Brock Beauchamp

I don't know whether we'll see a legit recession but I know someone who works in purchasing at a major retailer and their sales slumped almost to the minute with election results. The company is worried that it could extend through the holiday season and a soft holiday could really damage retailers, many of which are already on shaky ground.

I was thinking of jumping deeper into Amazon yesterday - the stock was down 25%, I think - but decided I don't have enough financial flexibility to really do that right now. Damned kitchen remodel. Meh.

Nope. I'm getting skewered in the market.

Scottrade here. It's fine. I've used E-Trade in the past and it was also fine.

I wish I had bought into Nvidia but I'm so tech heavy that I was wary about going deeper into that market. But, excluding Tesla, my lowest tech stock gain is Google at roughly 50-60% gains so it's not like I have much room to complain.

I find Falvey/Levine's approach... Interesting, to say the least. They're not overhauling the organization right off the bat. I expected that, to a point... But keeping the entire front office and most of the coaching staff is a surprise. I expected them to discard at least pieces (and possibly a majority) of each almost immediately. It makes me wonder if that's their Year Two plan. Tackle the big, hard issues first (drafting, development, analytics) through expansion and then worry about the other stuff when you feel comfortable with the changes you have in place.

Yeah, combine the enormous need for depth, the lack of free agent options, and the Twins' lack of payroll concerns and I don't really see a reason not to bring him back.

Ah, didn't realize you were talking about retirement accounts. Missed that when I responded.

It's not a terrible idea but I'm not ready to pay tax on my gains all at once. Plus, I'm still confident Clinton will win on Tuesday.

FIFY. I haven't watched Westworld yet - it's going to be a binge for me - but I routinely lament how American television mercilessly flogs ideas until you can no longer remember why you liked the material. Imagine how amazing Lost could have been if the writers went into the series with the plan "four seasons and go home".

I'd avoid the iPhone 7. If you want an iPhone, wait for iPhone 8. It's going to be a huge redesign for the tenth anniversary of the device. The early rumors are no home button, entirely glass phone with an edge-to-edge screen. The home button, touch ID, and all that jazz will be baked into the screen itself.

He was probably thinking of the Nexus 6p (is that right? i forget google's naming schema), which is considerably cheaper but is a year old and wasn't a flagship phone when it released. The Nexus devices were always much cheaper than the iPhone but they were never meant to be flagship devices. They were nice devices, definitely, but not top-tier hardware.

The common practice of accusing Apple of "price gouging" is really bizarre. Apple builds high-end devices and they charge high-end prices for them. The new Google Pixel is the same price as the equivalent iPhone. The same applies to Samsung's Galaxy line. All high-end phones start around $650, give or take $50. All high-end large phones start at $750, give or take $50. The iPhone's price is $650. The iPhone Plus is $770. Look at the Microsoft Surface line and compare prices to Macbooks. Apple's mid-range lines are a bit overpriced but all their high-end hardware is in line with what others charge for their devices. As for proprietary, the only proprietary port on any Apple device is the Lightning port. And with their current push toward USB-C, I hope they eliminate Lightning in the next round of hardware, though I'm not holding my breath. Apple loves their Lightning cable. But even the Lightning port served a legitimate purpose before USB-C offered all the same features. It was omni-directional and waterproof, something micro USB didn't offer.

Eh, that's just the internet being the internet. There are problems with Apple but they have nothing to do with cabling. We're in another transition period of cabling, where tech and speed has made several jumps in the past year. Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C will be the standard within two years because they're vastly superior tech and it's not close. Hell, Thunderbolt 3 is the only tech that can run a 5k monitor out of the box today. And the fact the ports on the new Macs can run USB-C (so much fast), Thunderbolt 3 (again, 5k display), and power through the same port (any port on the computer) is pretty damned impressive. Apple has finally created the mythical "One Port to Rule Them All" and everyone else will follow. They just paved the way for a future where we see a cable that can do anything and you just plug it into an open port on the computer. You don't think about it, you just plug the cable into the box and go. It doesn't matter if that cable is connected to a monitor, a power source, a device, or a network. It's the final step of the "plug and play" concept. Now the rest of the world needs to catch up and make devices using these cables (which they will, as neither Thunderbolt nor USB-C are proprietary Apple tech). While Apple is catching hell for it today, give it three months. As more high-end devices begin to ship with these "horrible" cables (that are faster, much faster, and superior in general), people will just shut up and get on with their lives. And while Apple's lack of innovation is somewhat disturbing, the device market is almost entirely stagnant right now (another typical cycle in the tech world). Microsoft is building some exciting hardware in the Surface line but they don't sell for ****. Worry about the stagnation of the market, sure... But blame Apple for it? Why? Everyone else is suffering from the same issues. It's a market problem, not an Apple problem. It affects Apple because they're a hardware company and one should be concerned about market stagnation but that also applies to every other hardware company who competes in the same markets.

It will release the day following the conclusion of the World Series. Or immediately following the last out of the World Series. I think that depends on Nick and/or John, who are handling the release.

As for Tesla, they're a risk stock but I don't think they're a stock that will bottom out. They're doing *so many* things that will keep them afloat if one market bottoms out. This is a good example of the exciting stuff they're doing outside of cars. http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/10/teslas-solar-roof-and-energy-ambitions-on-display-at-los-angeles-event/

I made a Groupon mistake a few years back. Only lost 30% or so but it taught me a lesson about trying to buy volatile stocks in a down market. They might just keep going down.

Amazon posts huge YoY growth, misses analyst estimates, gets shelled in after-hours trading. lol @ market

Yeah, it's been painful to watch them release good, but not stellar, upgrades over the past couple of years. Then again, most of the rest of the industry is stagnating in the same ways. One of the few interesting hardware projects over the past couple of years has been Microsoft's Surface line of products but their sales have been lackluster, as there simply isn't a lot of money to be had in the traditional computing market, no matter how good your product looks and reviews. The next interesting hardware on the horizon is virtual reality but I don't see that taking off for at least a few years. Virtual reality requires top-end computing hardware and it'll take at least 2-3 years for processors capable of powering a proper VR environment to drop in price. The PS4 is an interesting experiment but it'll only end up being an experiment. The PS4's hardware isn't where it needs to be to run virtual reality and we'll have to wait for the PS5 to really get things rolling in the console VR world.

I don't believe so.

One interesting tidbit about Apple is the monstrous growth of Apple Pay in the past year. Yeah, it doesn't move the needle on Apple but that's only because they're Apple. It's the kind of long-term opportunity channel that most start-ups dream of opening. In the long run, Apple Pay is going to be one of those services that makes Apple a boatload of money with very low overhead on their part. Once they rolled out the service, it mostly runs itself. I suspect we'll see triple digit growth in that sector for a few years as customers grow more comfortable with paying through a phone/watch and idiotic proprietary alternatives such as those used by Target, Wal-Mart, etc. fail miserably. Those proprietary systems are laughable; they're using tech that was badly outdated when Apple Pay launched, much less where it stands today. And Google getting into the game with Android Pay only helps Apple (and vice versa). It encourages both users and retailers to get on board with NFC payments.

I suspect it's Falvey. I doubt the assistant GM has a full docket during the playoffs. And he may not even need to hold interviews. He'd been around the league long enough to likely know who he wants to target as his second in command.

Yeah, Apple better hope Project Titan is something really special or they're in danger of becoming 2000s Microsoft. Highly profitable but invested too deeply in a declining market.

T-Mobile paid off big for me today. Another great quarter, another +7.5% on the stock.

I bought into Disney around $98. Lost some money, put more in at $92. It won't be a huge gain stock but they pay a modest dividend and I expect the market to pull their head out of their asses in a few quarters after Disney continues to increase revenue and profit.