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Another fireside chat coming up July 14, “How to Strengthen Our Democracy in Troubling Times”. Unfortunately, there is not time to implement new mobile voting solutions in time for the November 3 election. Too bad. The need becomes more clear each day. Georgia was a disaster, disenfranchising a lot of votes. Paper ballot problems popping up in other states. Is Internet mobile voting perfect? Compared to what? That should be the response. I have stayed up late to watch the numbers come in every election day for the last 50+ years. Not this time. They will be counting paper ballots for days. You can watch a video excerpt of the fireside chat here.

We took a poll at the beginning of the Zoom session and 67% of the attendees said they believed Internet voting could strengthen our democracy. A poll at the end of the Zoom session showed 93%. Bob Reby and I will be doing a second Zoom fireside chat on the subject of voting hosted by the Ridgefield Library on July 14. Details and how to register will follow.

As of Friday’s close, Tesla market capitalization continued to climb and was at $174 billion. It traded above $1,000 per share during the week. Zoom reached a market cap of $62 billion, and Uber was down to $56 billion after the GrubHub merger fizzled. The five giant tech company market caps marched past their already meteoric level. All five companies are global, but to put their massive valuation into perspective, it now represents 23% of the market cap of the U.S. S&P 500. Shareholders are happy but government regulators and politicians are ramping up the discussion about new regulations and anti-trust hearings. I believe pressure on big tech will continue to mount. I have included a few other stocks I follow in the list this time. Boeing is so important to not just the airlines but also space and defense. The cruise industry projected 32 million passengers were set to travel on cruise ships in 2020, up from 30 million in 2019. Almost nobody is cruising right now. Will they come back? I think so, but nobody knows.

Note: My father gave me the following investment advice many years ago, “Don’t give any and don’t take any.” Wise man. I am not recommending buying or selling any of the stocks, crypto, or indexes I comment on. 

MAGFA Market Cap (06/05/20 2:30 PM EDT)
 Market CapLastChange in
 TrillionsWeekBillions
Microsoft$1.424$1.415$9.0
Apple$1.468$1.431$37.0
Google$0.964$0.983-$19.2
Facebook$0.651$0.658-$6.3
Amazon$1.269$1.237$32.0
    
Total$5.776$5.724$52.5
    
S&P 500 5/31/2020$25.240  
    
MAGFA/S&P 50022.9%22.7%0.2%
    
Bitcoin (price)$9,441.000  
    
 Billions  
Boeing$106.9  
Royal Caribbean$12.8  
Tesla$173.5  
Uber$55.9  
Zoom$61.9