Apple (AAPL)
Apple (AAPL) is a Silicon Valley legend. Literally founded in a garage – in this case, belonging to Steve Jobs’ parents in Los Altos – Apple got its start in 1976 when cofounders Jobs and Steve Wozniak began building the very first Apple personal computers by hand, shipping them in handmade wooden cases. Always the showman, Jobs later said that the company’s name was a nod to a “fruitarian” diet he was on at the time. He had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating.”
That was then.
Today Apple produces far more than just Apple computers, including such products as the iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV, iPad, AirPods and much more, including a wide variety of Macbook laptops and Mac desktops.
Apple is among the world’s most valuable companies, with a net worth of more than $1 trillion and annual revenues of $265 billion in 2018. It is the world’s largest technology company by revenue and employs 123,000 full-time employees and maintained 504 retail stores in 24 countries as of 2018. There are currently more than 1.3 billion Apple products in use worldwide, ranking it as the world’s most valuable brand.
Rationale
A direct way to gain exposure to Apple is to buy the listed shares. But that can be a risky approach, given Apple’s focus on the consumer market. Consumers can be finicky, and what sells today (like iPhones) may not sell as strongly tomorrow or next year. As such, Apple is forced to constantly innovate in hopes of finding the next big tech trend. The company has done this successfully for more than 40 years, but the innovation cycle is accelerating.
A solution that can dampen some of that volatility is to buy funds that provide exposure to Apple and other similar firms, rather than AAPL shares themselves. After all, the return drivers that will benefit Apple might also benefit other similar firms in consumer electronics, computer hardware and personal entertainment. As investment management is gradually moving to the construction of portfolios using ETFs and mutual funds in addition to single stocks, investors would do well to consider gain exposure to firms like Apple through these types of funds.
Investing in AAPL
A search on Magnifi suggests that investors can gain access to Apple via a number of different funds and ETFs, including those shown below.
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Big Data
Big Opportunities in Big Data
We create an astonishing amount of data every day. From the photos we upload to social media, to the swipe of a card when we hop on the bus, the average person produces tremendous amounts of data at every turn. Delving into this collective ocean of data to find discrete patterns and trends may seem impossible, but innovative analytics are making it a reality thanks to Big Data.
Organizations across the globe are beginning to recognize the value in unlocking information imbedded in large, complex data sets.
Whether it’s hospitals using algorithms to catch infections early, researchers developing cutting-edge tools to map the furthest reaches of our universe, or the NHL deploying “smart pucks” to capture live data and enhance fan experience, our world is increasingly shaped by our relationship to data. Innovators at the leading edge of big data analytics stand to gain tremendously as technology improves and novel applications are discovered in the coming years.
For those interested in investing in this rapidly-growing sector, however, there are a few important points to understand.
What is Big Data?
Big Data refers to large, complex data sets that are difficult to process using traditional analytics. Included in this definition is the process of storing and analyzing the large, complex data sets.
According to IBM, a leader in big data analytics: “Analysis of big data allows analysts, researchers and business users to make better and faster decisions using data that was previously inaccessible or unusable. Businesses can use advanced analytics techniques such as text analytics, machine learning, predictive analytics, data mining, statistics and natural language processing to gain new insights from previously untapped data sources independently or together with existing enterprise data.”
And where does this data come from? Increasingly, it’s coming from internet-connected devices that we interact with every day. This growing network of sensors, relays and more is known as the Internet of Things (IoT).
Why Invest in Big Data?
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), global revenues for Big Data analytics are forecast to reach $189.1 billion in 2019, a 12.0% increase over 2018 revenues. IDC also predicts the annual growth rate increasing to 13.2% throughout the next five years, with 2022 revenue reaching $274.3 billion.
Focusing in on specific sectors, the trend becomes even more pronounced. The value of big data analytics in the healthcare sector is projected to grow at an annual rate of 19.1% between 2018 to 2025, and the value of big data analytics in law enforcement is projected to grow at an annual rate of 17.5% between 2015 and 2022.
Organizations of all sizes are investing in big data solutions to address challenges and increase competitive advantage.
In a recent survey of executives at industry-leading firms, 92% responded that they are accelerating the pace of investment in big data and AI. Analytics are also becoming more affordable, bringing the technology within the range of small and midsize businesses. According to the IDC, roughly one quarter of global revenues for big data analytics in 2019 will come from businesses with less than 500 employees.
And 2019 has already been marked by a number of notable acquisitions in the data analytics market. Salesforce acquired Tableau for $15.7 billion on August 1, and Google is in the process of acquiring Looker for $2.6 billion.
As noted by Amir Orad, CEO of Sisense, a business analytics software company: “The value of the data analytics market can’t be ignored. The Looker and Tableau acquisitions demonstrate that even the biggest tech players are snapping up data analytics companies with big price tags, clearly demonstrating the value these companies have in the larger cloud ecosystem.”
In 2015, it was estimated that the possible value of intangible assets, including data, in the United States alone was roughly $8 trillion. As organizations increasingly come to view their data as capital, it will become more and more of a strategic imperative to put that capital to work.
This presents a unique opportunity for investment. As enterprises invest in big data analytics, so too should savvy investors consider the companies supplying the analytics.
How to Invest in Big Data
What’s the best way for investors to get involved in this growing tech sector? Big Data crosses over a number of different specialty areas, including cloud storage, data science and analytics, but a search on Magnifi suggests that there are a number of different ways to profit from the big data trend as a whole.
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The information and data are as of the October 23, 2019 (publish date) unless otherwise noted and subject to change. This blog is sponsored by Magnifi.
Robotics
Investing in the Future of Robotics
For many people, the term “robot” brings up a lot of preconceived notions, ranging from the stereotypical humanoid robots of 1950s science fiction films, Luke Skywalker’s android companions from “Star Wars,” or even the friendly and loveable Wall-E. But the Hollywood version of robotics has always leaned heavily on the fiction side and light on the science.
In the popular imagination, they remain the types of machines that only exist in some far-off future timeline. But today’s robots are, in fact, more capable than ever. They’re being used in everything from automotive manufacturing, to heavy machinery, to logistics and supply chain handling, order picking, meat processing and much more. Anywhere there is a repetitive, isolated task, you’ll likely find industrial robots picking up at least some of the workload in order to free up their human coworkers for more complex, higher value tasks and protecting them for dangerous work.
According to the Robotic Industries Association, there were more than 250,000 robots in use in the United States as of 2017, mostly in the form of heavyweight “automated arms” that can be used to perform industrial tasks such as welding, painting or assembly. And their ranks are growing rapidly. The association also found that the North American robotics market grew 7.2% in the first half of 2019, with U.S. and Canadian companies ordering nearly 16,500 robots in that time, worth nearly $870 million.
Automotive manufacturers accounted for most of this growth, followed by the semiconductor and electronics industries, the life sciences, and food and consumer goods. And this is the continuation of a trend that industry watchers have noticed since at least 2010. The ongoing trend toward automation, paired with new innovations in robot technology, have ushered in a golden age for robotics, driving record-setting sales across the industry and helping it grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% between 2012 and 2017, according to the International Federation of Robotics.
Demand for robots is rising, and it isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
What Is Robotics?
In terms of specifics, the Oxford English Dictionary defines a robot as: “A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer.” It is, in effect, a machine that can carry out physical tasks in the real world. Just as R2D2 and C3P0 in “Star Wars,” they can be programmed to function both alongside and in place of human labor.
But none of this is particularly new. Industrial robots have been commonplace in workplaces around the world for decades. In fact, the industry traces its roots back to an industrial robot named Unimate, which was installed on a General Motors assembly line in New Jersey in 1961, tasked with moving die castings from an adjacent assembly line and welding them onto automotive body panels. Its work helped save its human counterparts from a dangerous and labor-intensive job.
Since then, robots have only become more capable.
The robotics industry today is considered an interdisciplinary branch of both engineering and science that brings together a wide range of different specialties and skills in the production, development and maintenance of robot machines. This typically includes the work of mechanical engineers, electronic engineers, computer scientists, artificial intelligence experts and more, to “oversee the design, construction, operation, and use of robots, as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing.”
Why Invest in Robotics?
In short, we’re still just scratching the surface of what is possible in robotics.
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence are leading to smarter, more capable robots; miniaturization is shrinking the size of these machines dramatically, opening them up to vast new markets and applications; and of course the continuing trend of falling prices across all hardware segments due to modern efficiencies means robots are becoming available to far more buyers than ever before.
According to Mordor Intelligence, a market research firm: “The robotics market was valued at USD 31.78 billion in 2018 and is expected to register a CAGR of 25% over the forecast period of 2019-2024. In the past decade, industrial robots used to be high priced, due to which, the ROI is expected to be achieved after a decade. However, presently, smaller collaborative robots are priced for companies to receive ROI in months, instead of decades, often costing around USD 20,000. Declining sensor prices and increasing adoption have further aided lower costs.”
How to Invest in Robotics
But how can investors get involved in this growth opportunity for modern robotics? A search on Magnifi suggests that there are a number of different ways to profit in robotics, including ETFs, thematic funds and more.
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The information and data are as of the October 17, 2019 (publish date) unless otherwise noted and subject to change. This blog is sponsored by Magnifi.