Taylor Swift - Live at the 2019 American Music Awards

WATCH NOW ON YOUTUBE Listen & Download More Taylor Swift @Amazon Music By Guardian Staff & Agencies - Mon 25 Nov 2019 03.19 ESTFirst published on Mon 25 Nov 2019 00.31 EST

Taylor Swift reflected on a year of highs and lows as she was named both artist of the year and artist of the decade at the American Music Awards.

The pop superstar won six awards at this year’s AMAs, taking her all-time total to 29, organizers said, surpassing Michael Jackson’s record of 24.

The artist of the decade honor was announced well before Sunday night’s ceremony, but Swift also scooped the biggest prize of the night, artist of the year, from Drake, Ariana Grande, Halsey and Post Malone.

Accepting the award for the latter, an emotional Swift told the crowd gathered at Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater that the previous 12 months had given her “some of the most amazing times” as well as “the hardest things I’ve gone through in my life”.

Swift, 29, has been embroiled in a high-profile feud with prominent talent manager Scooter Braun and her former record label over the rights to her back catalogue of six albums – a dispute that briefly put her performance at the AMAs under a cloud. (READ MORE)

Business Wire - November 26, 2019 11:55 AM Eastern Standard Time

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--We’re quickly approaching what is – for many eCommerce merchants – the most wonderful time of the year: Cyber Weekend. The biggest online shopping period of the year runs from this Friday, November 29 through Monday, December 2, and a new report from Riskified, the payments and fraud-prevention solutions provider, helps merchants get ready to handle sales volumes five or six times higher than average. The report reveals that the full holiday shopping season is substantially safer for eCommerce merchants, as the increase in sales volume from legitimate shoppers far outpaces growth in fraud attempts. In addition, it shows that purchases via mobile apps are significantly less risky for merchants during the holiday season than at other times of the year.

“Unwrapping Holiday Fraud: Insights to Protect Your Business & Drive eCommerce Revenue”

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Unwrapping Holiday Fraud: Insights to Protect Your Business & Drive eCommerce Revenue emphasizes that shopping behaviors during the holiday season are different than during the rest of the year – and not just in terms of volume. It explains that consumer behaviors and fraud trends are not consistent throughout the year or even through the holiday season. It also divides holiday shopping into six key sub-seasons – each with its own unique considerations, and it cautions merchants against assuming that typical indicators of risk are actual fraud during the holiday season. (READ MORE)

By Bernard MarrContributor Enterprise & Cloud Nov 25, 2019, 12:15am

Technology is changing the way every industry does business by helping to create efficiencies, save money, and provide better products and services. Retail businesses are also adopting technology to their advantage. Here are 10 of the top tech trends that will transform shopping.

Extended Reality

Virtual and augmented reality offer retailers several ways to enhance the customer experience. From browsing products to virtually “trying them on,” extended reality is already in use by many retailers today. Teen surf and sports clothing retailer Tilly’s offered its customers a back-to-school scavenger hunt experience that helped their customers explore different clothes and accessories. Extended reality can also provide additional information for customers when they are browsing for products such as the “Living Wine Labels” from Treasury Wines Estates. The IKEA Place ARKit app helps you determine if the furniture you want to purchase will fit and look good in your home. In the future, extended reality will eventually enable consumers to be able to share their virtual reality shopping experience with others.

Predictive Analytics (Big Data) 

Retail organizations have never had an issue collecting lots of data, but analyzing it and using the data to solve problems or create new solutions has been a struggle. Predictive analytics changes that. Now retailers can be proactive about the future by analyzing consumer behavior and trends from the past. When retailers successfully analyze data, they are able to understand important information about consumer purchasing behavior, personalize the shopping experience, address a consumer's needs based on where they are in the customer journey, improve efficiencies and reduce costs of supply chains and more. Predictive analytics helps retailers be smarter, more efficient, and reduce costs. (READ MORE)

Darrell Etherington@etherington / 8:24 am EST • November 22, 2019 Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the much-anticipated Cybertruck electric pickup in LA on Thursday, and the vehicle is obviously getting a lot of attention for its eye-catching and unique design. It looks more like a rover designed for space exploration than a truck — and the analogy in this case is particularly fitting, because the Cybertruck is clad in the same stainless steel alloy that Musk’s other company SpaceX will use as the skin of its forthcoming Starship spaceship.

“It is, it is literally bulletproof to a nine millimeter handgun,” Musk said onstage during the unveiling. “That’s how strong the skin is — it’s ultra-hard, cold-rolled stainless steel alloy that we’ve developed. We’re going to be using the same alloy in the Starship rocket, and in the Cybertruck.”

Musk had previously revealed at an event unveiling the full-height Starship Mk1 prototype that it would go with stainless steel for the outer shell, with an additional glass tile covering layer for the half of the space craft that will endure the highest heat from re-entry (the ship is designed to essentially belly-flop down through Earth’s atmosphere prior to landing). The Super Heavy booster that the Starship will ride atop during its exit will be clad entirely in stainless steel. The reasoning for going with that material was a combination of cost and effectiveness, as it’s actually remarkably good at withstanding and shedding high heat.

Using the same stainless steel alloy across both Tesla and SpaceX  will obviously provide some cost efficiencies — especially if the Cybertruck manages to become a high-volume production vehicle (unlikely because of its controversial design, but perhaps possible based on the economics if Tesla can stick to the price points it revealed onstage). There’s another way that the Cybertruck could benefit SpaceX’s work, and Elon alluded to it on Twitter ahead of the event — Mars will need ground transportation, too. (READ MORE)

Both Google and Facebook-owned WhatsApp are working with small sellers and merchants to help them set up their digital stores

Neha Alawadhi  |  New Delhi Last Updated at November 24, 2019 00:03 IST

With Google and WhatsApp making their first attempt at entering the e-commerce market this year, major players like Flipkart are hardly worried. “While Flipkart has made it (e-commerce) seem very easy, it is not,” said Nishant Gupta, head — Flipkart Marketplace. “The kind of infrastructure that we have been able to build over the last many years, the biggest investment areas for us have been supply chain and technology. (READ MORE)

Here are three potentially undervalued stocks from Berkshire Hathaway's stock holdings.

John Ballard (TMFRazorback) Nov 25, 2019 at 7:02AM

We are 10 years into a bull market, but that doesn't mean there are not good values to be found. Whether you're looking for growth or value, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B) is a good place to find investment ideas.

Currently, Berkshire Hathaway holds shares of RH (NYSE:RH), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), and General Motors(NYSE:GM). Here is why each stock is a buy.

An innovative furniture store

Earlier in the year, RH, formally known as Restoration Hardware, saw its stock plunge after earnings results came in below expectations. However, the fiscal second-quarter report showed revenue growth accelerating to 10% year over year. The sales increase reflects recent efforts to improve the in-store experience by opening new galleries in major cities with the integrated RH Hospitality experience.

Management believes there is an opportunity to reach $4 billion to $5 billion in revenue, as RH begins to expand overseas and shift its focus from merely selling products to selling concepts and ideas for customers. Because of the growth potential that lies ahead, management believes the stock is undervalued and has been considering share repurchases.

The investment gurus at Berkshire Hathaway clearly see a value, too. RH emerged as a new holding for Berkshire in the third quarter. The latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Berkshire purchased 1.2 million shares last quarter, which would currently be worth $218 million. It's a tiny position, which means it probably wasn't Buffett but one of the two investment managers (Todd Combs or Ted Weschler) who bought the stock for Berkshire. (READ MORE)

The game streaming wars are heating up

By Cohen Coberly on November 21, 2019, 6:22 PM

In context: Game streaming is becoming quite popular as of late, and many companies (in both the gaming and tech industries) have already created, or plan to create their own implementations of the technology. For those who aren't up to date on this part of the gaming industry, game streaming services let players rent or purchase access to various titles, and then play them without any actual gaming hardware.

No console or high-end PC necessary -- as long as you have a decent internet connection, you can enjoy the benefits (and inevitable drawbacks) of cloud gaming from the comfort of your low-end laptop, smart TV, phone, or tablet.

Google is perhaps the most prominent company to develop a full game streaming service of its own (dubbed Stadia), but Valve and Amazon are both rumored to be working on competing platforms. The latter's possible game streaming ambitions have just been further demonstrated today, courtesy of a new report from Cnet.
(READ MORE)

By Dan Berthiaume - 11/21/2019

An e-tail giant and a major athletic/apparel footwear brand are once again the two most socially influential retailers.

According to the 2019 Engagement Labs TotalSocial ranking of the top U.S. retailers based on social influence, Amazon/Amazon Prime retains the first-place spot with a score of 67.1, while Nike remains in second place at 65. Both retailers held these spots in the 2018 ranking.

Engagement Labs analysis indicates Amazon dominates consumer conversations and is the focus of more consumer talk than any other retail brand. Amazon has consistently performed better than average both online and offline, earning it Engagement Labs’ "Conversation Commander" status. A recent Engagement Labs study indicates that conversations about brands, on average, drive 19% of U.S. consumer purchases. (READ MORE)

PUBLISHED WED, NOV 20 20191:23 PM ESTUPDATED WED, NOV 20 20195:36 PM EST Michael Sheetz@THESHEETZTWEETZ

Target is far and away the best-performing retail stock of 2019.

After reporting fiscal third-quarter results on Wednesday that crushed Wall Street’s expectation, Target shares rose 14.1% to close at $126.43. The stock is up 90% this year, topping even the strong performances of TJX and Walmart, and is this year’s sixth-best performing stock in the S&P 500 index.

“We thought the market was already pricing in more of TGT’s progress, but today’s results (esp. margin expansion) came in well above even the most bullish expectations,” Goldman Sachs wrote in a note to investors.

Target also raised its profit outlook for the full year, ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season, while cutting the cost of handling online orders. (READ MORE)

By Hannah Sampson November 20 at 7:00 AM United Airlines isn’t flying anyone to a galaxy far, far away. But the carrier is giving Star Wars buffs a new way to indulge their Force fandom in the form of a new decked-out plane that started flying this month. Think of it as a year-long airborne commercial for the latest film in the franchise, “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” which comes out next month. The movie title is, in fact, written on the outside of the Boeing 737-800, which also bears X-wing and TIE fighter spacecraft, a blue and red lightsaber on either side of the tail and a spray of stars against a dark backdrop. (READ MORE)