Trending December 2023 # Billionaire No More: Kanye West’s Antisemitism Obliterates His Net Worth As Adidas Cuts Ties # Suggested January 2024 # Top 13 Popular

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The superstar rapper no longer has a place on the Forbes Billionaires’ list now that his lucrative deal with Adidas is over.

Just days ago, the rapper-cum-fashion entrepreneur Kanye West challenged Adidas to drop him following a weeks-long barrage of antisemitic remarks made on social media and in national media appearances.

“I can say antisemitic s—- and Adidas cannot drop me,” said the rapper, who legally now goes by the name “Ye,” on the Drink Champs podcast earlier this month. Ye, who had worked with Adidas since 2013 on his Yeezy line of super-expensive, super-popular sneakers, thought he was untouchable. After all, Adidas gets an estimated 4% to 8% of its sales from Yeezy products, according to investment bank Cowen. For Ye, it was an even bigger deal, accounting for $1.5 billion of his net worth.

But Ye’s words put the German athletic wear company, with its own Nazi ties dating back to its founders, in the hot seat. What followed was even more escalating pressure on Adidas to sever ties with Ye, as his string of antisemitic remarks drew condemnation from the top tiers of Hollywood. For weeks, Adidas stayed silent, except to say on October 6 that their partnership with Ye was “under review.”

The pressure ratcheted up on Adidas after an image was released over the weekend of a banner draped over a Los Angeles highway overpass reading “Kanye was right about the Jews” accompanied by a group of white supremacists giving the Nazi salute to the drivers below. The white supremacists were apparently referring to Ye’s “death con 3 on Jewish people” tweet that got his Twitter account locked; other antisemitic remarks got him blocked on Instagram, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of social media users chorused for Adidas to also drop Ye.

Today—Tuesday, October 25—Adidas finally broke its silence and ended the relationship. That move will cost them big, but Ye even more, immediately knocking him out of the billionaire ranks.

With that gone, Ye is no longer a billionaire.

The $1.5 billion value of the Adidas deal was calculated off of a multiple of annual earnings. Based on interviews with industry experts, Forbes had viewed the royalties Ye received from Adidas to be similar to royalties from music catalogs or film residuals. The Adidas income stream could be sold off, those experts said, just like dozens of musicians (including the likes of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen) have sold off their life’s work over the past two years.

Without Adidas, Ye is worth $400 million. The remainder of Ye’s fortune, Forbes estimates, comes from real estate, cash, his music catalog and a 5% stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear firm, Skims. (A source close to Skims told Forbes Ye hasn’t been involved with the brand since its 2023 launch.)

Removing Ye from the Billionaires’ list caps off a years-long saga between the rapper and Forbes. Ye always felt his net worth was undervalued. When he first made the list in 2023, with an estimated $1 billion fortune, Ye wasn’t happy. “It’s not a billion,” he texted us at the time. “It’s $3.3 billion since no one at Forbes knows how to count.”

This pattern continued every year, with Ye continuing to complain about our low numbers. For this year’s valuation, Ye sent documents claiming his Adidas partnership alone was worth $4.3 billion. When Ye learned he would clock in at $2 billion overall, his unhappiness with Forbes leaked to the tabloids.

Losing Adidas was the final nail in Ye’s net-worth coffin. GapGPS terminated its Yeezy partnership in September. Earlier this month, JPMorgan reportedly unbanked Ye. French fashion house Balenciaga nixed their relationship with Ye on October 21, just weeks after he walked their runway at Paris Fashion Week.

Adidas’ stock price has plunged precipitously since Ye’s antisemitic tirades began.

Ycharts

Just yesterday production company MRC said it would not air a completed documentary on Ye and talent agency CAA, where Ye was signed, dumped him.

The two had been in partnership since 2013, when news of their Yeezy collaboration was announced. In the decade since, Ye’s ridden wave after wave of conflict—with Taylor Swift, with his former recording home Universal Music Group, and more recently on social media against Kardashian and her boyfriend at the time, SNL alum Pete Davidson.

Now the road has ended. (There’s always the chance Ye could relaunch Yeezy on his own.) Five days ago Ye made his first post to Parler, the right-wing social media site he agreed to acquire for an undisclosed amount after getting locked out of Twitter and Instagram. He quoted Romans 8:31.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Additional reporting by Lauren Debter.

If you or anyone you know needs to speak to someone about suicide or mental health, here are some organisations that might be able to help:

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As Institutional Investors Side With Apple, Carl Icahn Withdraws His Buyback Proposal

ISS argues that the Apple board has already returned the bulk of its U.S.-generated cash to shareholders through the company’s aggressive stock buybacks and dividends payouts. As a result of large institutional investors siding with Apple, Icahn has withdrawn his proposal…

Reuters has the quote from ISS’s report:

The Apple board has returned the bulk of its U.S.-generated cash to shareholders via aggressive stock buybacks and dividends payouts.

In light of these good-faith efforts and its past stewardship, the board’s latitude should not be constricted by a shareholder resolution that would micromanage the company’s capital allocation process.

I totally agree that Icahn’s motion would “micromanage” how Apple uses capital. The last thing Apple’s leaders need at this point is for some investor to dictate how they should spend its cash pile.

UPDATE: writing on his investment firm’s website, Icah confirmed that he has withdrawn his proposal. Here’s the message in its entirety.

Dear Fellow Apple Shareholders,

While we are disappointed that last night ISS recommended against our proposal, we do not altogether disagree with their assessment and recommendation in light of recent actions taken by the company to aggressively repurchase shares in the market.

In their recommendation, ISS points out, and we agree, that “on the spectrum of options for allocating capital, the board appears to have been sluggish only in returning excess cash to shareholders,” and even though the company has in place “one of the largest buybacks in history” we agree with ISS that this effort seems “like bailing with a leaky bucket” when “given the scale of the company’s cash reserves.”

That being said, we also agree with ISS’s observation, taking into account that the company recently repurchased in “two weeks alone” $14 billion worth in shares, that “for fiscal 2014, it appears on track to repurchase at least $32 billion in shares.” Our proposal, as ISS points out, “thus effectively only asks the board to spend another $18 billion on repurchases in the current year.”

As Tim Cook describes them, these recent actions taken by the company to repurchase shares have been both “opportunistic” and “aggressive” and we are supportive. In light of these actions, and ISS’s recommendation, we see no reason to persist with our non-binding proposal, especially when the company is already so close to fulfilling our requested repurchase target.

Furthermore, in light of Tim Cook’s confirmed plan to launch new products in new categories this year (in addition to an exciting product roadmap with respect to new products in existing categories), we are extremely excited about Apple’s future. Additionally, we are pleased that Tim and the board have exhibited the “opportunistic” and “aggressive” approach to share repurchases that we hoped to instill with our proposal. It is our expectation that Tim and the board continue to exhibit this behavior as fiduciaries to the shareholders since they clearly seem to agree that our company continues to be extremely undervalued, and we all share a common optimism with respect to the company’s bright long term future.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made it clear in a wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal that his company is open to spending some of its $160 billion in cash and marketable securities on making big acquisitions, provided they make sense.

We’ve looked at big companies. We have no problem spending 10 figures for the right company, for the right fit that’s in the best interest of Apple in the long-term. None. Zero.

Just bought $500 mln more $AAPL shares. My buying seems to be going neck-and-neck with Apple’s buyback program, but hope they win that race.

— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) January 28, 2014

Earlier in the month, he wrote on Twitter that the Apple board is “working against shareholders” and then went on to buy $500 million more shares. A few days later, he bough another $500 million worth of shares, bringing his stake to about $3.6 billion.

$GOOG @ 19×2014 est operating profit. At same multiple $AAPL=$1,245 per share. Ridiculous. Keep buying Tim! You still have $145 billion cash

— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) February 7, 2014

Apple shareholders will vote on the proposal at a February 28 meeting.

Why Retina Display Is More Than Twice As Responsive As The Competition

Say what you will, but Apple owns the most responsive mobile OS and has the smoothest multitouch implementation by leaps and bounds.

Unsurprisingly, the Retina display hardware is a major part of that accomplishment – and I’m not talking about pixel density or image quality.

No, the key contributing factor to the iPhone’s multitouch immediacy is the short response time of the device’s touch panel on the hardware level. In fact, Apple’s capacitive touchscreen implementation runs circles around competition, a recent barrage of tests have proven.

The iPhone 5’s four-inch Retina screen is significantly faster than any of its rivals – up to twice as fast as its nearest competitor. Jump past the fold for detailed findings…

Agawi recently carried out a series of TouchMark tests to determine the touchscreen response times of a few popular smartphones like Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPhone 4, Samsung’s Galaxy S4, Nokia’s Lumia 928, Motorola’s Moto X and HTC’s One.

As seen on the chart top of post (lower is better), the iPhone 5’s Retina screen is more than twice as responsive as Samsung’s Galaxy S4 (or any Android or Windows Phone 8 device tested) and more than 50 percent faster than its predecessor, the iPhone 4.

Since touchscreen hardware has significant latency itself, our best guess at Agawi is that Apple’s touchscreen hardware is better optimized or more sensitively calibrated for capturing and processing touch.

Part of that owes to iOS processing touschscreen input way faster than Android. That’s because iOS is based on Objective C, a runtime environment that’s significantly snappier than Android’s Dalvik and CLR runtimes.

At the end of the day, this could be exactly why people are consistently praising Apple mobile devices’s fluidness and responsiveness.

As a result, “the best written apps on iPhones will simply feel more responsive than similar apps on the current gen of Android devices”. Plus, it could be why the iPhone’s keyboard “generally feels better than the Android keyboard to many people,” Agawi notes.

Agawi’s measurements could also indicate that the touchscreen lag – observed when moving your finger across the iPhone 5’s touchscreen in a rapid succession – may have been a software issue after all, one Apple has likely patched with one of iOS updates.

Touchscreen responsiveness is part hardware and part software.

That’s why Agawi has gone out its way to couple its in-house built Touchscope hardware (seen below) to custom software algorithms for accurate measurements. The kit measures the response time by capturing the time difference between activation of the Force Sensitive Resistor on the glove and the Light Sensitive Resistor positioned over the device.

The system also employs high frame rate cameras that capture footage at 240 frames per second – twice as fast as the iPhone 5s’s Slow-Mo mode – and a special app that flashes the screen white as quickly as possible in response to a touch.

“The apps contain minimal logic and use OpenGL/DirectX rendering to make sure the response is as quick as possible,” explains the team.

Agawi originally reported TouchMark scores twelve days ago, but we figured the findings were postworthy enough to share here for the sake of discussion.

The iPhone has always been famous for its fluid animations, responsive user interface and the best multi-touch implementation on any mobile device hands down. Therefore, it is encouraging Apple’s engineers have remained focused on these qualities throughout the years, don’t you think?

Is The Bitcoin Market Worth Less Than Us$25, As Buffet Says?

Warren Buffett said if someone owned all bitcoin around the world and offered it to him for US$25

From humble beginnings in 2008 to its 2023 price peak,

Warren Buffett is not only the one

Thomas Peterffy took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal in 2023 warning of the dangers that bitcoin futures posed to capital markets. These days, the Hungarian-born billionaire got well versed in crypto speak. Peterffy, worth US$25 billion, said it’s prudent to have 2 percent to 3 percent of one’s personal wealth in cryptocurrencies, just in case fiat currency goes to “hell.” He owns some himself, while his firm Interactive Brokers Group Inc. recently offered customers the ability to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash, after detecting “urgency” from its clients to get in on the action. Peterffy, 77, said Greenwich, Connecticut-based Interactive Brokers will offer the ability to trade another five to 10 coins or so starting this month. Munger has also referred to bitcoin as poison. At the shareholder meeting of The Daily Journal (DJCO), a newspaper publisher in Los Angeles where Munger serves as chairman, he called it “noxious.” It was definitely a bold statement but to be fair to bitcoin bulls, both Buffett and Munger have been wrong about the cryptocurrency. Buffett in particular. He first called bitcoin a “mirage” in 2014 — back when it was trading for about US$600. So even with the recent pullback, bitcoin has drastically outperformed the broader market, not to mention Berkshire stock and top Berkshire holdings like Apple (AAPL). That’s why some cryptocurrency experts think that investors should ignore Buffett’s and Munger’s repeated bitcoin bashing.

Double Standards: The US$1 Billion Investment

Berkshire Hathaway made its crypto investment public with an SEC filing in February 2023. It revealed that Buffett’s company had purchased US$1 billion in shares of Nubank, a digital bank based in Brazil, and the largest of its kind in Latin America. Nubank is a so-called neobank, a type of bank that operates outside of the rules of the traditional banking system. The ‘crypto friendly’ digital bank’s investment unit, NuInvest, allows users to put money in a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF)—tapping a financial space that Berkshire’s leaders have shown little love for. Shockingly, this most recent speculation by Buffett’s organization in Nubank is not the first time they have dabbled in this market. Last year, Berkshire had effectively purchased a US$500 million stake in Nubank, months before the organization opened up to the world in December 2023.

Kanye West Just Doesn’T Get It

Kanye West just doesn’t get it

When you’re an artist, a big reason that you create your art is so that you can share it with the world. With that in mind, you generally want to make your art as accessible to the masses as you can. That’s not to say that you should simply give away the things you make, but you might not want force your fans to pay a monthly fee on an exclusive platform, just for the privilege of experiencing your gift to the world. Yes, I’m talking to you, Kanye (and no, I don’t think he’s actually listening).

If you’re not a Kanye West fan, then you might not know that he recently released a new album, The Life of Pablo. Sure, that’s the sort of thing that makes headlines, but this time around, Kanye is making waves because of how he’s chosen to release the album. Instead of making it available through any number of other means, he’s decided that it’s going to be exclusive to Tidal, the music streaming service owned by Jay-Z.

According to Kanye’s Twitter, the album will never be available to stream anywhere else, nor will you be able to purchase it. Let that sink in for a moment. You can’t buy Kanye’s new album at all, you can only stream it from Tidal.

New Kanye West album hits Tidal for exclusive streaming

So we can’t really rely on the App Store rank to determine just how successful this venture is. Where else can we look? Piracy. How many people are pirating an album that they’re never allowed to purchase? Surely that will give us an idea of how people are responding to this concept.

The Pirate Bay is easily the largest and most notorious torrenting site out there, so I braved the wretched hive of scum and villainy (well, it’s not really all that wretched) to see what the stats were on the album. A quick search found 12 different versions of it available for download. At the time of writing, more than 13,000 people were seeding the various torrents of the album. (I should take a moment to explain that I’m not condoning or even encouraging piracy. If you don’t want to pay his outrageous fee every month for his music, you shouldn’t bother pirating it, either.)

This is an unprecedented level of piracy for a new album. Even TorrentFreak said that they’d never seen anything like this before.

So Tidal hit number 1 in the app store, and the album is being pirated more than any other before it. I’d say that we’ve learned two different things. First, people really wanted to hear Kanye’s new album. Second, a lot of people really don’t like the fact that they can’t actually purchase the music, so that they can listen to it whenever they want, without having to pay $10 a month.

Now what’s perhaps most heartbreaking about this story is that if you keep up with Kanye’s Twitter feed, you’ll know that he’s in dire straits. He’s resorted to begging Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for $1 billion. He’s got a lot of personal debt, after all. And no, I’m not kidding. Kanye West really shouted out to Mark Zuckerberg to ask for a huge sum of money. I can’t make this sort of thing up. (Btw Kanye, the guy invented Facebook. Maybe you should try contacting him on there.)

Alright, I’ve gotten a little off track. Exploring the depths of his Twitter feed is enough to distract anyone. I could spend the rest of the day quoting the bizarre things that he’s been tweeting, but there’s just not enough room here for it. I’d suggest taking a look at his Twitter, and just see how far down the rabbit hole his ego goes. But he really does spend a lot of time talking about how great of an artist he is. And he must believe that his art is so great that it is worth paying $10 for the rest of your life to listen to it.

Yes, you can get other content on Tidal, but the fact that you cannot ever (legally) purchase a copy of it just shows how out of touch he is with the rest of the world, and more importantly, his fans. But then again, maybe we should all just enjoy the greatness.

Operating Cycle Vs Net Operating Cycle

What is Operating Cycle?

The term “operating cycle” refers to the duration between the time when a company purchases inventory and the time when the company realizes sales. In other words, it is the time a business takes to purchase inventory stock, convert it into finished goods, and then sell it in the market. The operating cycle is a very important factor in the assessment of the operational efficiency of any business.

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Explanation of Operating Cycle

The duration is known as the operating cycle because it covers the entire blockage of cash in the purchase of inventories and recovery of the cash after achieving customer sales. The next cycle is started once the cycle is over, wherein that cash is used to purchase a new set of raw materials to produce more inventories, and the cycle continues.

The formula for op. The cycle can be expressed as a summation of the inventory and accounts receivable periods. Mathematically, it is represented as,

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

Examples of Operating Cycle

Following are examples are given as follows:

Example #1

Let us take the example of the below company to compute its op. Cycle for the financial year 2023 on the basis of the following information:

Particulars Amount

Average inventory $400,000

Average accounts receivable $50,000

Sales $1,200,00

Cost of goods sold $900,000

The inventory period can calculate as,

The inventory Period calculates as

Inventory Period = Average Inventory / Cost of goods sold * 365

Inventory Period = $400,000 / $900,000 * 365

Inventory Period = 162 days

Accounts Receivable calculates as

Accounts Receivable Period = Average Accounts Receivable / Sales * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = $50,000 / $1,200,000 * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = 15 days

Op. The cycle calculates as

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

Op. Cycle = 162 days + 15 days

Op. Cycle = 177 days

Therefore, the company’s op. The cycle for the year 2023 is 177 days.

Example #2

Let us take the example of SDF Inc. to illustrate the computation of op. Cycle. The following information is available per its annual report for the December 31, 2023, financial year.

Particulars Amount

Opening inventory $300,000

Closing inventory $500,000

Opening accounts receivable $300,000

Closing accounts receivable $400,000

Sales $1,800,000

Cost of goods sold $1,500,000

Inventory Period = (Opening Inventory + Closing Inventory)/2 / Cost of Goods Sold * 365

Inventory Period = ($300,000 + $500,000)/2 / $1,500,000 * 365

Inventory Period = 97 days

The accounts Receivable Period calculates as

Accounts Receivable Period = (Opening Accounts Receivable + Closing Accounts Receivable)/2 / Sales * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = ($300,000 + $400,000)/2 / $1,800,000 * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = 71 days

Op. The cycle calculates as

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

Op. Cycle = 97 days + 71 days

Op. Cycle = 168 days

Therefore, SDF Inc.’s op. The cycle for the year 2023 is 168 days.

Components of the Operating Cycle

The op. cycle can be broken down into two major components –

Inventory Period

Accounts Receivable Period

The inventory period refers to the current inventory level and the assessment of how quickly it will be converted to a finished product and sold in the market. Mathematically, it is calculated as the average inventory divided by the cost of goods sold multiplied by 365, as shown below.

Inventory Period = Average Inventory / Cost of goods sold * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = Average Accounts Receivable / Sales * 365

Duration of Operating Cycle

The duration of an op. The cycle can influence by the following:

Higher-order fulfillment rates increase inventory levels, eventually leading to a longer op. Cycle. Similarly, a lower-order fulfillment rate means a shorter op. Cycle.

Loose policies pertaining to payment collection result in delayed customer payment, which prolongs the op. Cycle. Stronger policies can help in shortening the op. Cycle.

Importance and Uses of Operating Cycle

The concept of op. The cycle formula is very important as it is useful in assessing a company’s operational efficiency. A shorter op. Cycle means that the company can recover its investment in inventory faster during a longer op. Cycle means that the company takes longer to transform inventory into sales and cash. A shorter op. The cycle is always preferable as it indicates better control of working capital management.

Operating Cycle vs Net Operating Cycle

Although most analysts use op. Cycle and net op. Cycle interchangeably, they are not the same and have a subtle difference. Op. Cycle refers to the duration from the purchase of inventory to the collection of cash from sales. It is represented as a summation of inventory days and accounts receivable period.

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

On the other hand, the net operating cycle also refers to the duration between the purchase of inventory and the collection of cash from sales. Still, it is adjusted for the time offered by the suppliers, resulting in a lower value than op. Cycle. It is represented as inventory days plus accounts receivable period minus accounts payable days.

Net Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period – Accounts Payable Period

Advantages

Over a period of time, the trend in op. The cycle can indicate a change in the bargaining power of a company.

It can be linked to an incentive system encouraging employees to shorten the op. Cycle.

Few critics believe that op. The cycle is not the best measure of a company’s efficiency as it merely covers the liquidity profile in terms of working capital.

There are no defined standards for op. Cycle and is subject to variation based on market conditions.