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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robert b furman who wrote (3507)	10/13/2015 10:56:35 AM
From: Kirk ©	1 Recommendation Recommended By Return to Sender Respond to of 26800

Worldwide semiconductor sales to fall in 2015, says Gartner Oct 13, 16:02 Worldwide semiconductor revenues are forecast to total US$337.8 billion in 2015, a decline of 0.8% from 2014, according to Gartner. This is the first decline in revenues since 2012 when the market declined 2.6%. Gartner has also cut its chip market growth forecast for 2015 again. The market research firm originally anticipated worldwide semiconductor revenues would increase 5.8% in 2015, but the estimate was revised downward to 5.4% in January, 4% in April and 2.2% in July. "Once again the outlook for the major applications that drive the semiconductor market, including PCs, smartphones and tablets, has been revised downward," said Andrew Norwood, research VP at Gartner. "This, combined with the continuing impact of the strong dollar on demand in key markets outside of the US, has resulted in a decline in our forecast and a negative growth rate for 2015. "Not only did the year start badly, but we are not seeing the typical ramp up in sales of semiconductors in many areas of the market in anticipation of the holiday season," Norwood continued. "As a result, sales are not going to recover enough in the second half to halt an annual decline in semiconductor revenue for 2015." This will be the first time worldwide semiconductor sales have contracted since 2012, Gartner noted. Global economic headwinds, such as the slowing Chinese economy and the strong dollar, are pushing up the cost of electronic equipment in regions including Western Europe and Japan. This is leading to a reduction in outright sales and also encouraging buyers to shift to lower-cost equipment in these markets. Gartner predicts a more positive outlook for 2016 and is forecasting semiconductor revenue will increase 1.9% to US$344.1 billion. However, Gartner forecasts an oversupply in DRAM in 2016. "While 2015 has already seen an oversupply in the PC segment of the DRAM market, we believe that 2016 will see a more widespread oversupply that will also impact the server and low-power sectors of the DRAM market. DRAM revenue is forecast to decline 12.2% in 2016 due to oversupply and resulting weak pricing," said Norwood.

To: robert b furman who wrote (3507)	10/14/2015 9:29:29 AM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 26800

Toyota targets fuel-cell car sales of 30,000 a year by 2020 TOKYO \| BY NAOMI TAJITSU Business News \| Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:49am EDT Related: ENVIRONMENT Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) set what it called an ambitious target to sell 30,000 fuel-cell vehicles a year by the end of the decade under a plan to cut carbon emissions nearly to zero by 2050. Toyota, which is betting heavily on fuel-cell technology as carmakers rush to develop environmentally friendly vehicles, said on Wednesday it had so far sold 350 of its Mirai fuel-cell car, launched in December. It retained a target of boosting production to about 2,000 next year and 3,000 in 2017. Potentially the ultimate "green car", fuel-cell vehicles run on electricity generated by mixing hydrogen fuel and oxygen in the air, without the carbon emissions produced by gasoline-engine vehicles. "When we first announced the Mirai, we said we were at the start of the age of hydrogen," senior managing officer Kiyotaka Ise told reporters. "The figure we've announced today is ambitious, but it needs to be to keep the ball rolling." Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) is also producing fuel-cell vehicles for the consumer market and Honda Motor Corp (7267.T) is widely expected to unveil its own offering later this month. The Mirai target compares with the 1.5 million hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles Toyota aims to be selling annually by 2020, up from 1.26 million in 2014. Toyota said that cars running on conventional engines will have virtually disappeared by 2050. Sales of the Mirai are limited to Japan but Toyota has been taking orders in the United States since August. A global rollout has been delayed due to a dearth of hydrogen fuel stations outside Japan. Supply of the hand-assembled vehicles is also still very tight, with roughly three a day produced at a single plant in Toyota City, the company's sprawling headquarters in central Japan. Toyota added that it aimed to eliminate carbon emissions from its production facilities by 2050 by using renewable and hydrogen-based energy. (Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Edmund Klamann) reuters.com google.com

To: robert b furman who wrote (3507)	10/15/2015 12:58:00 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26800

Social Security payments will not go up next year because there was no increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) from the third quarter of 2014 to the third quarter of 2015. See Oct 15 2016 Social Security COLA: Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2016 Interesting: "As a result of budget cuts and because little difference was seen between the CPI-U and CPI-W measures during 1978–1980, the BLS discontinued the separate but overlapping samples of individual items and outlets maintained from 1978–1980 for the CPI-U and CPI-W. Because maintaining two independent samples was not sustainable, BLS economists track spending and prices by using the CPI-U sample of geographic areas, outlets, items, and prices. The CPI-W is then derived by adjusting the weights for various spending categories, reflecting that the spending habits of the wage earner population differ somewhat from the all urban consumer population. "