt Hotels Corporation, commonly known as Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, is an American multinational hospitality company headquartered in the Riverside Plaza area of Chicago that manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vacation properties. Hyatt Hotels & Resorts is one of the businesses managed by the Pritzker family. Hyatt has more than 1350 hotels and all-inclusive properties in 69 countries across six continents.

The Hyatt Corporation came into being upon purchase of the Hyatt House, at Los Angeles International Airport, on September 27, 1957. In 1969, Hyatt began expanding internationally. Hyatt has grown by developing new properties and through acquisitions, with the biggest growth coming from the acquisition of AmeriSuites (later rebranded Hyatt Place) in 2004, Summerfield Suites (later rebranded Hyatt House) in 2005, and Two Roads Hospitality in 2018.^[2][3][4]