Amazon’s (AMZN on NASDAQ) is spending a fortune on research
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nAccording to Recode, Amazon spent US$23 billion on research in 2017, more than any other U.S. company. That\u2019s more than the entire market value of CGI Group (GIB.A on TSX). It is more than the entire market cap of Open Text (OTEX on TSX) and Blackberry (BB on TSX) combined. In fact, Amazon\u2019s research spend was more than the market value of any Canadian tech company. With so much capital committed to research, is it any wonder why Amazon has been so successful? Canadian companies might take a lesson here: worry less about quarterly earnings, and worry more about staying competitive. Spend some money on research!<\/p>\n
Two centuries of free Netflix! <\/strong><\/p>\nIf you owned 1,000 shares of Netflix (NFLX on NASDAQ) on April 17, the amount of paper profit you made that day would have paid for more than 200 years of a Netflix membership. Netflix shares rose US$28 that day. The gain on 1,000 shares would have been US$28,000. At $13.99 (Canadian) per month, after currency conversion, you would get 2,541 months of Netflix from one day\u2019s worth of stock market gains in Netflix\u2019s shares. That\u2019s 211 years. There is a pretty good chance you would finally be able to watch most of your shows in that time.<\/p>\n
There are more than 1,600 cryptocurrencies in existence right now<\/strong><\/p>\nHave you actually ever used one for an actual transaction? Cryptocurrencies are very easy to create. You can now (maybe) pay your dentist in Dentacoin. There is a real estate crypto. There are at least five marijuana crypto currencies. What\u2019s common about all these crypto currencies? Well, when they are first sold they are sold for \u2018real\u2019 money. That should perhaps tell you something. The market has exploded, but it does have signs of a bubble, or even signs of a pyramid scheme.<\/p>\n
Stock market math is fun<\/strong><\/p>\nAs most investors (sadly) know, when you own a dog of a stock, you can lose 100 per cent of your money. But when you own a winner, there is no upside limit. Thus, owning one giant winner can make up for dozens of dogs. Everyone knows about the giant 10,000 per cent gains in stocks like Apple, Netflix and Amazon over the past couple of decades. But how about Canadian stocks? We have, for example, Evrim Resources (EVM on Venture) up 428 per cent this year; or Antibe Therapeutics (ATE on Venture) up 183 per cent year-to-date. Of course, these need to be considered very risky, but these stocks show some of the best stock market performance in all of Canada this year, and highlight how investment math works in your favour. Own a few long-term winners and your portfolio might be set for life. The key, as we\u2019ve mentioned in the past, is not selling too early.<\/p>\n
Peter Hodson, CFA, is <\/em>Founder and Head of Research of 5i Research Inc., an independent research network providing conflict-free advice to individual investors (<\/em>http:\/\/www.5iresearch.ca<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter Hodson: These five fun facts prove there’s never a dull moment in the market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}