AAPL - Apple Inc.

LG says smart TVs will gain AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support next week

In addition to Samsung and Vizio, LG announced earlier this year that itwould be adding support for Apple’s ecosystem to its TV operating system

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  Apple hires the engineer who led the design of Tesla's car interiors

  Engadget
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  As tech giants face congressional investigation, states must step up regulatory oversight too

  TechCrunch

Apple's Heir Apparent Is Much Like Current CEO Tim Cook

Jul.22 -- Jeff Williams co-created the Apple Watch and runs the company’s global operations. Now he's the heir apparent if CEO Tim Cook were to leave. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports on "Bloomberg Markets."

How FAANG stocks fuel real estate demand

FAANG stocks are making a direct impact on real estate demand, says Hessam Nadji, CEO of Marcus & Millichap, buying up office space and warehouses.

Apple reportedly in talks to acquire Intel's modem business for $1B+

Apple is in "advanced talks" to buy Intel's smartphone modem business for "$1billion or more," according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal

Apple Seeks Mac Pro Parts Tariff Exclusion After Move to China

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. has asked the Trump administration to exclude components that make up the forthcoming Mac Pro high-end desktop computer from import tariffs, weeks after planning to re-locate production of the line to China from Texas.The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is seeking relief from duties of 25% on key Mac Pro parts and accessories that go with it, ranging from the stainless steel and aluminum frame, power supplies, internal cables and circuit boards, and its optional wheels, according to filings posted by the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. The documents don’t specifically mention the Mac Pro, but the features and dimensions listed by Apple in the filing closely resemble the planned computer.The exclusion requests from the iPhone maker were posted July 18 and are now subject to a public comment period before they’re reviewed. Some Apple products have been spared from tariffs in the past, including the Apple Watch and AirPods. Apple declined to comment on the filing. U.S. President Donald Trump has promised relief if companies can show that parts or products can only be obtained in China, aren’t “strategically important” to Chinese industrial programs, or that the duties would cause “severe economic harm.” Trump has tweeted that companies won’t face a tariff if they make their goods “at home in the USA.”The new Mac Pro will be manufactured in China, a person familiar with the company’s plans said last month, shifting production of what had been Apple’s only major device assembled in the U.S. The previous design had been built in Texas since 2013. The new model was announced in June and will go on sale later this year, starting at $5999. Apple said last month that “final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process.”Apple is also seeking duty exclusions on its Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, complementary devices for operating the computer, as well as an accompanying USB cable for charging external mobile devices.Trump slapped tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods last year in response to a trade deficit and allegations of intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices as the world’s two largest economies seek to negotiate a sweeping trade deal.Trump had threatened tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese imports in May in response to what he said was Beijing’s reneging on agreed provisions. But he put them on hold after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in June in Japan to restart negotiations.To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.net;Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz, Andrew PollackFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Apple (AAPL) Expected to Beat Earnings Estimates: What to Know Ahead of Q3 Release

Apple (AAPL) possesses the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely earnings beat in its upcoming report. Get prepared with the key expectations.

Will FAANG Stocks Steal the Show This Earnings Season?

FAANG stocks, including Facebook, Apple and Amazon, are set to beat earnings in one of the busiest earnings stretches this season. These stocks flaunt a positive Earnings ESP.

Stock Market News For Jul 23, 2019

Markets ended in the green on Monday following a broad-based rally in the tech stocks.

How Britain’s Savviest Investors Are Beating Brexit

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Since the U.K. decided more than three years ago to leave the European Union, the nation's savviest investors have succeeded by putting their money where Brexit matters least.Uncertainty about the date of Britain’s departure (now pushed back to Oct. 31) and the terms of the divorce has meant purging the U.K. from their holdings or limiting them to investments traditionally impervious to man-made and natural disasters. Over 38 months, British sterling depreciated 16 percent, the worst shrinkage for any similar period in 8 years. The pound remains the poorest performer in the actively-traded foreign exchange market and inferior to the No. 3 euro.Europe's strongest major economy in the 21st century became a shadow of its former self, reversing two decades preceding the June 23, 2016 referendum when the U.K. outperformed the European Union in growth and investment. London's stock and bond markets similarly languished as laggards to world benchmarks, after beating them consistently in the 20 years prior to the decision to leave the EU, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.“If I give myself some credit, I would say that we acted reasonably fast liquidating U.K. shares” in 2016, said Ben Rogoff, whose Polar Capital Technology Trust PLC has been the most consistent winner out of the 212 British global funds with at least 1 billion pounds this year and during the past three years. His team's 114 percent total return (income plus appreciation) was 22 percentage points better than the Dow Jones World Technology Index, mostly because 68% of the fund is invested in the U.S., two-thirds of that in California companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “It's all about the Internet and where do you get exposed to the Internet? The U.S. and China,” Rogoff said last month during an interview at Bloomberg in London.While Rogoff reduced his holdings of three California tech powers during the past year — Cupertino-based Apple Inc., Menlo Park-based Facebook and Santa Clara-based Advanced Micro Devices — he acquired more shares in Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings Ltd., Hangzhou-based Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and Tokyo-based Yahoo Japan Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.The 46-year-old graduate of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, became the lead manager of the trust in 2006, “and at that time,” he said, “the U.K. weighting might have been 5% to 10%, so if you had already been backing away to the door, it's a lot easier to escape than if you built a career around being an expert in U.K. equities.” Since the Brexit referendum, he said, “There's just been a complete buyers' strike of U.K. equities.”Proof of such disdain comes with the crisis this year at the LF Woodford Equity Income Fund, Britain's most-prized investment when it was launched by star money manager Neil Woodford in 2014. The celebrated stock picker became even more prominent with his contrarian bullish stance on Brexit. The fund plummeted 31% during the past two years by holding a combination of large and small U.K. companies and has frozen redemptions indefinitely.“It's symptomatic of a broader problem,” Bank of England Governor Mark Carney told reporters earlier this month. “Our sense is that the financial-stability risks are increasing.”One U.K. investor who’s successfully resisted the trend away from domestic stocks is Nick Train, who manages Finsbury Growth & Income Trust. It returned 61% the past three years — more than twice the FTSE All-Share Index benchmark — as the most consistent one- and three-year performer among the 129 U.K.-based funds investing mostly in domestic stocks or bonds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Unlike Woodford, who doubled down on the British economy writ large, Train, a 60-year-old graduate of Queen’s College, Oxford, dramatically increased his holdings in consumer staples. These are the companies that make such essentials as food, beverages and household goods and can resist business cycles because their products always are in demand.Train, who declined to be interviewed, increased the consumer staples weighting relative to the benchmark to 27% from 23% in 2015 and he enhanced his holdings of Deerfield, Illinois-based Mondelez International Inc., which manufactures and markets packaged food products, and London-based Diageo PLC, the world's largest producer of spirits and beer, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.That's likely to be a safe bet as no one is counting on the British economy rebounding significantly from near the bottom of the EU while the uncertainty created by Brexit persists. “If you take a long view, then this may well be a great time to be investing in U.K. equity,” said Rogoff. “Thankfully, I don't have to make that binary call because there are very few U.K. companies I'm frankly interested in.”(Corrects location of Tencent Holdings headquarters in fifth paragraph of article published July 16.)\--With assistance from Shin Pei, Richard Dunsford-White, Kateryna Hrynchak and Suzy Waite.To contact the author of this story: Matthew A. Winkler at mwinkler@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Landman at jlandman4@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Matthew A. Winkler is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the editor-in-chief emeritus of Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Report: Apple Is Considering a $1 Billion Deal for Intel's Modem Chip Business

It appears the on-again, off-again talks may be coming to fruition.

When an iPhone 3-D Sensing Firm Asks for Blind Faith

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Today should be a good news day for AMS AG, the Austrian maker of key components for the facial recognition system in Apple Inc.’s iPhone.It seems finally to be delivering on its repeated promise that a multi-year, $2 billion investment in 3-D sensing technology would ultimately pay off. It forecast third-quarter revenue of between $600 million and $640 million, well above analysts’ $526 million average estimate.Yet the good news came with a sting in the tail. Chief Executive Officer Alexander Everke said AMS was again evaluating the possibility of a bid for Osram Licht AG, after being approached by unidentified “potential financial partners.” The revelation comes just a week after AMS decided not to pursue an offer for the Munich-based lighting maker, which had already agreed a sale to private equity firms Bain Capital and Carlyle Group LP. That climbdown from AMS in turn came after re-entering talks it had previously abandoned, and… well you get the idea. It’s flip-flopping in the extreme.Maybe Everke has made the right calls technologically. AMS’s initial struggles stemmed from the disappointing sales of Apple’s iPhone X range of handsets. Now Android handset-makers are following up with more 3-D sensors, boosting orders for AMS’s gear. Operating cash flow and order backlogs are on the increase.But Everke does himself few favors. The former NXP Semiconductors NV executive has made AMS an extremely tough investment case: the stock has consistently had the highest 120-day volatility of any European tech firm over the past three years. The Osram affair is a prime example of the behavior causing this.As a conference call on Tuesday progressed, AMS shares pared earlier gains of as much as 10%. Analysts repeatedly tried and failed to get clarity from Everke and his team on the logic behind any Osram bid, and investor faith in his strategy appeared to wane by the minute. Executives repeatedly parroted a line about any bid target needing to meet AMS’s acquisition criteria, without giving any sense as to whether or how Osram met them. By the time the call ended, the stock was trading just 1.9% higher than Monday’s close.I wrote last week how any bid would require a serious leap of faith from investors. Perhaps he thought that the upswing in earnings would help warrant such trust. But given the failure to explain why any deal for Osram might make sense, the leap he’s asking for is a blind one. Investors have been burned enough before to be wary about taking it.To contact the author of this story: Alex Webb at awebb25@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Jennifer Ryan at jryan13@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

As Expected, the Gold Apple Watch Was a Flop

Selling to mainstream consumers has been far more successful.

After Hours: Apple and Intel Reportedly Close to Deal for 5G Modem Unit, Starbucks Gains Stake in Restaurant Tech Company

Acquisitions are what evening traders are talking about tonight.

Apple Is in Talks With Intel for Cellular Modem Unit

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is negotiating to buy Intel Corp.’s struggling cellular modem unit, said a person familiar with the matter.A deal would give Apple key engineering talent and patents that would help it develop new devices to connect to the mobile internet. The Intel assets could be valued at about $1 billion in a transaction, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter was private.An agreement could be reached as soon as this week, though it’s possible talks could break down without a deal, the person said.Representatives for Apple and Intel declined to comment. The negotiations were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.Apple is building its own cellular modems for devices like the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch in part to eventually reduce its reliance on buying parts from Qualcomm Inc. or others.Apple’s latest iPhone models currently use modems sourced exclusively from Intel, but the company settled its long-standing royalties lawsuit with Qualcomm in April amid plans to sell 5G iPhones in 2020. Qualcomm’s 5G modems are widely regarded to be superior to those from Intel. However, Apple’s licensing and royalties agreement with Qualcomm ends in six years and Apple appears intent on eventually replacing the Qualcomm parts with modems developed internally.A deal with Intel could be similar to Apple’s agreement to pay Dialog Semiconductor Plc $600 million to take over its power management business, the provider of another key component for Apple’s devices. Intel currently provides modems for Apple’s 4G LTE iPhones.To contact the reporters on this story: Liana Baker in New York at lbaker75@bloomberg.net;Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net;Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Liana Baker at lbaker75@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Alistair BarrFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Apple in advanced talks to buy Intel's smartphone-modem chip business: WSJ

Assuming talks don't fall apart, the deal, valued at $1 billion or more, could be reached in the next week, according to the WSJ. Intel announced it would exit the 5G modem chip business in April, hours after Apple settled a longstanding legal dispute with Qualcomm Inc , a key supplier of iPhone modem chips. The Journal had reported in the same month that Intel was exploring a sale for its modem chip business to Apple or another acquirer.

Apple in advanced talks to buy Intel's smartphone-modem chip business - WSJ

Assuming talks don't fall apart, the deal, valued at $1 billion or more, could be reached in the next week, according to the WSJ. Intel announced it would exit the 5G modem chip business in April, hours after Apple settled a longstanding legal dispute with Qualcomm Inc, a key supplier of iPhone modem chips. The Journal had reported in the same month that Intel was exploring a sale for its modem chip business to Apple or another acquirer.