Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

May 2, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Self-taught artificial intelligence beats doctors at predicting heart attacks. (sciencemag)

Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent to open an AI research facility in Seattle.(channelnewsasia)

Media

How the NFL juggles the future of streaming, the decline of TV, and billions of dollars. (recode)

Twitter still thinks it’s a TV platform, and here are its dozen new shows – Last year: NFL. This year: Bloomberg, the WNBA, Live Nation and our friends at The Verge. (recode)

Look to Zuckerberg’s F8, Not Trump’s 100 Days, to See the Shape of the Future(wired)

AFL to enter $1.2 billion eSports industry, wants Etihad Stadium tournament. (theage)

Retail/Consumer Trends

Zillow is launching a new site just for millennials looking for their first home. (businessinsider)

A $50,000 Chrysler Minivan Explains Slowing U.S. Auto Sales. (bloomberg)

Amid Brick-and-Mortar Travails, a Tipping Point for Amazon in Apparel – This year, Amazon will surpass Macy’s to become the largest seller of apparel in America. (nytimes)

Robotics/Automation

iRobot adds WiFi and Alexa functionality to more Roombas. (techcrunch)

Samsung just got approved to test its self-driving cars in South Korea. (theverge)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Australia Is Replacing Passports with Facial Recognition. (futurism)

India to make every single car electric by 2030 in bid to tackle pollution that kills millions. (independent)

Apple is said to include wireless charging in its upcoming iPhones. (businessinsider)

Apple is said to be preparing its Amazon Echo killer – The product is said to be a speaker that can connect to the internet. Users can talk to it using Siri. (businessinsider)

 

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies, charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

April 24, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The Race To Build An AI Chip For Everything Just Got Real – Google recently built its own AI chip, called the TPU. Several of the original engineers behind the Google TPU are now working to build similar chips at a startup called Groq, and the big chip makers, including Intel, IBM, and Qualcomm, are pushing in the same direction. (wired)

Fintech

How Peer-To-Peer Payment Pioneer Venmo Grew Up And Got Serious– Under parent company PayPal, the millennial-focused payments app is finally ready to make some money. (fastco)

Media

Here are all the new products Facebook announced at F8 – Augmented and virtual reality were on the long list of updates. (recode)

Netflix wants to borrow another $1B to pay for original movies, TV shows – The company says it will have $2 billion in negative cash flow this year. (recode)

The smartphone is eventually going to die – This is Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for what comes next.(businessinsider)

Snapchat adds augmented reality emoji to your videos – You can walk around these virtual objects and see them from any angle. (engadget)

 

Retail/Consumer Trends

Panera to hire 10,000 for delivery service. (usatoday)

These 10 retailers could be the next to declare bankruptcy. (businessinsider)

Robotics/Automation

Amazon Forms Team to Focus on Driverless Technology – Group could help retailer deliver packages quickly as it builds out its supply chain and logistics network. (wsj)

Jack Ma Sees Decades of Pain as Internet Upends Old Economy – Alibaba founder says education can ease blow from automation. (Bloomberg)

A Factory Cut Labor Costs in Half, Thanks to Tiny Robots – Shipping company Shentong Express has managed to slash labor costs in half by using sorting robots. (futurism)

A brick-laying robot that works 500% faster than humans is coming to the U.K. in a few months.(futurism)

Out There/Miscellaneous

China’s internet giants go global – There was a time when China’s big internet companies were dismissed by investors in Silicon Valley as marginal firms with a tendency to copy Western products. Not anymore. (theeconomist)

Uber’s C.E.O. Plays With Fire – A look at Travis Kalanick’s risk taking, from his early startups to Uber, which once led Tim Cook to threaten Kalanick with app removal for breaking store rules. (nytimes)

Here’s a video of Larry Page’s flying car in action(fastco)

 

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies, charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

April 17, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

‘Can Anyone Catch Alexa?’ – Amazon was the star of the 2017 CES event with multiple Alexa-enabled devices and there has been little pause in new features since then. (benzinga)

7 Reasons You Should Embrace, Not Fear, Artificial Intelligence.(futurism)

Media

Las Vegas nightclub is turning into an eSports arena – A Luxor nightclub is turning into a flagship gaming venue. (engadget)

This billion-dollar startup wants to capture your emotions in virtual reality. (TechCrunch)

Facebook is about to take the wraps off its secretive and ambitious consumer hardware group. (businessinsider)

A potential fight is brewing in TV land over an under-20-dollar TV bundle without sports. (businessinsider)

Snapchat has set its first earnings call for May, and investors only care about user growth.(businessinsider)

Mobility

Apple’s self-driving car project now has a permit in California – The Apple Car is alive – whatever it is.(recode)

Retail/Consumer Trends

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Outlines How He Tries to Keep Retail Giant in Startup Mode – Bezos stressed the importance of putting customers first and staying nimble. (wsj)

The Next Shoe to Drop at Amazon – The fragmented grocery market is ripe for growth. (Bloomberg)

Wealthy shoppers have a new mentality that signals trouble for Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Tiffany. (businessinsider)

Costco cards boost Citi. (businessinsider)

Walmart is in advanced talks to acquire online men’s retailer Bonobos – It would be the 4th acquisition in seven months for Walmart e-commerce CEO Marc Lore. (recode)

Robotics/Automation

Adidas reveals the first 3D-printed shoe it’ll mass-produce – The company says 100,000 pairs of Futurecraft sneakers will be made by the end of 2018. (theverge)

Robots May Help Build Your Next Home and Fill the Labor Gap – Builders hire the factories to make homes in sections, which are transported on trucks, then laid down on foundations by cranes, like giant Legos. (bloomberg)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Elon Musk: 100 Tesla Gigafactories Could Power the Entire World.(futurism)

 

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies, charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

April 10, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Poker AI Again Trounces Human Challengers, From China This Time. (bloomberg)

IBM’s Watson Supercomputer May Soon Be The Best Doctor In The World. (businessinsider)

Fintech

Goldman Sachs wants to become the Google of Wall Street. (businessinsider)

BlackRock Is Cutting Jobs and Banking on Robots to Beat the Stock Market. (fortune)

Media

55% of US teens don’t see the need for a cable or satellite TV subscription. (businessinsider)

Disney rules the list of movies teens are excited for in the next year. (businessinsider)

Microsoft’s Minecraft, the most popular game in the world, is turning its biggest fans into entrepreneurs. (bloomberg)

Mobility

Audi’s future-proofing plans include more ride sharing – Even if you don’t drive, Audi still needs to sell cars. (engadget)

Video: Vision of a Driverless Future – These warehouse robots slashed manpower by two-thirds. (youtube)

GM’s ‘Super Cruise’ Tesla Autopilot competitor arrives in a Cadillac this fall. (techcrunch)

Ford, GM ranked ahead of Tesla, Waymo, Uber on self-driving tech – Many traditional OEMs were initially skeptical about the commercial prospects for automated driving…However, Ford and other OEMs have begun to move to the forefront. (SVBusinessJournal)

Retail/Consumer Trends

Nike Is No Longer The Number One Brand Worn By Teen Boys. (ibd)

How Amazon Go (probably) makes “just walk out” groceries a reality – Amazon’s new age grocery likely wasn’t possible even five years ago. (arstechnica)

India’s Flipkart raises $1.4B from eBay, Microsoft and Tencent at an $11.6B valuation. (techcrunch)

Robotics/Automation

E-commerce giants are turning to human robotic collaboration to increase efficiency in their warehouse operations. (trunews)

In a decade, many fast-food restaurants will be automated, says Yum Brands CEO. (cnbc)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Within the Next Decade, You Could Be Living in a Post-Smartphone World. (futurism)

Video: A Conversation with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. & Founder of SpaceX moderated by the Chairman of the World Government Summit. (youtube)

Tesla unveils its new ‘sleek and low-profile’ exclusive solar panel. (electrek)

Apple and Google are now copying Samsung’s design. (businessinsider)

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies, charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

March 28, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse – Musk is famous for his futuristic gambles, but Silicon Valley’s latest rush to embrace AI scares him. (vanityfair)

A.I. VERSUS M.D. – What happens when diagnosis is automated?. (newyorker)

Siri and Alexa Are Fighting to Be Your Hotel Butler. (Bloomberg)

Fintech

Payments company Square launches in the U.K., its first European market and fifth globally. (venturebeat)

Media

Facebook is copying Snapchat again: Today it launched Stories, the 24-hour photo and video montages that ultimately disappear, inside of its core Facebook app. (recode)

Pinterest expects to make more than $500 million in revenue this year – The visual discovery site is on the path to an IPO. (recode)

Analysts predict the YouTube advertiser boycott will cost Google $750 million. (businessinsider)

Competitive video gaming (also known as eSports) will be a $1.5 billion industry by 2020. (businessinsider)

Augmented Reality, Not Virtual Reality, Is the Way of the Future for Disney Parks. (nextreality)

Apple’s Next Big Thing: Augmented Reality –  Munster says, AR devices will replace the iPhone. (Bloomberg)

Mobility

China’s Tencent bought a 5% stake in Tesla for $1.8 billion – China accounted for more than 15% of
Tesla’s more than $7 billion
of total revenue last year. (bloomberg)

Uber has resumed tests of its self-driving cars after an Arizona crash – Uber suspended its testing of all autonomous vehicles on Saturday after one of its cars got into a collision. (recode)

Retail/Consumer Trends

Amazon’s store of the future is delayed – Insert ‘Told ya so’ from skeptical retail execs. Problems have arisen when the store is crowded. (recode)

Amazon confirms acquisition of Souq, marking its move into the Middle East. (techcrunch)

There’s one huge factor shaping Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts’ ‘coffee shop of the future’. (businessinsider)

Here’s What the Target Stores of the Future Will Look Like. (Time.com)

Thousands of mall-based stores are shutting down in what’s fast becoming one of the biggest waves of retail closures in decades. (businessinsider)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Elon Musk Just Launched A Company To Merge Your Brain With A Computer. (futurism)

The U.S. will be hit worse by job automation than other major economies – A new study estimates that 38% of U.S. jobs could be lost to automation in the next 15 years. (recode)

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies, charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

March 21, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

ARM Unveils New Chip Design Targeted at Self-Driving Cars, AI – The new design may help ARM, bought last year by Japan’s SoftBank, compete with Intel and IBM, which have recently unveiled chips designed for these applications. (bloomberg)

Amazon brings its voice assistant to the iPhone – Amazon has begun rolling out Alexa, its AI voice assistant, on Apple’s iPhone via its main shopping app. (cnbc)

Leading executives across the world see the use of AI as essential to competitiveness – Almost 1/3 of companies believe AI’s greatest impact will be in sales, marketing or customer service, and in non-customer facing functions such as finance. (economictimes)

Media

Facebook’s secretive and ambitious hardware group is preparing for its debut next month. (wsj)

‘Beauty and the Beast’ could make $1.5B at the box office, and it has big implications for Disney’s future. (businessinsider)

Apple’s newest app looks like a mix between Snapchat and iMovie – Clips lets you share photos or videos up to 30 minutes in length with special filters and effects. (businessinsider)

Apple’s Next Big Thing: Augmented Reality – CEO Tim Cook is betting on augmented reality, a cousin of VR that he believes will keep his company on top and may even supplant the iPhone. (Bloomberg)

Google Home is playing audio ads – A timely experiment sounded very close to a movie advertisement.(theverge)

Mobility

Nvidia ‘deep learning’ guides Paccar self-driving truck – The maker of Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks has developed a proof-of-concept self-driving truck with Level 4 capability built on Nvidia Drive PX 2 technology. (trucker.com)

Bosch will sell Nvidia’s self-driving system to automakers. (theverge)

The days of owning a car could be fading away, thanks to these alternatives. (thewashingtonpost)

Retail/Consumer Trends

Under Armour made some huge mistakes that are turning into a nightmare. (yahoo)

Inside Amazon’s Battle to Break Into the $800B Grocery Market – After almost a decade of food retail experiments with little success online, the e-commerce giant is embracing the physical stores it once shunned. (Bloomberg)

eBay introduces a 3-day guaranteed-delivery program, heating up the battle over quicker shipping.(cnet)

Starbucks is testing a new technology to solve its crisis of long lines and delays. (businessinsider)

Robotics/Automation

Watch robots work with mechanics to put together Boeing 777 jets. (wired)

Jeff Bezos looks a little too happy piloting a giant mechanical robot. (theverge)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Goldman Sachs is building a robo-adviser to give investment advice to affluent customers. (reuters)

Steve Cohen Is Trying to Teach Computers to Think Like Top Traders(Bloomberg)

HSAs Gain Notice, But The Real Boom Is Coming – HSAs, introduced in 2003 under former President George W. Bush, held nearly $37B in assets at the end of 2016, up 22% y/y. (investors.com)

Mars colonization: SpaceX and NASA working together to identify landing spots(ibtimes)

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies, charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

March 15, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

DeepMind Finds Way to Overcome AI’s Forgetfulness Problem – the AI company owned by Alphabet claims it overcame a key limitation affecting one of the most promising machine learning technologies: the software’s inability to remember. (bloomberg)

IBM and Salesforce are teaming up to make it easier for Salesforce customers to use data from IBM’s Watson AI platform. (cnbc)

Adobe Is Building An AI To Automate Web Design – An experimental Adobe project brings machine learning and AI to the graphic and web design worlds. (fastcompany)

Cloud Computing

SocGen Taps Amazon, Microsoft for Cloud as Banks Target Costs – The bank is working with Microsoft and Amazon to become one of the first large European banks to adopt cloud computing for the bulk of its operations. (bloomberg)

Media

U.S. Digital Ad Market to Grow 16% This Year, Led by Facebook and Google – Snapchat poised for “explosive growth” but will remain a small piece of the entire digital ad pie, according to eMarketer’s forecast.(wsj)

Facebook Stories, yet another Snapchat clone, is rolling out to users worldwide. (techcrunch)

How Netflix-ication Can Deliver A Waste-Free Circular Economy – When products turn into services, the business model isn’t about selling you the next widget. It’s about longevity, repairability, and sustainability. (fastcompany)

Snap’s revenue growth looks like it will come from more ads, not more users. (recode)

Mobility

The future of advanced-edge computing is actually in autonomous cars – Intel, Nvidia, as well as system integrators like Harman (purchased by Samsung) all see connected cars as essentially “the” computing device of the next decade or so, just as smartphones have been for the last decade. (recode)

Why Intel is paying $15 billion for Mobileye – Think of your future car as a rolling computer. (recode)

Tesla owners are already getting insurance discounts for using Autopilot. (businessinsider)

Will Driverless Cars Ever Yield Profits for Uber and Lyft? (xconomy)

Retail/Consumer Trends

How Adidas finally became cool again. (businessinsider)

McDonald’s begins testing Mobile Order & Pay ahead of nationwide launch. (techcrunch)

Amazon’s Grocery Store Experiment Gets A Fresh Name – Amazon Fresh Pickup in Seattle receives temporary occupancy approval, signage, and applies for a liquor license. (fastcompany)

Robotics/Automation

San Francisco talks robot tax.(sfexaminer)

Burger-flipping robot replaces humans on first day at work. (thetelegraph)

Out There/Miscellaneous

The Blockchain Will Do to the Financial System What the Internet Did to Media. (HBR)

Oil Executives Are Confident That the Future Is Bright – 85% of the companies that they (Goldman Sachs) cover are planning to increase capital expenditures in 2017. (Bloomberg)

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies, charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

February 15, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

IBM’s Watson-powered voice assistant is built for security pros – IBM is not only launching Watson for Cybersecurity, but is unveiling an experimental voice helper to go along with it. (engadget)
DARPA: We’re Moving to Merge Humans and Machines. (futurism)
Alexa gets even busier as Amazon integrates Outlook.com calendars onto Echo and Dot devices. (geekwire)

Media

IMAX opens first Virtual Reality theater in Los Angeles – 14 “pods” let you try premium VR experiences like ‘John Wick Chronicles.’. (engadget)
Facebook is putting its videos directly on your TV – The app initially will be available on Apple TV,Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TVs. (washingtonpost)

Mobility

Ford to invest $1 billion in artificial intelligence for your car. (washingtonpost)
Norway is reaching tipping point for electric vehicles as market share reaches record breaking 37%. (electrek)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says ‘almost all new cars will be self-driving within 10 years’. (electrek)

Retail/Consumer Trends

The most valuable brands in the world, in one chart – Apple, the most valuable brand for 5 years in a row, loses its place to Google. (marketwatch)
Whole Foods’ dream transformed into its worst nightmare. (businessinsider)
Online grocery sales set to surge, grabbing 20% of market by 2025. (cnbc)
Payless reportedly in talks to close 1,000 stores. (cnbc)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Banks Look to Cellphones to Replace ATM Cards – Customers who don’t want to fumble around in
their wallet for their ATM card will soon be able to unlock cash dispensers’ coffers by using their
phone. (nytimes)
Apple Struggles to Make Big Deals, Hampering Strategy Shifts – Apple’s biggest deal in its 41-year history was the $3B purchase Beats in 2014. In Facebook’s 13 years, it has made 3 acquisitions of least $1 billion, including its $22B WhatsApp purchase. (Bloomberg)
Banks are lending a ton, despite Trump’s claims – Banks are lending a ton to businesses these days. Commercial and industrial loans from commercial banks are an all-time high of $2.1 trillion last November. (cnn)
Soon, you will never lose your boarding pass because it will be your face. (quartz)

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies,charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

February 08, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI Systems Are Learning to Communicate With Humans – A computer science professor is developing collaborative robots that help people with simple tasks around the office. (futurism)

Media

Facebook is closing hundreds of its Oculus VR pop-ups in Best Buys – after some stores went days without a single demo. (businessinsider)

Apple Hires Amazon’s Fire TV Head to Run Apple TV Business – Former Amazon executive also held roles at Netflix and Roku. (bloomberg)

Snap has financially handcuffed itself to Google Cloud – In doing so, it’s not in control over some key parts of its business and costs for the foreseeable future as its IPO approaches. (recode)

The rise of Snapchat from a sexting app by Stanford frat bros to a $3 billion IPO. (businessinsider)

Mobility

Uber Taps NASA Expert to Make Flying Cars a Reality. (futurism)

Got a Self-Driving Car? Soon, No License Will Be Required – Future generations might skip the whole test thing altogether. (inverse)

German Automakers Step Up to Silicon Valley Challenge – Autonomous driving, electric cars and ride-hailing apps from Silicon Valley are reshaping transportation. The market value of Google, which is building a driverless car, is more than double that of BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen combined. (nytimes)

Why Self-Driving Cars Will Be China’s Baidu’s Next Big Opportunity. (foxbusiness)

Fedex is investing in autonomous trucks, and is interested in delivery robots as it prepares to fend off Uber and Amazon. (MIT)

Retail/Consumer Trends

3 problems that crushed the retail industry are now hitting restaurants. (businessinsider)

Robotics and Automation

Bank of America opens branches without employees. (reuters)

Run by robots: Amazon’s high-tech supermarket may only need three employees. (digitaltrends)

As Goldman Embraces Automation, Even the Masters of the Universe Are Threatened – Software that works on Wall Street is changing how business is done and who profits from it. (MIT)

Don’t Blame China For Taking U.S. Jobs – The U.S. has lost 5M factory jobs since 2000. Nevertheless, there was no downturn in U.S. manufacturing output. (furtune)

Why Robo Advisors Might Need Human Help After All – Betterment, a disruptive force in money management, is asking humans to oversee its investing software for customers who are willing to pay a small premium. (barrons)

This Robot Will Carry Your Stuff and Follow You Around – Vespa maker Piaggio’s new robot servant is yet another sign of the transportation industry reinventing itself. (MIT)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Video: Super Bowl drones: Intel uses 300 ‘quadcopters’ for halftime light show. (geekwire)

SpaceX aims to launch every two to three weeks in 2017 – Reuters notes that the company has a backlog of 70 missions worth $10 billion. (theverge)

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies,charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

WILLIAM O’NEIL+CO | Institutional Sales | 12655 Beatrice Street | Los Angeles, CA 90066 | 800.545.8940
William O’Neil + Co. Incorporated is a Registered Investment Advisor with the State of California and certain other states. Employees of William O’Neil + Company and its affiliates may now or in the future have positions in securities mentioned in this communication. Our content should not be relied upon as the sole factor in determining whether to buy, sell, or hold a stock. For important information about reports, our business, and legal notices please go to williamoneil.com/legal.

Trend Watch

Today’s must-reads, curated by O’Neil Research Analysts. Trend Watch.

Every winning stock begins with what’s NEW or what’s NEXT

January 19, 2017 Romeo Alvarez 310.448.6913

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI Software Learns to Make AI Software – Google and others think software that learns to learn could take over some work done by AI experts. (MIT)

In 2017, China Is Doubling Down on AI – Baidu is leading the charge. Already making serious headway in AI research, it has now announced that former Microsoft executive Qi Lu will take over as its COO. (MIT)

Alexa Gives Amazon a Powerful Data Advantage – Millions of people talking with Alexa could help Amazon fight off Google in the home voice assistant market. (MIT)

Media

Inside IMAX’s Big Bet to Rule the Future of Virtual Reality – MAX CEO believes VR is much more than a toy for gamers. He sees it as the future of the movie theater. (wired)

Snapchat’s ad targeting is starting to look more like Facebook’s. (businessinsider)

Netflix Original: New shows drive blockbuster quarter. (channelnewsasia)

Mobility

Seven automotive trends to watch in 2017 – CES and the North American International Auto Show offered tremendous insight into where automotive trends stand today and where they appear to be headed. (washingtonpost)

Tesla’s crash rate dropped 40 percent after Autopilot was installed Feds say. (theverge)

Tesla Has Officially Confirmed Model 3 Production at the Gigafactory. (futurism)

Retail/Consumer Trends

Here’s why JC Penney’s turnaround is in trouble. (businessinsider)

American Airlines will offer cheaper tickets but carry-on bags won’t be allowed. (theverge)

Robots, on-demand knitting and smart shelves: Welcome to the future of shopping. (cnbc)

Robotics and Automation

Robots will start delivering food to doorsteps in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. (recode)

Out There/Miscellaneous

Google and Uber alums have created a doctor’s office that’s like an Apple Store meets ‘Westworld’. (businessinsider)

Tesla’s massive batteries are powering everything from exotic islands to breweries. (businessinsider)

Apple released its next big thing and nobody noticed – Apple is said to be working on a direct competitor to the Amazon Echo — one that would apparently be more advanced than anything we’ve seen. (businessinsider)

The first GMO non-browning apples will go on sale in the US next month. (theverge)

Engineers Are Building a Solar-Powered, Floating Island City – This takes “city of the future” to a whole new level. (futurism)

“America is a country of innovators. It’s your job as a stock trader to find new innovative companies,charts in each cycle” – William O’Neil

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