Month: August 2020

Tesla stock price increased by 32.5% in July, is it a bubble about to burst?

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It is 2020, the year of the Corona Virus, and the “Apocalypses” for all the traditional companies. The amount of cars sold has dropped by up to 80% in some countries. In general, people are not traveling this year. One can assume that it is hell for the car manufacturers, right? So how come that Tesla stock price is rising so much and it became the car company with the highest ever market cap? Does it make any sense, or is it a bubble?

Tesla stock price increased by 32.5%

Against all pessimism burst by the coronavirus pandemic that has badly affected the results of most companies in this 2020, Tesla just reported a great milestone.

At the end of last July 2020, the Palo Alto-based company reached its fourth consecutive quarter of profitability. Tesla (NASDAQ, TSLA) hopped to 32.5%, based on information provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. This means it has arisen close to 250% year to date.

David Trainer, who is the CEO of New Constructs, an investment research company, puts Tesla stock as “the most dangerous stock of 2020.” He believes that the traditional automakers will soon catch up with their electric vehicles, and TSLA will go down as low as $300. Trainer thinks that Tesla can’t compete if the rest focus on EVs. 

Mike Jackson, the CEO of AutoNation, said, “The stock price is insane. The valuation is insane.” He is definitely not buying the hype around the stock too. He was pointing that Tesla’s results are thanks to the huge government support, and without it, the picture would be very different. 

So July is gone now, and we are in August. The price is still rising, and it is currently trading at 1,658.32 on NASDAQ. It looks like the investment market is totally disconnected from the reality outside our windows recently. Many are expecting the price to pass the 2000 mark and to grow even more. 

For me, this looks like a big bubble about to burst. It doesn’t mean that you still can’t invest and make good earning on your investment, but just be prepared. Don’t invert your retirement’s money on it. 

If you ask me, you can make a big buck if you are a risk-taker, and you want to play with some put options with strike day around the end of the year. 

Yes, betting against your favorite company is hard, but an artificially inflated price is not nice too. 

What’s next for Tesla?

Tesla will split the stock in a 5-to-1 ratio on the 21st of August. Each stock owner will receive 4 more, and the price will go down accordingly. This will make the stocks more affordable for retail investors. The announcement itself inflated the value with around 18%. 

We are expecting a presentation on the topic of batteries on the 15th of September. The company is well-known for its high-tech innovations, so a new, more efficient battery can easily boost the stock price. At least this is a good reason. 

Conclusion

If we look back on a year ago, the Tesla stock was around 250% less, and during the complete 2019, the price increased by more than 500%. These numbers are not typical for companies in the S&P 500. Even if you think it is a great company and you “love” the real-life iron man Elon Musk, be cautious investing in Tesla. It is a high risk, high return affair!

TOP 7 Web hosting services (2020)

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Are you looking for web hosting? I will help you narrow it down faster and show you 6 great web hosting companies worth checking. 

All of them have decent uptime (99.93-99.99%) and 24/7 support. 

Bluehost 

https://www.bluehost.com

In the business since 2007. WordPress.org officially recommends it! 

Competitive prices, Digital Marketing team (paid service), support through chat or phone, and instant activation of their plans are some of the best features.

Bluehost has SEO tools, free email accounts, free SSL certificates, money-back guarantee, plans for higher traffic websites, VPS, shared, dedicated hosting…

It offers different plans—the basic 3-year costs around $3 monthly.

Some cons to be considered: The free backup solution is really limited, the constant upsells, that migration is free for just 1 site, and the fact that Bluehost has servers just in the US. 

HostGator

https://www.hostgator.com

Founded in 2002, this is another popular web hosting provider. 

Unlimited bandwidth and storage, support reachable through phone and chat. It offers free migration assisted by experts, free email accounts.

Easy to use website builders (drag and drop), money-back guarantee (45 days!), Windows and Linux hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated server.

The cheapest plans start at around $3 monthly. 

The cons: A lot of pointless upsells. You get just one backup included. It doesn´t have its own cache for fast loading, and the renewal rate is high. 

Siteground 

https://www.siteground.com

Created in 2004, it is recommended by WordPress.org too. 

A highly recommended 24/7 customer support.

It has 6 own data centers on 4 continents (North America 1, Europe 3, Asia 1, and Australia 1).

It offers unlimited traffic, speed cache, real-time monitor, AI traffic guard, money-back guarantee, SSL, CloudFare CDN with 194 locations, website builder, free email accounts, free daily backups. Its plans start from $6.99 monthly (discounted from $14.99). Their hosting services include shared hosting and cloud hosting.

Some cons: It is expensive. Low storage space (starts at 10GB). So if you have an image/video heavy website, maybe it is not your best choice. 

Hostinger

https://www.hostinger.com

It was founded in 2004, but until 2011, it got the name Hostinger. 

Price is its most attractive feature. It has a $0.99 monthly plan (if you sign for 48 months, and it has limited bandwidth, and no free domain). The price increases in the renewal to $9.99. You can use it for 2 years and run to another. 

Website builder, money-back guarantee, unlimited bandwidth, and databases in most of its plans. 

It provides Cloudflare DNS, and you can upgrade to VPS. Its data centers are located in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Drawbacks: Limited services (in the basic plan only 1 FTP Account, 1 email, no free backups, 100GB bandwidth). This host has not the traditional cPanel but its own custom control panel. 

There are many comments from users who warn about the policy and proper refunds when you apply for the money-back guarantee. So check it very well! 

A2 Hosting

https://www.a2hosting.com

This host launched in 2001.

Good support team through chat, email, phone and tickets, and its fast servers, are the main A2 features. 

Its servers can load pages up to 20X faster than standard hosting. At least they say so. They are optimized for WordPress sites and use LiteSpeed cache for a speed boost. A2 also works with Joomla, Drupal, OpenCart, and Magento.

Most of its plans include limitless bandwidth and SSD storage, money-back guarantee, free SSL, domain name, email accounts, one-click installers, and site migration. 

The basic plan costs around $3 monthly (renewal goes approx. to $8). 

Besides shared hosting, you can get services like VPS and dedicated. A lot of options for upgrade. 

Without a doubt, speed is a big selling point of this host. Just don´t get confused and be loyal to your real needs because many upsells are related to this factor. 

GoDaddy

https://www.godaddy.com

The largest domain registrar was created in 1997, as Jomax Technologies. Years later, GoDaddy also became a hosting provider.

Drag-and-drop website builder, Marketing services, Website design services, cPanel, 100GB website storage, free domain, unmetered bandwidth, money-back guarantee, VPS, and dedicated servers.

Its basic plan is $5.99 monthly (renewal $8.99), and it doesn’t include backups, SSL, and email accounts. You have to pay extra to get them so the final deal will go higher. Expect a lot of pushy upsells.

The missing of migration service worries me. Not everybody can migrate by themselves. 

No automatic backups, either.

Hostway

https://hostway.com

Founded in 1998, it has now 12 data centers in North America, 2 in South Korea, and 2 more in Germany, so 16 data centers in total!

Its website hosting services include different plans for shared hosting, cloud hosting, and virtual private server hosting (VPS). 

The plans email accounts, unlimited monthly traffic, money-back guarantee, customized solutions, SSD storage, cPanel, marketing tools.

The cheapest plan starts at $6.95 monthly, but it does not include SSL. There are no promotions for new users.

It is fit more for big companies than for small ones. It is reliable, no doubt, but especially for businesses interested in North America. Asia and some European areas are not specially covered.

Conclusion

The best hosting provider for you is the one that better fits with the real needs. Most of the providers have similar offers but pay attention to the server location. Choose one closer to your clients. Check very well the policies, conditions, limits, etc. about resources and payments of your plan.

Use the money-back guarantee to try the host you are interested in. It is a great way to see how it works without losing money!

Why Apple is moving to ARM chips is a huge deal!

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Apple is planning to completely replace Intel as its chip supplier. The change will start very soon. But don’t be afraid, this is actually a great thing for people who love the Apple ecosystem. 

What is ARM? 

At the moment, almost every mobile phone out there uses an ARM processor. ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) is an architecture that promises better battery life, uses less power, and potentially similar performance to Intel’s and AMD’s chips. 

Apart from that, you can benefit from features like always-connected devices that have 4G or 5G connection. Imagine if it gets usual to have mobile connectivity on almost any laptop. It will be great! 

Devices powered by ARM chips are also less power-hungry. This allows fanless designs that are lighter and more portable. To be honest, current-gen laptops are light enough, but even a small improvement is welcome. 

With ARM chips, Apple will be able to control better their releases of new products. Now they are strongly connected to Intel’s schedule, and with all the delays in the past years, this is hard to plan.  

Why now? 

Intel has been struggling for a long time. They continuously delay their 10nm processors. There are just a few available right now, and the future doesn’t look bright for team Blue. They are so much behind that they are trying to collaborate with TSMC to keep up with the competition. AMD is already on 7nm architecture, so are the mobile chip producers, and we are almost at 5nm size already. 

The other big problem is the price. Intel’s chips are expensive. It is a company with a dominating position on the market of computer processors for a long time. So far, they were capable of charging extra for that. 

Also, if you have checked the market of devices with Windows on ARM, you will see that they are starting to be good. Yes, a 64bit application emulator is missing, but Snapdragon 8cx is quite capable of native 64bit apps. It will be a shame to stay behind! 

What could go wrong? 

ARM may not be powerful enough. Yes, we all have seen how powerful the iPhone is, in comparison with Android phones. But how does it compare to Intel Core processors for typical work? 

Not enough software. Apple has provided excellent options for the developers to create universal apps for both macOS and iOS (Universal 2 application binaries). This will come in handy in the future, but what about now? Can we use all the apps from macOS without losing performance due to emulation? Apple promise “translation” of the apps during installation with Rosetta 2. We need to test that. 

ARM can get expensive. ARM is for sale, and it can end in anybody’s hands. Apple has a license for its custom architecture, but what if the price for that license increases in the future? Apple can get completely dependent on a single company. And if you are thinking, why Apple just buy ARM, forget it. It will be too much of a hustle for Apple. It will lead to serious anti-monopoly problems. 

So? 

First, ARM-powered Apple computers are coming this fall. Are you going to get one? Or you prefer to wait a few years to be sure that they are here to stay. I will probably get one to play with it. I am a bit worried about software compatibility and how developers will translate their apps to the new platform. I have seen a great first look, but I need to get one in my hands. 

Stay tuned and let’s see how this develops.

Hello, tech enthusiasts!

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Let me present myself, I am Max Meyer, and I am happy to welcome you to my blog! I am glad you got interested in my stories, in the sea of information, the Internet.

Who am I? 

I am an American with European descent. From an early age, maybe 5-6 years old, I have been attracted to technology. My dear father was an electrical engineer, and he used to show me how things work. I have disassembled and assembled countless radios and home gadgets. This knowledge helped me fix my Nintendo many times. 

Later I was getting some money aside while I was studying at the university by fixing electronics. 

I finished with a computer degree – Bachelor in Computer Science.

In this personal blog, I will try to be least biased as possible, and I won’t share the names of companies I was working too.   

After I finished my studies, I stayed in California, and I started my professional career. It was the early 80s, and Silicon Valley was hot. Everybody wanted to be there and taste the future. Microsoft was getting big and working with IBM, Apple went public already, and it was the best time for a young tech grad. 

I started as an intern in one of the big computer companies at the time. I got lucky, and I managed to get a job there. I was doing what I loved, tinkering computers!

I learned to code, but my passion will always be the hardware.   

It was a fascinating time, incredibly dynamic. In the late 90s, the company where I started was on a decline. It was painful to watch when most of the competitors were going massive. It was my time to continue, to leave the nest.

I moved several times in different companies until the early 2000s. I try my luck both in small companies and in big corporations. 

Now I am still working in one of the big tech companies, and I am pleased with my position. 

Why I write

I have worked many years already in the tech industry. Now I want to start sharing my insights and knowledge. The tech is so exciting, and there is always something new to be learned. Follow me on a journey through time and space, exploring the most amazing tech in the world. You can expect interesting articles about new tech, less-known but essential tech, commentary on trendy topics, and more! 

I hope you like my articles and see you often on my blog!