Microsoft’s Purchase of Skype Won’t Change Company

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 11, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments Late Sunday it was announced that Microsoft purchased Internet phone service provider, Skype, for $8.5 billion.  In my opinion, the ultimate effect for Microsoft will be neutral.  Let me explain. 1.  Skype is a wonderful service, and their founder and CEO is one of my favorite executives across business.  I saw him present at an industry conference over ten years ago and was blown away by his...
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Germany’s Exports Hit All-Time High

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 9, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments This morning Germany announced that its exports – the overwhelming driver of its economy – hit an all-time high in the month of March.  Specifically, the EU’s most powerful nation recorded $142 billion in exports.  This achievement was a full 7.3% than in February (!) and indicates a surging interest in German goods. By contrast, German imports of goods, while also up, only...
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U.S. Job Creation Soars

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 6, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Department of Labor calculations estimate that the United States’ job creation soared in the month of April.  Specifically it added a massive 244,000 jobs.  A broad swath of economists had expected only 185,000 jobs would be created.  Private Sector job creation was the strongest, adding 268,000 jobs.  Last month’s jobs created figure was revised upward by a modest 5,000 jobs. ...
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Speculators Are Why Commodities Are So High

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 5, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments New York’s COMEX exchange has upped by 84% the amount of money that must be on deposit by speculators in order for them to borrow money to buy silver futures.  This is just the latest rise in margin costs (i.e. borrowing costs) implemented by the COMEX since April 25th.  The result?  Catastrophic losses on silver investments. I have been saying for many months now that commodities,...
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Jobless Claims Creep Up

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 5, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Jobless claims creeped up a whopping 43,000 last week to a total of 474,000 last week according to U.S. Department of Labor data.  This is the highest level of jobless claims since August, 2010.  Because the data can frequently be volatile folks generally look at the four week moving average.  That figure rose by 22,250 to 431,250.  Furthermore, today’s results exceeded economist’s...
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Wall Street is a Cult

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 4, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments I have to confess that I struggled with the title of today’s blog post.  Let me begin to tell my story, and if any of you have any suggestions as to a better title, please feel free to leave it in the comments section of the blog. For centuries investors have moved with mob like behavior into assets in such large numbers that gigantic inflationary price bubbles are created.  Then, when...
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Anecdotal Evidence of a Stock Market Fairly Valued

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 3, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments My regular readers might have noticed that I have not posted about the financial markets much in the last 10 days or so.  My goal is to interpret the mass of news flow out there and deliver to you prescient analysis and commentary on the important news story of the day.  That story is something that I feel affects investors and is worth trying to understand.  Yet, there has been not much to...
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