Over the past two weeks, America’s largest and most successful companies have released their Q1 2015 earnings reports. First quarter earnings reports are a decent indicator of how a company will perform during the remaining fiscal year. This first quarter, as is typical, has failed to impress traders. A much strengthened U.S. dollar has weighed on revenues, costing multinational corporations billions in foregone profits.
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Ellison No Longer An Oracle
Last Thursday, former two-time college dropout Larry Ellison, now the world's fifth richest man, announced he was immediately resigning from his CEO position at Oracle (ORCL). The company, which he founded 37 years ago, has established itself as the premier business solutions provider since the late 1970s. However, in recent years, Oracle has struggled to adapt to the rapid expansion of cloud storage and evolving digital business infrastructure demands.
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Customers Love Competition
Like so much that emanates from the complex science, the economic idea of “competition” is something of an abstract concept. It can be difficult to envision how the desire of individual firms to outperform one another, in the market, can translate to better products and lower prices in the long-run.
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Apple's Bright Future
As the third quarter came to end, Apple (AAPL) began to tally its earnings. Historically, the third quarter has been marked by slow growth and decreased earnings for Apple, presumably because the company generally releases its new iPhone(s) in the late fall. This strategy curtails mobile phone sales during the summer, as everyone awaits Apple's newest release.
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Arista Networks IPO
Last Friday, June 6, 2014, cloud-networking company, Arista Networks (ANET), made its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The company’s shares were initially priced at $43. Although Cisco (CSCO), IBM, and Microsoft (MSFT) have dominated the networking market for the past two decades, Arista may finally present a credible challenge to these tech behemoths. Investors showed optimism in Arista’s future, as shares hit $59.72 in the first week of its IPO and now sit at roughly $65.
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