BLOG OF ADAM HARTUNG
Why Now is the Time To Buy Tesla Stock
Crude oil has dropped 50% in just 6 months. At under $50/barrel, gasoline is now selling for under $2/gallon in many places. This is a price rollback to 2008 prices - something almost no one expected in early 2014. It is easy to jump to conclusions about what this...
Resolve to Focus on Goals Rather Than Results in 2015
Results, results, results. We frequently hear that we should focus on results. More often than not, focusing on results is a waste of time. Because it is looking in the rear view mirror, rather than the windshield. Someone asked me today what I thought of Janet...
Twelve Days of Christmas for Investors
The Twelve Days of Christmas refers to an ancient festive season which begins on December 25. Colonial Americans modified this a bit by creating wreaths which they hung on neighbors' doors on December 24 in anticipation of starting the festival of twelve days, which...
Myths Can Hide Trends – Budweiser & The Craft Beer Fallacy
It is that time of year when many of us celebrate with an alcoholic beverage. But increasingly in America, that beverage is not beer. Since 2008, American beer sales have fallen about 4%. But that decline has not been equally applied to all brands. The biggest, old...
Why Everyone Knows TV is Dying, Yet Marketing Leaders Over-spend on TV
The trend toward the death of broadcast TV as we've known it keeps moving forward. This trend may not happen as fast as the death of desktop computers, but it is a lot faster than glacier melting. This television season (through October) Magna Global has reported...
How the trend to renting will kill the PC, and dramatically change IT
Last week I gave 1,000 VHS video tapes to Goodwill Industries. These had been accumulated through 30 years of home movie watching, including tapes purchased for entertaining my 3 children. It was startling to realize how many of these I had bought, and also surprising...
Why You Can’t Invest Like Warren Buffett – and Shouldn’t Try
Warren Buffett is the famous head of Berkshire Hathaway. Famous because he has made himself a billionaire several times over, and made his investors excellent returns. Berkshire Hathaway doesn't really make anything. Rather, it owns companies that make things, or...
Pizza Hut – How Lock-in Causes Growth Stalls, Irrelevancy and Bad Results
We see it all too often. A successful business seems to lose its way. Somehow, after decades of success, its results soften, then tumble and the company becomes a victim of its competition. We scratch our heads and wonder, "why did that happen?" Pizza Hut is well...
Those Who Lead (Zebra Tech) and Those Who Abdicate (Motorola)
On April 15 Zebra Technologies announced its planned acquisition of Motorola's Enterprise Device Business. This was remarkable because it represented a major strategic shift for Zebra, and one that would take a massive investment in products and technologies which...
Coca-Cola, How a Giant Company Starts Losing Relevance
I'm a "Boomer," and my generation could have been called the Coke generation. Our parents started every day with a cup of coffee, and they drank either coffee or water during the day. Most meals were accompanied by either water, or iced tea. But our generation loved...
A Call to Action for Better Board Governance of Strategy
"Where was the Board of Directors?" That is one of the questions I am asked most frequently. And it's a good one. Readers, and audiences, wonder how a well-educated and experienced Board could allow a company - like Blockbuster, Hostess, Radio Shack, Sears, Circuit...
Bulls, Bears – Lions, Tigers and Buybacks – Oh My! Investor’s Long-term Threat
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is down 400 points today. Down 8% since its high 3 weeks ago, and now showing no gains for the entire year. Oh my! There seems little immediate explanation for the fast drop. When major financial news outlets say it is caused...
Hewlett Packard’s Musical Chairs Game
Hewlett Packard is splitting in two. Do you find yourself wondering why? You aren't alone. Hewlett Packard is nearly 75 years old. One of the original "silicone valley companies," it started making equipment for engineers and electronic technicians long before...
Why Apple Pay Is Likely to Succeed – Lessons from Paypal
Will the new Apple Pay product, revealed on iPhone 6 devices, succeed? There have been many entries into the digital mobile payments business, such as Google Wallet, Softcard (which had the unfortunate initial name of ISIS,) Square and Paypal. But so far, nobody has...
The Week Microsoft Lost Relevancy, and Apple Stole the Show
Few businesses fail in a fiery, quick downfall. Most linger along for years, not really mattering to anyone - including customers, suppliers or even investors. They exist, but they aren't relevant. When a company is relevant customers are eager for new product...
Wrong assumptions create lousy outcomes – Sony, McDonald’s, Radio Shack, Sears
Sony was once the leader in consumer electronics. A brand powerhouse who's products commanded a premium price and were in every home. Trinitron color TVs, Walkman and Discman players, Vaio PCs. But Sony has lost money for all but one quarter across the last 6 years,...
Obama Outperforms Reagan on Jobs, Growth and Investing
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just issued America's latest jobs report covering August. And it's a disappointment. The economy created an additional 142,000 jobs last month. After 6 consecutive months over 200,000, most pundits expected the string to...
Five Worst CEOs Revisited – How Many Jobs Did They Create this Labor Day?
It's Labor Day, and a time when we naturally think about our jobs. When it comes to jobs creation, no role is more critical than the CEO. No company will enter into a growth phase, selling more product and expanding employment, unless the CEO agrees. Likewise, no...
Is your company anti-vacation? It’s time to rethink employee time off
Have you taken a summer vacation? It's almost Labor Day. Peak vacation time is Memorial Day to Labor Day. Almost since the Industrial Revolution began, removing people from farms, the family vacation - away from work and other grinds - has been a much desired, and...
Motorola’s Road to Irrelevancy – Focusing on Its Core
Remember the RAZR phone? Whatever happened to that company? Motorola has a great tradition. Motorola pioneered the development of wireless communications, and was once a leader in all things radio - as well as made TVs. In an earlier era Motorola was the company...
Trackbacks/Pingbacks