by Martin Ferera
Like Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha I want to write about a way to make money with the Apple (AAPL) Watch, although I probably won't buy one until the updated version comes out. As with the iPhone and the iPad when they were first launched, Apple takes an incremental approach to improving its products.
How to play this? There is a small, high-precision UK engineering firm whose technology is vital to the production of the watch and for that matter, competing products. This grew its niche over almost four decades. Its R&D focus has not expanded its niche into medical, dental, aerospace, and other high precision products.
Not only that, its two founders are still very much in charge. The company has acquired a cult following akin toBerkshire Hathaway with many shareholder attending the annual meetings, despite its rural location.
Its a day where you are penalized for being too global, with high-profile companies reporting one several markets.
It is also the start of the great Shanghai G20 meeting, which Chinese stock markets welcomed with a serious loss of altitude. With the daily 5% limit on share movements now annulled, the main Chinese bourse fell 6.2%.
Meanwhile Make in America is ranking right up there with Make in India. After Jan. manufactured goods level rose by the most in 10 months. The manufacturing index is up by 4.9% in the month and was double the consensus forecast.
While weekly unemployment levels, as expected, rose modestly, the newly jobless number only 2000 with total claimants at 272,000 vs 270,000 the prior week. It is now nearly a full year since unemployment claims fell and stayed below 300,000, the longest strong labor market since the 1970s.
The USA should be spending on Make in America and full employment while doing something about our roads, water, and schools. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, US state and local spending on infrastructure (roads, highways, bridges, schools, and water delivery and waste water treatment) is at a 30-year low as a percentage of GNP (by state.) Only 5 states are spending more in this millennium than last.
Meanwhile the American Society of Civil Engineers reports that the US has a $3.4 trillion infrastructure spending gap from now to 2020, half of its from roads, bridgets and transit, a quarter for electricity and power grids, and the rest for schools, airports, water and sewage.
The US is not spending on needed infrastructure and public housing out of fear of deficit spending and anti-tax Republicans. How to invest in infrastructure is discussed below for paid subscribers. Along with the Applewatch winner. We have a trading alert and reports on company results from Mexico, Brazil, and Ireland, plus news from places in between.



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