gracen1qf: January 2011

Friday, January 28, 2011

Companies Making Money

This week,
rather than focusing on inflation in the form of prices rising around the
globe, I thought we’d focus a specific form of inflation, namely, that of
inflated earnings.

Indeed, with
earnings season fully underway we’ve already seen some stellar results from the
likes of General Electric, JP Morgan, and Citigroup.

§ JP
Morgan: All time record earnings of $17.4 billion, earnings growth of 48% from
2009’s results.

§ Citigroup:
Annual earnings of $10.6 billion. First full year of positive earnings since
2007.

§ GE:
Total earnings of $13.2 billion, an increase of 15% from 2009’s results.

These three
companies, despite their supposed differences all have a common theme in their
results. That theme is:

Making money by lowering loan loss
reserves.

I realize
this sounds like mumbo-jumbo. It is. In plain terms, what this means is that
these companies are writing off the money they’ve kept in the proverbial rainy
day jar to cover any losses that might occur from the loan’s in their lending
portfolios (yes, GE continues to lend money via its financial arm, GE Capital…
the same arm that nearly took the company under in 2008).

Let me give
you an example. Let’s say that my rainy day jar contains $10,000 to cover any
unforeseen problems. Now let’s say that one day I decide that I only need
$5,000 to cover unforeseen expenses. Does this random mental calculation mean
I’ve made more money and need to report $5,000 more on my tax return that year?

NOPE.

However,
this is exactly how GE, JP Morgan, and Citigroup generated their “stellar”
earnings. In JP Morgan’s case, the bank did this with $2 billion, roughly 11%
of its 2010 earnings. This was on par with GE’s gimmicky at $1.4 billion or 10%
of annual profits. In contrast, Citigroup pulled out all the accounting
gimmicky stops, lowering loan loss reserves by $2.2 billion or 20% of 2010 earnings.

Put another
way, $1 out of every $5 that Citigroup reported in earnings was non-existent.
And $1 out of every $10 GE and JP Morgan reported was non-existent. Thus, the
message Big Business is sending to the world right now is clear:

If
you can’t actually MAKE the money, just MAKE IT UP.

I continually hear arguments that stocks are somehow cheap at today’s
levels. Just skimming over the results for JPM, C, and GE, I don’t see how
anyone can claim to have an accurate valuation of ANY of these companies. To
value a company you need some clue as to its earnings potential. All of these
companies are black boxes.

This is just another layer of the great financial Ponzi scheme that is
the US stock market. Bogus earnings, fictitious accounting, outright fraud,
insider trading, backroom deals… the whole thing is just one huge house of
cards propped up by one thing and one thing only…

The Fed’s liquidity.

Take this away and the whole thing comes crashing down. Some
commentators see this situation and claim that the market will never collapse.
I couldn’t disagree more. Liquidity has a price. And that price will ultimately
be the US Dollar.

Remember,
the US's Federal debt is now at $13+ trillion. And if you include unfunded
liabilities like social security and Medicare, you're talking about $70+
TRILLION in total debt on the US's balance sheet.

Let's be blunt here: the US will NEVER pay these debts and liabilities off. And
once the financial world finishes pummeling the Euro, we're going to see the US
Dollar and Federal debt markets implode.

I cannot tell you when this will happen. All I can say is that it will
happen. And when it does, inflation hedges across the board will EXPLODE
higher.

Good Investing!

Graham
Summers

PS. If
you’re getting worried about the future of the stock market and have yet to
take steps to prepare for the Second Round of the Financial Crisis… I highly
suggest you download my FREE Special Report specifying exactly how to prepare
for what’s to come.

I call it The Financial Crisis “Round Two” Survival
Kit. And its 17 pages contain a wealth of information about portfolio
protection, which investments to own and how to take out Catastrophe Insurance
on the stock market (this “insurance” paid out triple digit gains in the Autumn
of 2008).

Again, this
is all 100% FREE. To pick up your copy today, got to http://www.gainspainscapital.com
and click on FREE REPORTS.

PPS. We ALSO
publish a FREE Special Report on Inflation detailing three investments that
have all already SOARED as a result of the Fed’s monetary policy.

You can
access this Report at the link above.

Cirtas Systems, a cloud storage hardware company, is announcing today it has raised $22.5 million in a second round of funding and has named tech veteran Gary Messiana as its chief executive.

Small and medium businesses will care about this because it can help them cut costs. Storage systems are getting so complex that they require the architectural expertise of highly specialized people to solve. The amount of data in corporations is exploding so fast that it’s hard to keep up with storage growth needs. By shifting it to the cloud, or Web-based data centers that can be outside of a company’s physical premises, companies can offload the task to others and reduce costs.

Usually, there is a trade-off between the cloud and client-based hardware. The cloud can be slower, but Messiana (pictured below) said in an interview that his company has designed its cloud storage to be as fast as hardware on the customer’s site, mainly by caching frequently used data near the location where it will be accessed. Cirtas uses a hybrid of on-site and cloud storage.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company makes its Bluejet Cloud Storage Controller, a piece of storage equipment that sits in cloud-based data centers. Cirtas deploys Bluejet controllers in a customer’s data center. Bluejet functions just like an on-site storage array, and the technology seamlessly connects to and accelerates the performance of off-site cloud storage services, with fast response to user queries, said Messiana.

The product is aimed at medium and large enterprises and is available now. By tapping the cloud, the company hopes to solve complex security, performance and compatibility issues that stop companies from using cloud storage. One of the big benefits is that enterprises will be able to move their storage from one cloud service firm to another to get better pricing.

Cirtas said it has completed beta tests at more than a dozen enterprise customers across diverse markets. The company ties together techniques for optimizing networks to work with its virtualized storage arrays so that it can deliver what it calls the world’s first cloud-enabled storage system. The company’s first purchase order has come from beta user Robert Half International.

Cirtas said it can securely encrypt all data in transit to and from the cloud, making sure that only authorized users have access to data. If there is a security breach, the Bluejet technology can prevent data from being read or used, as administrators can control who has access. It can also anticipate storage costs and how they fluctuate. And it can manage data for speedy performance.

Cirtas raised money from Shasta Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. Existing investors also participating include New Enterprise Associates, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Amazon.com. The company plans to use the money to expand its infrastructure and accelerate the adoption of its technology.

Amazon is one of the big advocates of cloud computing, which can give businesses more options and better control over how they purchase data storage. Cirtas’s approach to the cloud is tightly aligned with Amazon’s, said Jeff Blackburn, senior vice president of corporate development at Amazon. He said Amazon was most impressed with the ability of Cirtas to migrate large quantities of data into the cloud in a fast, secure, and cost-effective manner.

Beyond Amazon, Cirtas has also secured a strategic alliance with Iron Mountain, which offers archive services. The Cirtas Bluejet product costs $69,995 per appliance. It is available from a variety of industry resellers. The company said it is making free evaluation systems available to customers.

The company was founded in 2008 by Dan Decasper and Allen Samuels. Its team includes veterans of Citrix, DataDomain, NetApp and Riverbed. Cirtas has more than 30 employees. Rivals include storage vendors such as EMC and NetApp, Twinstrata, Nasuni, StorSimple and Panzura.

Messiana replaces Decasper, who will become chief technology officer. To date, the company has raised $32.5 million. Messiana was previously an entrepreneur in residence at Bessemer. Prior to that, he was CEO of Netli and CEO of Dilient Software Systems.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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So Christmas has been and gone. Are you now facing the New Year and wondering how you can keep up the Christmas spirit and goodwill for the coming year? Well, it certainly helps when you know how to do so for free from your own home.

There are so many simple ways to volunteer or donate to charity by giving up a small amount of your time or re-purposing some money you would normally have spent. So here’s a list of five of the best quick and easy ways to volunteer or donate to charity. Bookmark the list of charities and use it to do the rounds weekly!

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Skip1.org

This is a great concept — it’s a site which makes you think about how much money you waste on frivolous things. You nominate something which you will give up, say a lunch or newspapers for a month. Then you donate that same amount of money to feeding a hungry child.

Yes, you’re handing over money to charity, but it’s money you would have spent anyway. It’s also easy to share news of your donation with your friends via social networks, and hopefully convince a few of them to skip something for charity too.

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Free Rice

Free Rice has been around a while, but it’s so good it’s worth making sure it’s on this list. Play a simple, addictive trivia quiz and Free Rice will donate rice for each of your correct answers. This is a free and simple way to give whenever you have a free moment. Read more on FreeRice here.

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Causes

There are a number of things you can do using Causes, including raising awareness for your chosen charity and helping to raise funds for them. By far the easiest way to donate money with Causes is to set up a birthday or holiday fund. This way, instead of receiving presents from friends and family, you simply ask them to donate the money on your behalf. It takes about two minutes to set up, since you can log in with Facebook Connect – just choose the charity and you’re set!

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Charity Gifts

Here’s another easy way to spend your money on charity instead of something you were already going to pay for. Instead of giving gifts to your friends, give them the knowledge that you have donated to charity on their behalf. The Donation4Charity website searches all the big charity gifting sites (such as UNICEF, WWF and Oxfam) and lets you search the gifts according to how much money you have available to spend. Buy a goat for charity for about the same price as a modest gift!

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Sparked

Spend 5-10 minutes donating your expertise to charity: Give website feedback, brainstorm fundraising ideas or help design an awareness campaign. This is what they need help with – if you can spend a few minutes working on it then you’ve made a difference to a real charity with just a moment of your time. Read more on Sparked here & get going!

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There are so many great ways to donate your time to charity — the sites listed above are just a few. Here’s some more great articles which introduce many more you might like to try.

Introducing Jumo – The Social Network for Social Good
How To Easily Coordinate Volunteers Using Volunteer Spot
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What are your favourite sites for donating your time to charity? Do you appreciate charity gifts given on your behalf? Let us know in the comments!

10 Exciting European Startups from 2010

Europe’s had a bumper year for interesting startup ideas. The Next Web’s Hermione Way and I put our heads together to come up with this list of ten small tech companies from across the continent that have excited us in 2010.

Brainient

London-based Brainient makes it easy to add interactive elements to existing web video. A ‘Magic Script’ lets publishers add a few lines of code into a website’s Body HTML, enabling pre-roll ads, overlays or any other type of Brainient layers on any embedded video in the page.

The company launched its developer tools at The Next Web Conference in April this year and announced the first of a fresh wave of commercial partnerships, allowing video site SeeSaw to transplant Hulu’s “Choose your own ads” format to the UK for the first time.

Tastebuds

If music be the food of love, the Tastebuds is on to a good thing. This Last.fm-powered dating site that we profiled earlier this year matches you with others who share your taste in music.

It’s a simple idea that the site carries off incredibly well and as a niche dating idea we love it. Music taste can often say a lot about a person’s outlook on life and if nothing else, it’s an excellent conversation starter. The service may be a little too reliant on Last.fm from a business point of view, but as a concept it’s beautifully realised.

Skimlinks

Affiliate links are a major revenue stream for some online publishers. Taking all the effort out of this type of marketing, Skimlinks gets rid of the long URLs that often put users off clicking links. The fact that the publisher is getting a cut from sales of the product they’re linking to is completely invisible, as a Skimlinks URL looks just like a normal non-affiliate link.

It’s a model that has won Skimlinks major worldwide publishing clients. This year the London-based startup launched Skimkit, a product that makes it easy for writers to add affiliate links to their articles, even suggesting items that might be suitable to link to.

Shutl

As satisfying as it is to conveniently order shopping online from home, the wait to get it delivered can sometimes make a trip to a bricks-and-mortar store seem like a better option. Shutl aims to improve on next-day delivery by offering products to your door as soon as 90 minutes after you place your order.

The service works by aggregating capacity across local courier companies into a single web-service that retailers can use to speed up deliveries. A GPS tracking facility in partnership with Bing Maps allows shoppers to track their deliveries in real-time via the Shutl website. The UK startup is currently trialling its service with certain Argos stores in the London area.

Paper.li

It was hard to ignore Swiss startup Paper.li this year. The “Twitter newspaper” startup saw rapid viral growth thanks to the automated tweets it sent out each time a user’s daily newspaper was published.

This annoyed some Twitter users, who found their reply stream filled with announcements that they featured in their followers’ Paper.li publications each day. Still, the service is still growing at a reported 1000 papers per day, with plans to expand beyond Twitter and Facebook and offer users the chance to make money from their newspapers in 2011.

Nuji

When we covered Nuji‘s launch earlier this month, we described it as “Instagram meets Instapaper” for shopping. This social network sees you sharing things you like, be they items in shops or objects you spot online, as a way of demonstrating your taste. A mobile app lets you scan barcodes while you’re out shopping, making adding items to your profile easy.

As it builds a network of tastemakers, Nuji plans to monetize by offering relevant shopping deals to users based on their interests.

Flattr

This Swedish startup from Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde offers publishers an “online tipjar” that can easily monetize any Web page.

After adding money to their Flattr account, users click the ‘Flattr’ button on pages that they like around the Web. At the end of the month, the money in their account is divvied up to the publishers of the content the user ‘Flattr-ed’. Thus far the service’s most high profile signup has been Wikileaks, which added the button to its Afghanistan war logs page as a way of accepting donations. The service remains one of the few income sources that hasn’t been closed off to the controversial whistleblowing website in recent weeks.

Moshi Monsters

Moshi Monsters from London’s Mind Candy became an online phenomenon for children this year. Youngsters can adopt a pet monster, and solve puzzles to earn virtual currency that can be spent on items to help kit out their monsters’ world with food, furniture treats and the like.

The virtual world has seen real-world spinoffs galore. A deal with Penguin Books was followed by toys, mobile apps and video games in what is set to be a highly profitable year.

Stupeflix

France’s Stupeflix offers a browser-based online video suite and this year launched a service to automate the creation of videos, for example, in the online retail sector where a video of a pair of trainers created from a bunch of photos might be more appealing to potential customers than static photos.

Stupeflix also offers an API to automate the processing and generation of video content for third parties.

Screach

Screach aims to make all sorts of screens interactive by way of a mobile app and a highly customisable development platform. TV shows could use it to allow real-time interaction from viewers, bars could use it to run quiz events with instant on-phone rewards for winners and it’s already being used to enhance a museum exhibit in the UK.

At present there’s little to try out Screach’s mobile app on, but that should change next year when the UK start-up is set to announce commercial partnerships.

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