Managing Your Credit Score, Cable Outfits Fight Back Against the Net, Advice For Startups, and Wynn and Adelson Make Peace

I think credit issues are always important for people to consider, so here is a nice article on how to improve your credit profile:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304451504576394093505289846.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_second

Cable outfits are trying to battle against subscriber losses by adapting their interfaces and making them more user friendly:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-18/u-s-cable-operators-fight-online-competition-by-mimicking-web-interface.html

Excellent advice for people who are involved with startups:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/18/mark-suster-raise-money-now-so-when-the-partys-over-youre-sitting-pretty/

Nice to see the two biggest elephants in gaming, especially Las Vegas Gaming, make peace. About time.

http://www.lvrj.com/business/gaming-alliance-to-boggle-the-mind-124151138.html

The summer is usually a time to chill out and relax. In that light, on this site you will see fewer posts but with a bit more information. If you have any comments, thoughts on the blog, or questions, please post them!

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA

A Business Out of Cowdung, All About Apps, and Protecting Online Reputations

Would not say this is my kind of business, but it is certainly based on efficiency- using cowdung to make manure, fertilizer, and other products. More ingenuity like this, especially in energy, and maybe the U.S. could be energy independant by 2050.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015236170_inpersonmaas06.html

All about apps- there are only going to be thousands more- nice article in the local paper today:

http://www.lvbusinesspress.com/articles/2011/06/06/news/iq_44479658.txt

Interesting article in the NY Times about protecting an online reputation and how it has become much more complex:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/your-money/11wealth.html?ref=technology

If you have any comments or thoughts about any of these articles, please share them. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Ways to Improve The Economy, Online TV Has More Ads, and Learning From Blogging

The news is loaded with stories about the economy and how to fix it, whose fault the current state is, and plenty of other opinions. As a person who engages in different businesses, here are some simple thoughts.

First, with an economy of 300 million people and 10 trillion dollars, the private sector has to do the heavy lifting. All businsses are interested in making more profits. Most of the businesses in the U.S. are small businesses, and you can bet small businesses are always interested in making more money.

Businesses make more money by growing revenues and cutting costs, growing revenues and keeping costs flat, or keeping revenues the same and cutting costs. So, whatever policies can be enacted to help business do any of these things would help a business make more money, and possibly look to expand.

One issue to consider is many businesses now can expand without hiring people- especially in the digital domain. Also, if a business is looking to expand, they are going to try and do it as efficiently as possible, probably in a place where they can keep the most money so they can further grow the business. If a government wants to improve the economy and put people back to work, help companies access new markets (increase revenues), lower costs (reduce bureaucratic costs, hiring costs, etc), or some combination thereof.

Hey, please give us your thoughts on what you would do to help the economy?

Nice article on Online TV and Ads- Surprise- More of Them:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015269003_onlineads09.html

Liked this article on learning from blogging in small business:

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/what-ive-learned-from-blogging/?ref=business

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Skeptics Out in Full Force On U.S. Economy, Moshi Masters Growth and Apple's Astounding User Numbers, and A Great Example of Why People Have No Faith

Well, with last weeks disappointing job number, 5 weeks of a falling stock market, and corporate america continuing to rake in the profits, there is plenty of divergence in how to look at the current economic situation in the U.S. Certainly, the doomsdayers are out in force with the last jobs number being awful (only 54K jobs created, we need well north of 200K per month), housing still in the tank, and plenty of industries struggling with regulatory uncertainty. However, usually, the summer does slow down so I wouldn't think we will have another recession just yet- although you would not know if from the schizophrenics on Wall Street, just my opinion so take it with a grain of salt, here is the summary of the jobs report:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-05/slowing-u-s-growth-prompts-optimists-to-question-durability-of-recovery.html

Great stories on the growth of social gaming company Moshi Masters (yes, I said growth) and the unbelievable numbers of Apple users, across all spectrums:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/05/moshi-monsters-the-social-networking-game-for-kids-passes-the-50-million-users-mark/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/06/apple-15-billion-songs-sold-130-million-books-14-billion-apps-downloaded/

Here is a great example of why citizens in the U.S. have no faith in our politicians- so difficult to trust government about anything:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/business/07derivatives.html?_r=1&hp

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Groupon Files To Go Public, Debt Agencies At It Again, Innovation From A Familiar Leader, and Y H & C Investments on the Radio-

Groupon files to go public- they should go public with their astounding revenue growth (profits are a different story)- take a look: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/02/groupon-growth-2-6-billion-revenue-run-rate-charts/

Rating agencies at it again, this time with the U.S. Government- something makes me think it would only be appropriate when the lawsuits for all the bond rating problems get settled the agencies will have to pay through the nose: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-02/moody-s-says-u-s-may-be-cut-if-no-debt-limit-progres.html

Innovation from a company which has been doing it for many years- swoosh: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/business/media/02adco.html?_r=1&ref=business

Remember, best show on tv- the food revolution, is on ABC Thursday at 8 pm pst. Had a radio interview regarding my Covestor model last week- here is the link if you are interested:

http://www.y-hc.com/resources/in-the-news.html

(Would love any feedback on any of these topics, including the interview- feel free to share your thoughts!)

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments