Author: Melanie Kramer

Europe’s Largest Bank HSBC Sees Profit Rise of 28%

Although HSBC’s earnings in Q3 slightly missed expectations, they were still up 28% on Q3 last year. Despite the growth, HSBC share prices are down 20% since the beginning of 2018.

HSBC hit pre-tax profits of $5.9 billion for Q3 from revenue of $13.79 billion. Revenue is up 6.32% illustrating cost savings within the bank have resulted in a greater profit share. Actual operating expenses were $7.96 billion down from $8.55 billion in Q3 2017.

In HSBC’s earnings statement CEO John Flint said:

“These are encouraging results that demonstrate the revenue potential of HSBC.”

HSBC’s shares are listed on both London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges, its share price for both listings has declined by over 20% during 2018. The fall is mainly attributed to global economic uncertainty stemming from trade woes.

In Hong Kong, HSBC shares have risen today by 5% and in London by 5.63% so far.

HSBC Stock today

Recent Profits from Asian Markets

HSBC is currently employing a “pivot to Asia” strategy which also seems to have yielded results. Three-quarters of Q3 profits originate from Asian markets.

CEO Flint and HSBC chairman Mark Tucker are still in their first year of leading the banking giant. Flint says although there are concerns over trade disputes between the US and China, an offshoot is likely to be more growth in trade within Asia itself.

HSBC’s Long-Standing Relationship with Saudi Arabia

HSBC is the largest overseas bank operating in Saudi Arabia and was a key sponsor of the country’s Future Investment Initiative “Davos in the desert.” Despite being a sponsor, CEO Flint made the decision not to attend saying:

“It was not an easy decision, but it was the right thing to do in the circumstances.”

Flint has defended HSBC’s operations in Saudi Arabia due to HSBC’s 1950’s onward, long history in the oil-rich economy. Flint said:

“We have 4,000 employees in Saudi Arabia and many customers, so we have a responsibility to them.”

Flint, aged 50, took over as CEO of HSBC in February 2018 after working at the bank for nearly 20 years. 14 of which were spent developing Asian markets.

In 2004, he was responsible for integrating HSBC’s investment activities under “HSBC Global Asset Management,” and went on to become the division’s CEO in 2010. Flint receives a salary of around $2.9 million.

HSBC is the largest bank in Europe and the seventh largest globally with assets under management of over $2 trillion. Its market value as a company is over $200 billion.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

October 29, 2018
ABB Invests $150m to Build 100,000 Robots Per Year in China

Swiss robotics expert ABB is investing $150 million to build a new robotics factory in Shanghai, China, that will make 100,000 robots per year. Its CEO is confident the company’s momentum will be reflected in future share performance.

The new factory will account for one quarter of ABB’s rising global demand for its robots and include a full research and development center in artificial intelligence and machine learning. It will be largest of ABB’s factories producing anything from ABB’s small robots to ones that can lift the weight of a car.

ABB has also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Shanghai government, according to reports by the South China Morning Post, who spoke with ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer on his sixth visit to China this year.

The agreement with Shanghai’s government will see ABB supporting the city’s industry, energy, transport, and infrastructure.

Along with Mitsubishi and Fanuc, ABB is one of the largest suppliers of industrial robots, software, equipment, and installation services. It’s represented in 53 companies and has installed over 400,000 robots to date. The new factory in Shanghai, producing a further 100,000 per year from 2020 gives an indication of the growth of the sector.

In June 2018, ABB introduced its new range of smaller robots that work alongside people in manufacturing and production facilities.

China is ABB’s second-largest market globally for ABB producing $6 billion in revenue annually and out-growing its other markets with a 13% rise in total orders.

China is the world’s largest purchaser and user of industrial robots, not surprising considering that China also has the world’s highest industrial output.

According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the country has had more robots in its factories and facilities than any other country since 2016. By 2020, IFR expects China to have 950,300 industrial robots in operation.

ABB has been a global Fortune 500 company for 24 years and its shares are traded on the Swiss, Stockholm, and New York stock exchanges. The company’s recently released third-quarter revenue results, at just over expectations, didn’t quite inspire investors and ABB’s shares have now lost a quarter of their value this year.

ABB has been hit by the slowdown in China and has an order book of nearly $9 billion, slightly short of the over $9 billion market expectations. Spiesshofer told Reuters on October 24, 2018:

“If you take the transformation of ABB, that has progressed as all the momentum shows. It is very clear out of the orders there needs to come the revenue and the profit and that is our ambition for the next quarters.”

Featured image from ABB.

October 28, 2018
Fortnite Creators Epic Games Raises $1.25 Billion with New Partnerships

To reinforce its gaming market success, Epic Games has raised $1.25 billion in capital funding through new “financial and strategic” partnerships.

Epic’s new partners are drawn from investment firms and stakeholders key in technology, entertainment, esports, live events, and even professional sports.

KKR, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Lightspeed Venture Partners have joined Epic’s existing minority investors Tencent, Disney, and Endeavor.

CEO Tim Sweeney explained the strategy behind the move:

“This reinforces Epic’s position of leadership in real-time 3D technology, and accelerates our ability to improve the way people play, work, and interact with the world.”

Sweeney, Epic’s founder, retains full control over the gaming giant which he founded in 1991. At 47, Sweeney is now worth an estimated $1.8 billion after bringing games like Fortnite, Unreal, and Gears of War to market.

There is also Epic’s Unreal Engine technology, one of the most used gaming platforms for other developers. The Unreal Engine platform adds high-fidelity, interactive, experiences for PC, console, and mobile as well as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and the internet.

Epic Games New Investors

Ted Oberwager of new investors to Epic, KKR & Co Inc, said of Epic’s success:

“Epic Games has fundamentally changed the model for interactive entertainment under the company’s visionary leadership.”

KKR has over 280 private equity investments across a portfolio worth $545 billion, historically KKR has invested predominantly in the energy and media sectors.

KKR acquired a software company, Epicor Software Corporation in 2016 and then invested $250 million in French cloud computing company OVH. Since 2016, KKR’s portfolio has become more technology oriented.

Investors aXiomatic are the owners of eSports company Team Liquid, whose 60 professional eSports players compete in 14 of the world’s top games including Epic’s Fortnite.

It’s also a media enterprise having expanded within the gaming ecosystem to video content production, wider player management, and to create eSports resource platform Liquipedia. Team Liquid is the third most valuable eSports company in the world.

Another new investor to Epic, Lightspeed Venture Partners, focuses on enterprise and consumer technology. Lightspeed is known to have backed 300 companies including SnapChat, DoubleClick, Playdom, and Cisco.

The recent announcement reveals none of Epic’s plans for the capital raised or how it will leverage the new partnerships.

Epic could be planning to build on its recent knock-out success with Fortnite, potentially the world’s most popular game today, as well as continuing to develop its Unreal Engine technology which recently celebrated 20 years since its launch.

Join us in celebrating this month’s #EpicFriday as we showcase amazing community projects built in #UE4! pic.twitter.com/AONieeddBp

— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) March 30, 2018

Fortnite is currently generating Epic Games $2.5 million per day in revenue which has almost certainly attracted this new round of investors.

Featured image from Epic Games.

October 27, 2018
Over Half of US Startup Founders Are Immigrants – Here Are the Top 10

Even excluding the fact that America is a nation of immigrants, a new study has found that 55% of America’s most successful new corporations were founded by modern-day American immigrants.

Economies thrive on the success of innovative new companies, so amidst the debate in the US over immigration, these statistics are important. These immigrant-founded companies are valuable directly and indirectly to the US economy.

The study by The National Foundation for American Policy found 50 out of the 91 startups valued at over $1 billion in the US had at least one founder who was an immigrant to the US.

The 50 companies included in the study are worth a combined $248 billion.

Not only that, but these 50 companies have created an average of 1,200 jobs per company. Uber, founded by Canadian immigrant Garret Camp, has created nearly 10,000 jobs in the US alone.

SpaceX, founded by South African immigrant Elon Musk has created 7,000 US jobs. The number of jobs created is also rising exponentially.

Slack, Peloton, SpaceX and WeWork, all founded by immigrants, have all been added to Time Magazine’s list of “genius” companies named as “inventing the future.”

These companies include many of the very successful technology startups that are already prominent in our lives and will be even more so as the age of blockchain, the internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence progresses.

33 out of the 50 are based in Silicon Valley, 20 were founded by immigrants who were once international students, and six were started by immigrants who arrived in the US as children. The study confirms:

“Successful immigrant entrepreneurs in America are almost always refugees or family-sponsored and employer-sponsored immigrants.”

In addition, 75 of the 91 billion-dollar private companies in the US, had at least one immigrant in a key role such as CEO, Chief Technology Officer or a top engineering role.

In reverse order by company value, here are the founders of the top 10 most valuable immigrant-founded US startups.

Top 10 US Immigrant Founded Startups

10. Apoorva Mehta – Instacart – Company Value $4.2 Billion

Mehta has worked for Amazon, Qualcomm, and Blackberry, he’s now on Forbes 40 under 40 list, at the age of 32 and was named as one of “America’s Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 2016.” Mehta has a net worth himself of around $400 million.

Born in India, Mehta moved to Canada with his family in 2000 and studied at the University of Waterloo. He now lives in California.

Mehta co-founded mobile-based grocery shopping and delivery application Instacart in 2012 and started out making Instacart deliveries himself.

By 2015 Instacart had raised $220 million in funding and was valued at $2 billion. In 2018, Instacart is now worth $4.2 billion.

9. Peter Szulczewski – Wish – Company Value $4.3 Billion

Szulczewski at 37 has a net worth of $920 million, he founded ContextLogic, which became shopping platform Wish, in 2010 with Danny Zhang.

Wish retails low-value products directly from manufacturing countries like China and boasts “hundreds of millions” of users. In 2016 Wish raised $500 million in new funding taking its value over $4 billion.

Canadian immigrant Szulczewski was an engineer at Google before founding ContextLogic. He stays out of the spotlight but has publicly announced he expects Wish’s $2 billion in yearly sales to reach $2 trillion.

Szulczewski turned down Amazon’s offer to buy Wish for $10 billion.

8. Vlad Tenev – Robinhood – Company Value $5.6 Billion

Bulgarian born Tenev, who moved to the US with his parents as a small boy, became a billionaire along with Robinhood’s co-founder Baiju Bhat after a funding run in 2018 which took Robinhood’s value to $6 billion.

Tenev’s parents worked for the World Bank, he grew up in Washington, DC, and earned a mathematics degree from Stanford University.

Robinhood Markets, an electronic stock brokerage, and financial services firm, grew faster than expected and gave Tenev, aged 28, early success. Though in its early days Robinhood was rejected by 75 venture capitalists.

7. Noubar Afeyan – Moderna Therapeutics – Company Value $7.0 Billion

Afeyan was born to Armenian parents in Lebanon. At 13 he moved to Canada with his family, before later moving to the US. Afeyan earned his Ph.D. at 24 and went on to help found 38 companies including biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics with Canadian immigrant Derrick Rossi.

After raising funding and grants for its work, including one early grant in 2013 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop mRNA drug technology to fight infectious diseases and biological weapons, the value of Moderna rose to $5 billion by 2017.

6. Stewart Butterfield – Slack – Company Value $7.1 Billion

Canadian Immigrant Butterfield founded team communication application Slack with Russian immigrant Serguei Mourachov and UK immigrant to the US Carl Henderson in 2013.

By 2015, Slack had raised $340 million in venture capital and had over 2 million daily users, 570,000 of them paid subscribers.

Butterfield now has a net worth of $1.69 billion. Born in Canada, Butterfield taught himself to code as a child before gaining a degree in philosophy whilst designing websites to make money at university. The entrepreneur also founded Flickr which sold to Yahoo for $20 million.

5. John Collison and Patrick Collison – Stripe – Company Value $20 Billion

Now two of the world’s youngest Billionaires, the Collison brothers moved to Silicon Valley from Ireland in 2007, in search of success. Both are worth at least $1 billion each.

They moved to Silicon Valley after Y Combinator showed interest in their software startup “Shuppa.” The startup became Auctomatic which was then sold to Canada’s Live Current Media in 2008, making the then 17 and 19 year-olds overnight millionaires.

Digital payments company Stripe was founded in 2010 and received backing from Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Sequoia Capital. Further investment in 2016 increased Stripe’s value to $9.2 billion and made the Collison brothers the world’s youngest self-made billionaires.

4. Peter Thiel – Palantir Technologies – Company Value $20 Billion

Possibly better known for co-founding PayPal and his early investment in Facebook, Thiel created big data analysis company Palantir Technologies with backing from the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) venture capital arm In-Q-Tel.

The Palantir Gotham project is used by counter-terrorism analysts in the US. The Palantir Metropolis project is used by financial organizations to analyze commercial and public data sets to discover trends, identify issues, and make predictions.

Born in Germany, Thiel was a small child when he moved to the US with his parents and now at aged 51 is worth around $2.5 billion. He’s appeared on Forbes most Powerful People 2016 and Richest in Tech 2016 and is currently 328^th on the Forbes 400 2018.

3. Adam Neumann – WeWork – Company Value $20.2 Billion

Neumann, aged 39, founded WeWork in 2010. WeWork provides shared workspaces in technology ecosystems and for entrepreneurs and startups. It currently manages 10,000,000 square feet of office space and is worth $20.2 billion.

WeWork’s investors by 2014 included JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Its 100,000 entrepreneurial members also access health insurance, an internal social network, social events and a summer retreat alongside their office space provision.

Neuman was born in Israel before moving to the US and graduating from New York’s Baruch College. He’s worth an estimated $2.6 billion and married to the cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow.

2. Elon Musk – SpaceX – Company Value $21 Billion

Musk is well known for electric car company Tesla as well as SpaceX, a project which has the ultimate goal of “enabling people to live on other planets,” and already boasts over 100 successful launches into space.

Musk earned his B.A. in physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in business at Penn’s Wharton School, gaining his right to work in the US on a long-term basis through the H-1B visa. He now holds South African, Canadian, and US Citizenship. Born in South Africa, he moved to Canada at the age of 17 before studying in the US.

The entrepreneur and investor also co-founded PayPal, Neuralink, OpenAI, and The Boring Company, and of course Tesla. He’s the lead designer at SpaceX and product architect at Tesla. As well as electric cars and space exploration he’s also involved in SolarCity and high-speed transportation proposition Hyperloop.

Musk is courting controversy right now over various activities including tweets that cost him $40 million in fines from the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission and smoking cannabis in a live podcast.

1. Garret Camp – Uber – Company Value $72 Billion

Canadian immigrant Camp founded web discovery platform StumbleUpon whilst at the University of Calgary in 2002 and co-founded transportation and ride-hailing company Uber in 2009. He is chairman of both companies, though StumbleUpon sold to eBay in 2007 for $75 million. In 2015 Camp bought back majority shares in the web company.

By May 2017 Uber was operating in 76 countries and had facilitated more than 5 billion rides.

At aged 40, Camp is now worth $4.8 billion and lives in, of course, California.

Uber may be looking to go public, creating an initial public offering (IPO) that could be valued as high as $120 billion. The largest U.S IPO in the US to date was actually Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2014 at $21.8 billion. Alibaba’s Jack Ma is China’s richest Billionaire.

Featured image from Shutterstock. Internal images from Forbes.

October 27, 2018
NFL Player Damon Harrison Moves to Detroit Lions in $46-Million Deal

In a high-profile trade, the New York Giants has traded Damon Harrison aka “Snacks” to the Detroit Lions in a fifth-round draft pick.

The deal comes amidst rumors that any of the New York Giant’s struggling defense could be available for trade. Harrison’s skills haven’t waned but the Giant’s appear committed to a full rebuild of its defense. Detroit’s defensive line ranks 30^th in the NFL.

Harrison, 29, signed a five-year deal with the New York Giants just before the 2016 season worth $46.25 million. The Lions will pick up the $4.1 million Harrison is owed from this season, plus $7 million in 2019, and $9.25 million in 2020.

Originally from New Iberia, Louisiana, Harrison started playing football in his senior year at high-school and missed junior season recruiting so was overlooked by college scouts.

He was later recruited to William Penn University, Iowa, and went on to be signed by the New York Jets in 2012. He left the Jets for the Giants and the million-dollar deal in 2016.

As of Wednesday morning, October 24, 2018, the deal with the Detroit Lions hadn’t been confirmed officially. Lions coach Matt Patricia commented that despite the information circulating about the trade:

“I’m not going to comment on any situation that is not official or is not complete.”

Later that day, however, Harrison tweeted his thanks and goodbye to the New York Giants:

Much love to my teammates, the amazing staffs, coaches, and all the fans. This is my second home because of you…✌🏾 pic.twitter.com/4VUAjkIHlu

— Damon Harrison Sr. (@snacks) October 24, 2018

At 6ft 2in and 355Ib, Harrison is set to strengthen the Detroit Lion’s defense, a team that some believe are within striking distance of currently first-place Vikings in the NFC North.

Featured image by Tom Hanny, Wikipedia.

October 25, 2018
Top 10 eSports Companies Worth a Combined $1.5 Billion
The fast-growing eSports industry, which is likely to generate nearly a billion dollars of revenue this year, has created a group of the highest performing companies worth over $1.5 billion.

The world’s most valuable eSports company, US-based Cloud9 is worth $310 million.

Most of these new companies have emerged in the last 5-10 years. eSports gained a hold in the video game industry in around 2010 and has thousands of professional gamers playing strategy, shooting and fighting games.

eSports has an audience of millions, expected to reach 427 million by 2019, who watch players and tournaments on streaming platforms such as YouTube and Twitch.

The eSports industry took a step closer to the world of real sports when Riot Games began selling League of Legends franchises for $10 million each in 2017. Activision Blizzard also sold franchises for Overwatch League for $20 million.

Traditional sports legends like Magic Johnson have even bought franchises. Now such operations are worth far more, League of Legends franchises are currently in the region of $50 million, and Overwatch between $60-$80 million.

Activision Blizzard signed a deal with Disney in July 2018, to broadcast the Overwatch League on mainstream television including on channels ESPN and Disney XD.

The eSports Market – Statistics Roundup
- Estimated audience by 2019 – 427 million
- Estimated revenue in 2018 – $906 billion, a growth of 38% from last year
- Estimated revenue in 2021 – $1.65 billion
- Largest revenue stream – sponsorship at an expected $359 million in 2018 and expected to rise to $1 billion by 2020
- Expected advertising revenue in 2018 – $174 million
- Expected media rights revenue in 2018 – $161 million, expected to grow to $320 million by 2021
- Expected game publishing fees in 2018 – $116 million. Merchandising and tickets $96 million
- Biggest Star in 2018 – Tyler Blevins “Ninja” who has 19 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and an estimated net worth of $6 million
- Capital investment deals into eSports in 2018 to date – $2.34 billion an increase from $1.53 billion in 2017 and from just $34 million in 2008
Most Valuable eSports Companies to Date

The top ten eSports companies on the following table by Forbes are worth a combined $1.58 billion. Cloud9, worth $310 million, is set to earn $22 million in 2018 from its team’s success in games like League of Legends and Fortnite.

The World’s Most Valuable Esports Companies
Infogram

Forbes combined the list from expert information and opinion, Pitchbook and public filings, and information on capital deals. The list only includes gaming companies and not game publishers or arena builders.

These new companies have quickly morphed into deal makers like their equivalents in the traditional sports sector. Players are hired and changed daily, funding rounds are underway and sponsorship deals are growing rapidly.

eSports companies have to move quickly as new games emerge and others go out of favor and their eSports teams are trained and coached like any other sports players.

eSports is an emerging industry, set for massive growth and already delivering that growth to the innovative companies that have quickly adopted its potential. In comparison, and as a clue to the potential of the sector, the global traditional sports industry is worth as $450 billion.

Just last week Nike sponsored its first eSports player, League of Legends gamer “Uzi.” The value of the deal has yet to be revealed.

Featured image www.ign.com.
October 24, 2018
Amazon and Microsoft Earnings – Up on the Cloud?

As 30% of the S&P index gets ready to release their Q3 earnings figures this week, Amazon and Microsoft look set to report further significant growth in their cloud earnings and healthy overall results. Analysts are still saying shares in Amazon and Microsoft are a good bet.

Earnings from cloud-based computing services look set to top $25 billion across 2018 for both technology giants as the pair look to further monopolize both cloud computing and the entire digital market.

Amazon Web Services Predicted Q3 Cloud Earnings

Predictions by ex-Oracle Chief Communications Officer Bob Evans indicate that, based on 2017 and 2018 performance and growth, Amazon Web Services (AWS) could hit revenue of $6.1 billion. In Q2 Amazon’s earnings were up 48% at $5.4 billion.

Amazon’s recent cloud client acquisitions include Ryanair, Epic Games, and 21st Century Fox moving all or most of their cloud workloads to AWS. Formula One racing has closed its on-premises data centers to move to AWS and Major League Baseball has committed to using AWS for machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

Considering the meteoric rise of Epic Games’ Fortnite, reaching 80 million players monthly, acquiring Epic’s cloud demands is no small deal.

Amazon has also revealed new cloud products like DeepLens, Amazon Neptune, Amazon QuickSight, and AWS Snowball Edge.

Microsoft Azure Predicted Q3 Cloud Earnings

Evans’ prediction for Microsoft’s cloud earnings, after achieving growth of 58% in Q3 with $6.9 billion revenue, is that they could hit $7.4 billion.

Microsoft already has the lead on Amazon but the leviathan has been increasing its cloud coverage to what it says is more than any other provider.

It has also added Azure Stack for hybrid environments, Azure Sphere, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure Cosmos DB. Microsoft boasts a total of 500 new capabilities for its Azure cloud platform in 2018.

Predicted Overall Q3 Earnings

CNN’s poll of analysts settles on an overall Q3 total earnings prediction of around $57 billion for Amazon, with its share price set to rise around 23% between now and this time next year. CNN’s consensus of 40 out of 47 analysts is that it’s still the right time to buy Amazon’s shares. Amazon will release its Q3 earnings on October 26.

For Microsoft, CNN’s analyst poll aggregates expected earnings for Microsoft in Q3 at $27.9 billion and its share price to rise in the next 12 months by around 14%. 28 out of 34 CNN analysts polled also still judge Microsoft shares to be a good investment. Microsoft is due to release Q3 earnings on October 25.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

October 23, 2018
Nike Sponsors its First eSports Player League of Legends “Uzi”

eSports brand sponsorship deals are on the rise. And Nike sponsors its first eSports player ever this week in an endorsement deal for the “Dribble &” campaign.

Jian “Uzi” Zihao plays League of Legends for the Chinese organization Royal Never Give Up. He’s now signed an endorsement deal with sportswear giant Nike.

The deal is part of the promotion campaign for LeBron James’ “Shut Up and Dribble” docu-series. Uzi will appear in adverts with Chinese actor Bai Jingting and James. According to reports by eSports Insider, James has helped to motivate Uzi’s gaming performance.

“Carry” on Uzi’s T-Shirt refers to the League of Legends term for when influential players “carry” their teammates to victory.

Uzi Is China’s Best Player

Uzi began his eSports career in 2012, became the Chinese League of Legends champion and qualified for the Season 3 World Championship in 2013. After many more wins and high placings nationally and internationally he’s now tipped as the most popular player in the history of League of Legends and the most iconic gaming figure in China.

He won the League of Legends Pro League in China for the first time in 2018. Uzi’s fans are hoping he’ll win the League of Legends World Championship this year which ends on November 5, 2018.

To date Uzi, aged 21, has earned $469,733 in prizes from 37 tournaments and will have as yet undisclosed earnings from sponsorship deals, appearances and other rewards for this success and fame.

His team, Royal Never Give Up announced a one-year sponsorship from Mercedes-Benz in June 2018 and in September 2018 received a one-year sponsorship from KFC. KFC is producing Royal Never Give Up branded products as a tie into the current League of Legends World Championships.

Growing Brand Sponsorship of eSports

The value of Uzi’s deal with Nike has yet to be revealed. It’s unlikely to match basketball player James lifetime endorsement deal with Nike which is predicted to pay him over $1 billion by the time he is 64.

Big brand sponsorship of eSports is growing rapidly. The estimated spend on such deals for 2017 was around $500 million and is predicted to rise to over $1 billion by 2020. The eSports global audience is expected to be 400 million strong by 2020.

As Nike sponsors its first eSports player, it’s likely taking advantage of an opportunity to reach the lucrative Chinese youth market. It could also be the beginning of the acceptance of eSports as part of the world of sports.

Opinion is divided on this topic but a recent survey in the UK found that eSports and traditional sports are not polar opposites. The report suggested that traditional sports stakeholders’ involvement in the eSports industry will be a key impetus for the growth of the sector in 2019.

With eSports tournament prize pools offering literally millions of dollars in winnings for gamers the industry and its sponsorship deals can only grow.

Dota 2’s International 2018 tournament prize pool was over $25 million. The League of Legends World Championship 2017 awarded nearly $5 million in prizes, and Fortnite’s Fall Skirmish has a prize pool of $10 million and is underway at the moment.

Featured Image Source: Nike

October 22, 2018
The Price of Gold Keeps on Rising – Who’s Buying?

The price of gold, under higher demand, has surged over the last few days. The gold market is seeing gains over 7% in the last week, and now the third week of gains overall. So, who’s buying the precious metal and why?

Gold bullion hit $1,233.26, the highest price per ounce for two and a half months on Monday, October 20, 2018, and finished this week at $1226.49.

Gold is still an incredibly popular investment despite investor interest growing in recent years in technology stocks and cryptocurrencies. It’s a relatively stable investment and a go-to in times of uncertainty and fear of recession.

Macquarie commodity strategist Matthew Turner said on Friday to CNBC:

“Sensitivity to equity markets is helping gold at the moment.”

U.S Federal Reserve interest rate hikes are adding to fears of recession and global uncertainty. Turner added:

“We are entering a new paradigm, where any further rate hike could be a sign that the economy is overheating a bit, which should be more positive for gold and problematic for equities.”

Global stock markets have seen some big hits in recent weeks. The US markets dipped under a sell-off of technology shares and China’s massive markets are continuing to struggle under economic woes. Both the US and China are likely to suffer over this year’s trade war. Some of the money moving out of stocks and shares is almost certainly going to gold right now.

Kitco Metals senior analyst Jim Wyckoff told Reuters that the volatility in the stock markets recently has been favoring gold:

“The technical posture of gold in near term basis has improved remarkably in the past two weeks.”

A slightly weaker dollar is also aiding the price of gold. The largest gold-backed exchange traded fund (ETF), from SPDR Gold Trust, has also seen a gain of 2.5% in the past two weeks.

Russia and China are Selling US Treasuries and Buying Gold

It’s not just individual and corporate investors that are buying gold right now. Russia was in 2011 the largest holder of US debt securities in the form of US Treasury bonds with a $180 billion investment. Russia has been selling these bonds and as of August owned just $14 billion, dropping to the 54^th largest holder of US Treasuries.

A Russian broker at Otkritie bank, Timur Nigmatullin said:

“A further sale of US Treasury bonds by Russia will most likely be compensated by buying gold and opening short-term deposits at banks.”

Indeed, the percentage of gold in Russia’s foreign reserves has grown to 18%.

China, Japan, India, and Turkey have also been selling their US bonds, due in part to interest rate hikes. China and Japan are currently the largest investors in US debt.

China’s official gold reserves have grown from 1,054 tonnes in 2015 to 1,843 tonnes by the second quarter of 2018.

Matthew Mark, director of US Asset Owners at The World Gold Council confirmed:

“China is now one of the top 10 largest central banks holding gold. It has shown to be a very resilient purchaser of gold.”

The demand for gold amongst Chinese consumers has also risen 5% from last year, notable as the Chinese stock market hits lows. Mark said:

“China is one of the most exciting markets for gold because of the strengthening of its gold market infrastructure.”

Hungary Increases Gold Reserves by 1,000%

Citing economic “safety concerns,” Hungary has suddenly increased its gold reserves by 1,000%, buying gold bullion for the first time since 1986. Hungary is also following the trend of other European central banks including Poland, Austria, Netherlands, and Germany by repatriating gold reserves back to its own country, instead of placing it with the Bank of England or the U.S Federal Reserve.

Many central banks began buying more gold in 2010, last year activity in the sector grew by 36%. Though many countries keep high balances of US Bonds and the dollar to facilitate trade, conducted mostly in USD, the trend for buying gold looks set to continue.

Commerzbank analysts predicted on Friday:

“Today’s attempt by gold to lastingly exceed the 100-day moving average looks promising. If it succeeds, technical follow-up buying should push the gold price further up.”

Images from Shutterstock.

October 21, 2018
Fortnite Provides Plenty of Challenges for the Weekend Ahead

Tired of making money this week? Heading to the couch to play Fortnite? To keep its millions of players occupied, Epic Games has been busy creating new Fortnite Challenges and making a few upgrades.

Fortnite Knock and Run

It’s nearly Halloween and Epic Games is building up. As well as Halloween skins, Fortnite has created Halloween Challenges. For week four of this season, six players will have to trick-or-treat to level up their battle passes by visiting houses and ringing doorbells.

The doorbell challenge is one of three free challenges for week four. Players have to be quick, landing in popular landing zones and ringing the doorbell on houses with opponents inside!

Image Source: VGR

Shooting Galleries

A second of week four’s free challenges, Battle pass owners get four more, the shooting gallery challenge is a little less risky than ringing doorbells.

There are seven shooting galleries on Fortnite’s battle island, finding them is the tough part, hitting the target three times should be easy for most players.

Friday Night Fortnite

This weekend sees Fortnite’s first “Friday Night Fortnite” event on October 19, 2018. You’ll need a squad of four to compete in this challenge running from 7 pm to 11 pm, set to be a regular Friday feature for players. Prizes are points based for this one.

Fortnite Fall Skirmish Week 5

One tournament where there is real money up for grabs, week five of Fortnite’s Fall Skirmish also starts this weekend. There’s a $25,000 bonus prize for the two-player team with the highest elimination total of six regional matches and a $10,000 prize for a Fortnite Royal Flush.

The entire Fall Skirmish event has a total prize pool of $10 million and will conclude at the TwitchCon 2018 event in San Jose, California with a final grand prize of $400,000.

Battle Bus Upgrades

The Fortnite Battle Bus, delivering skydiving players to the island and into battle now moves 25% faster. It’s even quicker to get right into the fray so for serious players, more time honing those Fortnite skills in the hope of heading up the rankings.

Let’s not forget five of Fortnite’s top players have won well over a million so far. Fortnite is serious stuff, so if you’re not playing yet, well, it is the weekend.

Featured image from Epic Games.

October 20, 2018