We'll have to keep an eye on this one. There is still the ECB buying so it might not escalate, but it's hardly comforting..

The yield on Portuguese 10-year bonds rose above 4 percent for the first time since February amid a wider selloff in European debt. The region’s securities are declining amid a seasonal pick up in supply at the start of 2017, with Portugal among nations expected to sell bonds via banks this month.

Portugal 10-Year Yield Climbs Above 4% as Selloff Deepens: Chart - Bloomberg

We have a new article out as we think few realize this has become a very favourable risk/reward situation:

• Destiny Media struggled for years making a success of its streaming video solution, Clipstream. They're now trying a new approach that holds more promise.
• The stock price is basically reflecting maximum market skepticism, but it isn't reflecting improving fundamentals, intellectual property and market opportunities.
• We think the risks are much smaller than the potential gains, even if Clipstream doesn't become a success.

Second Chance For Destiny Media Investors - Destiny Media Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTSSNY) | Seeking Alpha

Essentially, their bread and butter business (PlayMPE, a secure way for the music business to send pre-release music) is growing revenues again, it's costs have been considerably trimmed and it is becoming more user friendly, opening up new users.

It is also highly automated hence additional revenue goes disproportionally to the bottom line.But that bottom line isn't very visible as the profits ($1M-$1.5M) are used to finance the development of the second product, Clipstream (a way to use javascript and HTML5 browsers to get streaming video over the internet).

While working well in controlled circumstances, it ran into problems in the real world, for instance by ISPs throttling streams (as these streams come from normal, not streaming servers ISPs don't recognize them as streaming video).

This is now being addressed by using a much more efficient codec, HVEC (or H.265) that uses much less bandwidth (increasing profit margins in the process). This works, but it ran into another problem, old computers and their CPU/memory limits (as javascript is a resource hog).

They hope to address this by offloading part of the processing to the GPU. In principle, this should work as the GPU is designed to handle massive parallel data. But the jury is still out, you can follow the progress on the Destiny website where they have demo videos. This is work in progress, but by the end of the first quarter we should know a lot more.

If it works well enough, they have a tremendous opportunity, because:

• The company's market cap is just $8M
• The video streaming market is a massive (multi-billion dollar) market with fast growth, just a tiny sliver of it would dramatically impact Destiny's finances.
• They have ways to differentiate themselves with Clipstream, it's a software, not a hardware solution, it can do stuff that other solutions can't, it has the same top-notch security features as PlayMPE, it can lock streams to a host, it enables selling streams individually, it could make ads interactive, etc.
• Just like PLayMPE It's also a highly automated, and hence a high margin business, although in the beginning this will be masked by marketing cost.
• They have built a content delivery system (on top of the AWS system where it is hosted) that allows it to light up servers anywhare in seconds, only using AWS according to needs, hence always generating money, and the fast switching lowers downtime, so their hosting offering is more robust/reliable. It even opens the opportunity to individualize streams, that is, stream individualized versions of the same content to different users.

Even if Clipstream does not become a commercial success, the company has built a generic video hosting platform for it (on Amazon's AWS) that can function as a stand-alone business. While without Clipstream it doesn't have the same ways of differentiating this business, there are still ways of differentiating on the basis of:

• The content delivery system, that is, reliability
• Offering high-audio quality (twice CD) for music videos, with their contacts from the music industry this could be an attractive offering
• Some security features.

So on the basis of improvements in PlayMPE and the fact that they already built a generic hosting platform, we think there is music in these shares even in case Clipstream won't be a commercial success, considering the fact that the share price is at an all-time low, reflecting maximum skepticism.

The upshot

This can be a multi-bagger if Clipstream turns out to be a commercial success. But even if it doesn't, the shares can still double in a year on the back of improving fundamentals at PlayMPE and the generic hosting business, the platform of which is already built. And all this while the downside risk seems limited to us, considering the crash in the share price.

Bit of a setback for 22nd Century, the makers of very low nicotine cigarettes (details here). FDA not (yet?) playing ball..

We had some thoughts about the state of the solar market:

• Spot prices in solar panels have moved sharply downwards. Once again, this is causing widespread damage in the industry.
• We do a little survey of the market and the condition of some solar panel producers.
• There are a few companies which are less pessimistic and others which are well equipped to withstand the downturn.

How Deep Will The Solar Crash Be? | Seeking Alpha

With the VIX at 11.14, We're buying 5 VIX August futures at $18.75

We also have a new article out:

• The market overwhelmingly assumes a continuation of a dollar bull-run.
• And there are indeed sound reasons for that.
• However, on closer inspection, the rationale might be less solid than meets the eye, and there is ample room for surprises.

China Throws A Wrench In The Dollar Bull Run - PowerShares DB USD Bull ETF (NYSEARCA:UUP) | Seeking Alpha

New article:

• The solar industry is once again plagued by oversupply and falling prices, affecting the whole industry.
• Against the backdrop of this, Jinko Solar's management is surprisingly upbeat.
• We look at what drives this remarkable optimism.

Is JinkoSolar The Bright Spot In The Solar Industry? - JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (NYSE:JKS) | Seeking Alpha

And another article, it's not going to make everybody happy but I simply tried to pull lots of info together:

• Healthcare is the single biggest sector of the economy, and it's also the main job creator.
• The US has a particularly expensive healthcare system, which negatively affects the economy in myriad ways.
• Because of its importance, and the complexity of the system, changes must be very well thought out in advance.

Repeal And Replace Cannot Escape Basic Healthcare Trade-Offs - Health Care Select Sect SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLV) | Seeking Alpha

Not exactly useless to recapitalize the Italian banks, but it's true that Italy would fare better outside the euro. It's also true that Italy needs lots of reform, the economy is sclerotic.

Italy is in the midst of a serious banking crisis, but the government is wasting both time and money trying to save the country’s struggling lenders, says Société Générale strategist Albert Edwards. After years of slow growth in the eurozone’s third largest economy, the SocGen permabear argues that the banks will continue to suffer until more drastic measures are taken. That’s because the sector’s mountains of bad loans are only a symptom, not the cause of Italy’s problems. “Italy is totally moribund. Yet, what we see at the moment is great efforts to help Italian bank bailouts. But the Italian banks are not the problem with Italy,” Edwards said at a conference in London on Tuesday.

Permabear Edwards: ‘Waste of time’ to save Italian banks - MarketWatch

The financials sector led the stock market to new highs after President-elect Donald Trump won the election, on optimism that fewer regulations and higher interest rates would benefit banks.  Goldman Sachs' gain in the month after the election made up one-third of the points that the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by.  But Wall Street's so-called smart money — hedge funds and other large money managers — are pulling out of the sector as Trump prepares to take office in 10 days.

Wall Street's smart money is dumping the biggest trade in stocks since Trump's election | 01/10/17 | Markets Insider