I am largely convinced that there is no such thing as a good bottle of wine. Before you jump to conclusions or make assumptions that I am some sort of classless charlatan, hear me out. There was a study conducted among hundreds of sommeliers, a fancy group of people who study the art of wine-tasting, during which two glasses of wine were poured for each sommelier to discern the differences. One glass held a white wine, and the other held the same white wine, but the scientists behind the experiment poured red food-coloring into the glass and told the sommeliers that it was a bold, red wine. Shockingly enough, the sommeliers actually described each glass as being completely unique from one another, in terms of flavor, palette, you get the idea.
Maybe I truly have no taste in fine wines, but regardless, here’s what you missed in the news yesterday.
Alaska Is Shook
Early Friday morning, the capital city of Anchorage, Alaska, was struck by a massive earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale. According to local media, the quake struck at around 8:30 am local time about 10 miles northeast of Anchorage, 21 miles beneath the surface of the Earth, according to the US Geological Survey. As with every major news story, it’s only a matter of moments before President Trump tweets his feelings on the matter, but this time his thoughts were relatively empathetic.
“To the Great people of Alaska. You have been with hard by a ‘big one.’ Please follow the directions of the highly trained professionals who are there to help you. Your federal government will spare no expense. God Bless you ALL!”
–President Donald Trump”
So much for the separation of church and state from the last line of the president’s tweet. Either way, I hope everyone in Anchorage is alright. So far, no news sources have reported any casualties, but the story is still developing.
Microsoft Did The Unthinkable
In a miraculous turn of events, Apple (AAPL) is no longer the world’s most valuable company. In terms of market capitalization, Microsoft (MSFT) finally surpassed Apple (AAPL) on Friday, ending the day with a market cap of $851 billion, according to CNN. Analysts in the tech industry attribute Microsoft’s (MSFT) ascension to the efforts of the company’s new chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, who has worked tirelessly over the last few years to invest in new-age technology, like cloud-based computing.
“Microsoft’s huge strides that it has made in the cloud space is more enterprise focused. This has allowed [its] shares to outperform its tech brethren.”
–Dan Morgan, Senior Portfolio Manager, Synovus Trust
Meanwhile, back in Cupertino, Apple (AAPL) has been riding the struggle bus. Demand for the new lineup of iPhones is not like it used to be, and in response to the company’s recent announcement to stop disclosing unit sales for smartphones, investors are selling off because they just don’t know if the company has what it takes anymore.
