Shift of business models from selling hardware, to making platforms for services

Looking forward to the future of business

Why is apple making more PHP than Samsung?   Why is Samsung floundering despite making being the leader in CP manufacture.

Well Apple has monetized its Apple iphone to the platform for its services.   For its renewal of ios, the Apple TV, the sale of music etc.

Whereas, Apple is just focused on Samsung phone sales

We see ourselves in the future selling more services where margins are higher and repeat sales are possible rather than sale of hard assets

If people so delegated, are not moving, or not producing results, even if you are semi retired, you have to take action

Looking forward to the future of business

Yesterday, this post went one of its biggest business units.  It has a large inventory with just one personnel. I went to the provincial unit and invited the former top notcher in marketing for  possible business deal, ie. marketing its huge inventory with special reward offering.  We had lunch and discussed possible business deal.   

We will be selling three product groups/category.   This post was thinking of  3,200 units in one year.   

I was fortunate that her business now, marketing is not making that much now

THATS FROM ZERO TO SOMETHING.     Determination alone is omnipotent.     God bless

Why are 99cents stores closing? Walgreen, Walmart, and 711?

Looking forward to the future of business

Whats causing this?

1.  Post pandemic blues;

2.  Decreased purchasing power of consumers due to inflation?

3.  High shoplifting losses vs very thin margins;

4.  What Amazon has wrought?

5.  Higher minimum wages legislation

We used to own a retail establishment.  We could not stand competition with a Sy owned retail store.

 There are many players now:   operating in high rent environment, tight competition, and reduced purchasing power too of consumers.

Are there other things that owners, business managers can do to avert closure....

Are the politicians who increased the cost responsible?  What is better -  higher wages or no wages?

Is this limited to California only or Dems run state

Who are the players now?

1.  Family mart,

2.  Uncle John

3.  Dali

4.  Save more

5.  .Alfa Mart

6.  7 -11

  

More enlightenment (or confusion) on Yen carry trade.

Looking forward to the future of business

This was made several days ago and correctly predicted the raising of interest rates and Yen upsurge in value.  May be triggering the  sell off.

Tutorial on Yen Carry Trade. Were you enticed to invest in this - easy money

Looking forward to the future of business

Easy money;  easy loss

Did the carry trade trigger the market sell off? Is Japan taking down the world finances

Looking forward to the future of business

Is this worse than WWII waged by Japan?

There is huge carry trade happening about as some traders estimate to be between $10 to $15 trillion.   Carry trade is just an arbitrage game.   You get low interest rate from Japan say at 0.80% and invest this in US Treasuries at 3.5% and profit from the interest differential.  Or if the yen sinks further, you can earn on the currency too.  However, things can go south as it is now:   Bank of Japan  has raised interest rates, and the Yen price is on the upsurge.   

Thus funds hedge managers are unloading their carry trades because they will be losing with rising Yen exchange rate, and higher interest rates in Japan. 

And probably this is the cause of the sell off -   investors and fund managers getting rid of carry trade portfolio which are now in losing/negative terriroty

That is why:    this post does not advocate paper shuffling business, making money out of other people miseries.   Do business that really generate values for customers for the world like construction, manufacturing, agriculture, construction.  Arbitrage is a zero sum game:  there are losers and winners, gain gained at the expense/hurt of others.

Is the world on the road to recession (perdition?)

Looking forward to the future of business

Global sell off intensifies

The US, Germany, Korean, Japan stock markets are on decline.   Losing by as much as double digit %

Everybody is spooked by the following events:    Possible escalation of Iran Isreal conflict, high unemployment rate in US, delayed rate reduction by US Fed.     And may be just may be to the presence of carry trade in Japan.

Nikkei fell 12% reminding us of the 2018 crash.  Tech stocks:   like Nvidia and Apple are mostly affected

Amazon lost double digit causing wealth of Jeff Bezos, one of top 5 richest men in the world to plummet big time

Pundits are wondering if Fed is interested in:   fighting inflation or preventing recession.  Well they raised rates to fight inflation

This is what doomsayers have been saying:  Schiff, Kiyosaki, Buffet are saying long long time ago.  And many did not pay heed.  At times the stock market went into the bull territory.   

This post being in the MSME territory would like to focus on micro market.  But we can not deny that Macro market, like the stock market health can affect micro market.   (Well the stock market reacts to economic fundamentals) and a plummeting stock market warns us to be prepared.

87% tax to businesses in California? That is why many businesses are on exodus to other states!

Looking forward to the future of business

87% tax for businesses?  This could destroy businesses in the fabulous state of California.  No kind of business will survive under that environment.  Couple that with high crime rate, high minimum wage, homelessness.  It is certainly not a good place do business anymore.   Top names like Google, Tesla, McDo is also exiting California

All of a sudden our business environment looked so friendly and enticing.   This is even more attractive to export processing zones and free port (as in Subic)   Its time to send trade missions to California to invite them to do business here.

One time I was invited to do a business plan for a meat plant in California which the local family bought for a hefty sum  I advised them vs the idea.  Instead to just export to Asian and ME countries which could achieve the same volume

What will happen to our kababayan in California?   Will California still be the state that has GDP second only to the USA? 

Why has California transformed to be a dismal place for business?  Can this still be reversed?

Buffett happens to be awash in cash when market is about to crash; he goes bargain hunting when stocks fall in value

Looking forward to the future of business

We can only guess that the market is about to crash, or stock prices will be discounted.   He did this before and is now selling off stocks that had increased in value.  That is how Berkshire makes  profits from market crash.    (A bear player?  and sells off in Bull market)

Brilliant eh....

Buffett indicator:       Stock Market Cap   Indicated by Wilshire 5000/GDP

The Buffet strategy does not seem to be rocket science.   Just stay liquid when you see the market overhyped and the bubble is ready to burst.   Then go bargain hunting (just like in 2008 for the BofA stocks which they are unloading now)

 Compare this with historical average.  Higher or lower?   (Lower -  buy)  Higher, expect the difference to be the amount of crash.    So when that happens dont buy!!!

It should give the % of overvalue of stock market cap over GDP and would indicate the % of crash

Why is Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) offloading stocks? Are there corrections in the stock market we do not know? Should you offload stocks too?

Looking forward to the future of business

Warrent Buffet has offloaded billions worth of stocks:   BofA and Apple.  Huge chunks of his holding.  He prefers Treasuries which are sure bet and liquid?

Is Buffet developments that we dont see.?  Are there new things he wants to be positioned in?  Are we on the verge of a crash, or recession.  We do not know.   Only the sage of Omaha knows.   I could only speculate .

But whatever it is lets do our own critical analysis and pay attention to many experts who are predicting a crash.    P. S.   Today August 7, 2024, the crash is unfolding.  Markets world wide are on great sell off.  

Apple does not have much of an innovation;

The financial environment is not friendly to banks.   Or that BH is harvesting BofA stocks for the gains when they bought it cheap 

Let us be prepared.      

PBBM's marching order to the new Acting DTI Secretary Roque - uplift MSMEs

Looking forward to the future of business

This post is glad that the DTI will concentrate on building the business community from the grassroots.  Taking care of the useful many.

In the past this department has focused on the big industries -  getting FDI.   

DTI has shifted gears to the small business that matter.  

More power Sec. Roque

Marching orders to Acting DTI secretary - uplift MSMEs

New DTI secretary, an entrepreneur, businesswoman, fmr USEC for MSME replaces Alfredo Pascual who resigned

Looking forward to the future of business

Former Usec Maria Cristin  Aldeguer Roque was sworn in today as replacement for  DTI secretary Pascual who resigned.   She was the founder of Kamiseta which she founded after college.

We are thankful that a person with entrepreneurial and business experience will be in charge of business and trade in the country  -  not career technocrats, politician.  This is welcome addition to our country's drive towards growth and progress

Ending an adventure on untitled property project, accepting risks and reality

Looking forward to the future of business

This post dreamed of things that were not and asked why.  So since there were plenty of untitled properties begging for development, this post answered that call.

1.  This post tried to negotiate for a 3.5 hectare property near a convention center.  The property is owned by the son of the late friend developer,  To show our interest we lent PHP to the owner.  However, it turned out it was a no go since his brother preferred to sell.  We had the mayor and MPDC pre approve this but now we are left hanging.   The agents assured that we can have this titled.   No title no LTS from DHSUD.  Its going to be an illegal project without LTS

2.  Substitute projects also untitled were forwarded by the agents   One was 2.9 hectares and located at a trail road, which was steep, and the other was 2.1 located along the newly built highway.   The sites could serve roughly 80,000 population and had great overlooking views

      1.  The 2.1 hectare had two cases one in USA, the other here in RTC Antipolo.  The owner is a US

           citizen (a  red flag)  He signified his intention to go on Joint Project.  However the papers were                not delivered early to to me as promised

     2.  The 2.9 project.  It was represented that the decision was to be made by former suppliers.  However it turned out 6000 sm was owned by them.  The 2.2 hectare was owned by step brother who lives in neighboring province He had a stage way of doing business ie for us to make an offer though  did not have the documents

3  The titling and the Guido case:

     We were supposed to meet the persons who could answer the questions on Guido case titling via

free patent:   RA 10023 (Public Lands Act)   RA 11322,  RA 11571.   

      For Guido case the lady Guido was cutting me off, despite the fact that we were there to ask questions.   She was emphatic that they owned the large estate, and under the SC ruling she could ask the LRA and DENR to withdraw titles that have been previously issued.  

     The DENR that we were supposed to meet was not there.  There is no more meeting

     I just asked for a sample Free Patent that was issued brokered by the facilitator that showed:

Guido had issued the applicant with the a waiver, the OCT issued by DENR. This would settle the doubts about the additional expense (which is substantial) to erase all the doubts about the titling  He hesitated and said later and neutralized the request, by saying what use will it be anyway if we dont believe.   He also decried that assigning another party to be convinced to make the final say which is an illogical way of parrying the points being raised.

4.  The actions character of the facilitator

     Red flags and alarm bells were ringing:   The facilitator could not be trusted:

    1.  He was late for appointment

    2.  He misrepresented often:

         1   In the 2.9 property, he mentioned that we were meeting on ministerial way as the elders have

         decided

         2.  That in the case of DENR, we would meet them yesterday, there was none

         3.  That we could ask questions but this post was cut off by the Dona

         4.  He would send docs by gmail but did not

    3.  He often would say we should decide soon, or how should we answer the other party knowing 

          fully well what the problems well

    4.  He had the habit of putting this post on edge which borders on attack on my personality:

        1.  Why did I pass on the decision making to someone else?

        2.   Why am I wasting his time (he made the business proposal)

        3.   Why dont you consult the lawyer if you do not believe.   

Well I was hopeful that we can give him a chance.  I was willing to help him in other business deal.  Disregarding that he spent some time behind bars for violating RPC 315!

    5.  He asks advances and money up front.  Even for a meeting -  A VERY VERY RED FLAG

    6.  He often plays this post against other business acquaintances, and to disregard on going transactions:

        1.  He was approached by Brilliance (a possible ML ) who would eat him up

        2.  A very wealthy realtor who is in to very large real estate development who would finance

             his project

        3.  He has a P500 million deal for the payment of the road way for the Manila East road for the

             Guidos.  ENOUGH playing this post against others.  Not in a mood for contest of egos and

              wealth

I am glad its over.  This business episode has caused a lot of thinking and worries on my part.