Will Microsoft Touch the Moon?

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Microsoft develops and licenses consumer and enterprise software. It is known for its Windows operating systems and Office productivity suite.

The company is organized into three overarching segments: productivity and business processes (legacy Microsoft Office, cloud-based Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, LinkedIn, Dynamics), intelligence cloud (infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service offerings Azure, Windows Server OS, SQL Server), and more personal computing (Windows Client, Xbox, Bing search, display advertising, and Surface laptops, tablets, and desktops).

Through acquisitions, Microsoft owns Xamarin, LinkedIn, and GitHub. It reports revenue in product and service and other revenue on its income statement.

Microsoft shares are trading higher on reports the TikTiok is likely to announce the sale of its US operations in the coming days for $20 – $30 billion.

TikTok CEO Quit After Being Excluded From Talks With Microsoft

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said in an internal memo that he is resigning as the head of the short-form video app, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

What Happened: Mayer, a former executive at Walt Disney Co DIS 2.13%, made the decision to leave TikTok after President Donald Trump ordered a ban on the ByteDance owned app unless it transferred ownership to an American company in the span of 90 days, according to FT’s unnamed sources.

The chief executive reportedly revealed his decision to quit in a letter to employees and said that Vanessa Pappas, general manager of TikTok will lead the platform.

“I understand that the role that I signed up for — including running TikTok globally — will look very different as a result of the US administration’s action to push for a sell-off of the US business,” the outgoing CEO wrote in the letter, as per FT.

Update from earlier in the week:

And by party, we mean legal action. Over the weekend, Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok confirmed reports that it’ll sue the U.S. government today.

The backstory: On Aug. 6, as we all collectively wondered how it was August already, President Trump signed an executive order blocking all U.S. transactions with TikTok owner ByteDance in 45 days.

The U.S. government has deemed TikTok a national security threat because of a Chinese law that could compel it to fork over Americans’ personal data to Beijing.

As we shifted into “wait, does this mean September is next?” mode on Aug. 14, Trump stepped on the gas pedal, inking another order that gave ByteDance 90 days to divest all U.S. TikTok operations. Now TikTok is mounting a defense, saying the president’s executive order denied its right to due process. It has repeatedly denied it could be strong-armed by the Chinese government. But ByteDance still has to drop TikTok in the U.S. And the horserace to buy it is very much still on.

Where it stands: Early leader Microsoft is still “the favorite” at 2–1 odds, says Axios’s Dan Primack, who handicapped the race last Friday. Microsoft broke from the gate first, negotiating with the White House weeks before any of us were the wiser. Plus, it has a war chest worthy of Secretariat.

But Oracle (5–2 odds), another enterprise tech company, is only about a length behind. It helps that some execs are buddies with Trump.

Twitter (20–1) is in the mix as well, but it’s more like a colt rounding the far turn as the other two thunder toward the finish line. It would need a financial sponsor, and while being Trump’s favorite platform, it isn’t his favorite company.

Transparent Traders created the first-ever solution that specifically alerts for swing trades. It will also alert for bullish & bearish day trades. Our Blackbox runs off of multiple algorithms and uses predictive A.I. to locate the most accurate day or swing trades that it calculates to give the best chance for success. Couple this with proper Due Diligence and our users are given the edge needed to be more successful in the trading world.

For all of you wanting to know how I decide to enter and exit my trades, I have listed those key points below:

  • I have created a watchlist of the tickers I like to trade the most. Download my watchlist right “HERE”
  • I review that watchlist against the alerts from the TT Blackbox each 5-minute interval.
  • I focus on the $VIX. This measures volatility in the market. If volatility is moving up, the market is moving down, and vise versa. This simply means I start here and does not mean I will not trade against the market.  However, I do not recommend that for the novice trader.
  • Once I know the direction of the market, I start to focus on the tickers moving in that direction.
  • Once these tickers alert on the TT Blackbox, I typically wait till the closure of the next 5-minute candle and I enter.
  • I then immediately set a limit sell order for 5%.  Keep in mind I am trading shares in the price range of $30-$400 tickers so 5% is big money.
  • I exit my trades based on two points.  One, being the TT Blackbox stops alerting or alerts in the opposite direction, and two being my 5% target has been met.

Here is a screenshot of the tickers I watch daily:

This list is a starting point for those that, might think I only look at these…

 

6 Responses to “Will Microsoft Touch the Moon?”

  2. Makayla GW

    TikTok is nearing an agreement to sell its U.S., Canadian, Australian and New Zealand operations in a deal that could be announced as soon as next week, sources say.

    The deal is likely to be in the $20 billion to $30 billion range, sources say.

    TikTok hasn’t chosen a buyer and is still negotiating with Oracle and Microsoft, sources say.

    Walmart had been working with SoftBank on a bid for TikTok which is seen as unlikely because there isn’t a technology backbone partner for the deal.

  3. Makayla GW

    Walmart Inc. has teamed up with Microsoft Corp. in a joint bid to acquire TikTok, a surprise move that signals the retail giant’s desire to become a force in technology and media and reach younger shoppers.

  5. Makayla GW

    TikTok’s parent company is getting ready to shut down its American operations in the event that a sale doesn’t materialize in the next few months, according to a report.

    President Trump signed an executive order earlier this month ordering ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US business to a “very American company” or be banned from operating in the country.

    Though TikTok’s parent, Beijing-based ByteDance, is reportedly on the cusp of reaching a deal with Microsoft and Walmart, it told engineers in a memo to draw up contingency plans to kill the mega-popular video platform, according to Reuters.

    The Chinese company is also making separate plans for TikTok’s American employees and vendors to be compensated in the event that the app is banned. TikTok has already implemented a hiring freeze in the US for most open positions due to the uncertainty surrounding its future, according to the report.

    ByteDance doesn’t anticipate needing to pull the kill-switch, however, and a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the company is “confident that we will reach a resolution that ensures TikTok is here for the long run.”

    “As any responsible company would do, we are simultaneously developing plans to try to ensure that our US employees continue to get paid in any outcome,” they said.

    TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quit his post on Thursday after reportedly being left out of sale negotiations with both Microsoft and Oracle.

    Walmart has confirmed its interest in the app, saying that it envisions TikTok providing it “with an important way for us to reach and serve omnichannel customers as well as grow our third-party marketplace and advertising business.”

  6. Makayla GW

    “On TikTok, Walmart has only 1.8 million followers, far less than [teenage influencer] Loren Gray’s 46 million, so there is only room to grow here,” said Paull.

    And owning TikTok could help Walmart more effectively battle e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN), which it competes with not only for direct sales but also for third-party sellers on its online marketplace and for advertisers.

    “To the extent that TikTok would add more eyeballs for Walmart’s e-commerce platforms, that would make Walmart more attractive for third party sellers for both the Marketplace and as an advertising platform,” DA Davidson senior research analyst Michael Baker said in an investor note Thursday.
    To this end, Microsoft may be the perfect partner in the deal, because it, too, has a fierce rivalry with Amazon in the cloud business.

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