It has been a long, fun week here is Israel. I am looking forward to getting home, but will also miss Israel. It has been almost 25 years since I last visited, but I think Israel will be a yearly visit now.
The web and telco has helped shrink our world infinitely, but this week I was reminded of the importance of expanding my comfort zone.
The themes I see are Forex and Binary Options. I am bullish on both industries but not sure how I will directly participate. I will though.
I would not expect to see Israeli financial web companies tackle the US markets and I am glad they could really care less about stocks in general.
I am sick of trading babies on Etrade (better than the actual E-Trade investors likely) and the endless battle for discount retail accounts in North America.
I doubt Forex traders as a whole have any better results than stock traders, but currencies and futures are a growth business.
With growth will come innovation and profits for good investors.
I sat down with James D. Robinson of RRE Ventures(@jdrive on Twitter). Through RRE, he has made investments in companies such as Adaptive Blue (Glue), betaworks, and drop.io, to name a few. It was great to chat with him about investing strategy and process as well as some of the areas where he sees disruption occurring in the future.
After the last few week’s selloff, we’ve started this week with a rally. This has left traders stuck between two opposing questions: Was the selloff for real or is the rally going to continue? Here’s what the StockTwits stream is talking about today:
Yesterday, I sat down with entrepreneur and early-stage investor, Chris Dixon. We chatted about his background, the current VC landscape, and his latest venture, Hunch.
It has been too long since my last visit to Israel so when I was invited by Ben Weiss of Greylock to come and spend a week with some FinTech start-ups, I jumped at the opportunity.
Yestreday was my catch up to the timezone day and I landed at 9 am. I grabbed a coupe of falafel’s near the Dan Hotel and asked our concierge to get the best tour guide of Jerusalem and the Old City. We also made a stop at must see Yad Vashem . This tour will always make you appreciate your life and slow down.
I am now well rested, headed for a jog on the beach and ready for three intense days of meetings. The enthusiasm here is amazing.
I will catch a few more days of touring up north at Golan Heights on the weekend.
I was invited to a tweetup tonight in Tel-Aviv so will try and make that as well.
I warm called Roger Ehrenberg in 2005 as I had read his blog and was starting Wallstrip which he was willing to chat about. He loved the idea and was in on the first call. I found out Roger had great instincts. We have gone on to invest in many deals together including Buddy Media, TubeMogul, VSocial, Bit.ly, Tweetdeck, Stocktwits, and Betaworks. There are more.
I am looking forward to the ideas and businesses he helps spring. Congrats.
It is hard for me to own Netflix $NFLX because I don’t use the product. I am quickly becoming a minority and now the stock has gapped up to all-time highs.
The stock has been volatile since birth, so it would be silly to expect a change going forward. I am tempted to own it, but will pass for the moment.
Now that the $AAPL iPad talk has died down StockTwits has shifted its focus back to the market and to Earnings Season. Some companies have been surprising to the upside while others have plummeted to the downside. Here’s what the StockTwits stream had to say this morning: (Read the rest of this entry)
