On US/China trade war
- 25% tariff basically wiped out whatever profit margin importing from China could bring
- China’s labor cost have been increasing over the past few years that it is no longer a competitive advantage
- China’s main advantage is the expertise they built up over the years. A company can easily spin up 25 manufacturing lines in China very quickly
- US companies are all rapidly shifting their manufacturing activities out of China
- New locations are Taiwan, India and Vietnam
- Chinese staff that were retained by Google are now flying to new manufacturing facilities spun up in these countries to oversee the spin up process
On alternate data
- Real estate
the rise of platforms like AirBnB has lead investors to seek out alternate data that can help predict short term rental yield as opposed to long term rental yield in a neighborhood
- government agencies are seeking such data to detect neighborhoods where they should focus their efforts to crack down illegal subletting on AirBnB
- Sports
being able to predict strategy coaches of football teams will employ in real time will help support strategies
- being able to predict starting line in close to real time and the corresponding outcomes will be valuable for coaches in making play decisions
On HongKong/China protest
- Public opinion is the agenda for the ongoing protest is now getting really murky
- Airport has stopped operations, it’s hard to even get in and out of the country
- Foreign Chinese nationals are supportive of protest in HongKong
- Topics pertaining to Taiwan, Tibet and TianAnMen massacre are sensitive topics amongst mainland Chinese
- Funds of funds from Hong Kong are still very liquid