The Innovation Index notched
solid gains last week, and is now
up 4% for the year. The Innovation Index leads the major U.S. indices. S & P 500 also gained some ground last week and is now up 1% for the year; NASDAQ made up for last week’s loss and is back in the positive territory at 2% for the year; the Dow Jones Index gained 3% for the week, and is unchanged for the year.
The Innovation Index
closed at 71.91 on March 21, 2007, up 4% from the closing price of 69.31 on December 29, 2006.
How great was last week for the Top 20 Innovators? 19 of the Top 20 Innovators showed positive gains (compared to 4 the previous week), only 1 of the Top 20 Innovators dipped in the red (compared to 9 the previous week), and no Innovators were unchanged last week (compared to 7).
Weekly AdvancesStarbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) was the largest weekly gainer among the Top 20 Innovators at 10%. Starbucks is now only down 9% for the year. America Movil (NYSE: AMX) added another 7% to the previous week’s gains, and is now up 5% for the year. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) added 5% last week, its largest weekly gain of the year, and is back in the black at 1%.
Starbucks and Concord Music Group announced the formation of a new record label, Hear Music, which will forge relationships directly with artists and distribute recordings at Starbucks locations as well as through traditional music channels. This agreement gives Hear Music a greater hand in developing music that fits within the profile of the Starbucks Experience. Starbucks showed great success with Ray Charles' "Genius Loves Company" and Sergio Mendes' "Timeless." Starbucks also announced that music legend Paul McCartney would launch the Hear Music's inaugural CD release in early summer. – Starbucks press releases
Amazon.com announced the launch of its Classical Music Blowout Store that offers customers a hand-picked selection of more than 2,000 classical music titles across genres including instrumental classical, opera and vocal classical. Citing significant growth of classical music at both Amazon.com and industry wide, the world's largest online retailer created the Classical Music Blowout store to meet the increasing demand for affordable but high-quality classical music. CustomFlix Labs, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., also announced that CustomFlix videos are now available through the recently launched Amazon Unbox on TiVo service, greatly expanding the selection of independent videos and other content from independent producers available to TiVo's 1.5 million broadband-ready TiVo Series2(TM) and Series3(TM) subscribers. This unique Amazon Unbox on TiVo service allows TiVo subscribers to rent or purchase movies, TV shows, and now independent content available through Amazon Unbox and watch them directly on their television sets. – Amazon.com press releases
America Movil is planning to participate in the recently announced auction for 3G spectrum by Chile.
Weekly Declines
Blackberry maker Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) was the only Innovator that was down last week; RIMM was down 1% last week, although it is doing well at 6% gain for the year.
Research In Motion (RIM) (TSX: RIM) launched the new red BlackBerry(R) Pearl(TM), featuring a stylish new color for the award-winning smartphone. The BlackBerry Pearl is now available from AT&T (NYSE: T) with a beautiful, dark red finish for the first time. The BlackBerry Pearl comes complete with a digital camera, multi-media player and an expandable memory slot. It also boasts an incredibly sleek design while continuing to provide the full BlackBerry functionality and renowned user experience that has made BlackBerry a global success. – Research In Motion press release
Yearly Leaders and Laggards
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is leading the top 20 innovators with 23% gain for the year. Yahoo! was up 5% last week. Apple Inc. - (NASDAQ: AAPL) is up to double-digit gains again for the year at 11% owing to 4% gains last week. eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) reversed the recent slide, was up 3% last week, and now posts 7% gain for the year. Target Corp. - (NYSE: TGT) also performed well last week going up 4%, and is now up 8% for the year.
Yahoo! Inc. expanded the reach of the popular new Yahoo! oneSearch service to the Mobile Web in the United States. Yahoo! oneSearch reinvents search to give consumers exactly what they want on their mobile device - instant answers.” “Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Widgets 4, a new version of the industry leading desktop Widgets platform. Yahoo! Widgets give consumers a live, at-a-glance view of their favorite Internet information and services on the desktop, including a new Widget Dock, new and improved Widgets, dramatically improved performance, new and streamlined installation, improved authoring tools and automatic updates. – Yahoo! press releases
Apple Inc. began shipping AppleTV, a device that allows people to wirelessly stream and store digital content that is loaded on iTunes (PC or Mac) to their widescreen televisions. AppleTV comes with a 40-gigabyte hard drive that can store 50 hours worth of video, and costs $299. Elton John catalogue will be available exclusively from Apple Inc.'s iTunes service from March 26 until April 30 before being made available on other legal download services. – Apple press releases
Skype, an eBay business, announced Skype(TM) 3.1 for Windows, introducing SkypeFind(TM) and Skype Prime(TM) (Beta), giving people new ways to share knowledge with one another. These new additions take Skype beyond simple voice and video calls into new markets where access to expertise and knowledge are essential commodities. Skype is also relaunching its online Skype Shop (skype.com/shop) in the United States to offer Skype Certified(TM) devices and accessories that can be used to enhance consumers' Skype user experience. – eBay press releases
Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) is now only down 9% this year. Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) went up 3% last week, and has managed to stop the slide. Dell is down 9% for the year.
Announced Key Innovations at The Top 20 Innovators:
News Corp. and NBC Universal say they plan to take on the phenomenally popular online video-sharing site YouTube of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) with a video effort of their own that will launch this summer, featuring an array of full-length movies and television shows, as well as clips, from the studios' libraries. Viacom pursued one route by suing YouTube for copyright infringement earlier this month, but it had been assumed that Hollywood's content providers would ultimately respond to YouTube with sites of their own.
Tide, a division of P & G (NYSE: PG) announced the launch of its new compacted high efficiency (HE) liquid laundry detergents available in variants Tide(R) HE with Bleach Alternative and Tide(R) HE with Febreze Freshness.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) unveiled a small-business Internet protocol (IP) phone system, code-named "Response Point," designed for ease of use and manageability. The new system comes in an easy-to-install box, supports both voice over IP (VoIP) and traditional phone lines, and includes a voice-activated user interface.
Digital asset cataloging pioneer iView Multimedia Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp., announced the availability of The Getty Images iView Submission Utility. Getty Images is the world's leading provider of imagery, film and digital services.
Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) announced the addition of several new flights to key destinations. The scheduled delivery of several new Boeing aircraft is allowing Southwest Airlines to add more nonstop flights to cities such as Denver, Oakland, Orlando, and Houston Hobby.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled a comprehensive strategy to enable dynamic warehousing, a new generation of business intelligence capabilities that enable organizations to gain real-time insight and value from their business information. IBM also announced a new emerging technology that helps blind and visually impaired people experience streaming video and animation on the Internet. Designed at IBM's Tokyo Research Laboratory, the new multimedia browsing accessibility tool potentially opens a world of rich content to visually impaired people around the world, who number more than 161 million. IBM and Cisco, a global leader in networking, today announced they will partner to provide emergency crisis response capabilities for the first time as an end-to-end managed service.
IBM and Idea Cellular Ltd. (Idea), a leading Indian GSM mobile services provider and an Aditya Birla Group company, today announced a 10-year business transformation pact to integrate, innovate and transform Idea's business processes and IT infrastructure.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced separate partnerships with the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure and the Kenya Education Network (KENET). As a result, Rwanda's educational institutions and government ministries, and Kenya's universities are starting to use Google Apps(TM) - Google's set of hosted and customizable communications services.
HP (NYSE: HPQ) announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tabblo Inc., a privately-held developer of web-based software located in Cambridge, Mass. HP plans to leverage Tabblo's technologies to make printing from the web easier and more convenient than it is today. Tabblo's technology allows people to simply and efficiently arrange and print text, graphics and photos from the web. This is made possible by Tabblo's custom template engine, using an AJAX-enriched interface.
GE Security, Inc., a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of the General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), announced the availability of the DR2 and DM2, two analog, fixed-dome cameras that offer multiple features previously not available in single cameras. The DR2 and DM2 are the latest additions to GE Security's line of wide dynamic range cameras, joining the CamPlus 2 and UltraView XP3, introduced recently.
General Imaging today launched its highly anticipated line of GE-branded digital cameras at PMA 07, the Photo Marketing Association's annual international conference and the leading photo industry convention and trade show. The line of eight cameras represents the first time General Electric (NYSE: GE) has bestowed its highly regarded and trusted brand on a consumer camera line. General Imaging, led by Chairman & CEO Hiroshi "Hugh" Komiya, is the exclusive worldwide licensee for the GE cameras.
GE Capital Solutions, the business-to-business leasing, financing and asset management unit of General Electric Co. and The Blackstone Group, through its affiliates, agreed to acquire PHH Corporation (NYSE: PHH) in an all-cash transaction for $31.50 per share or approximately $1.8 billion. Headquartered in Mount Laurel, NJ, PHH Corporation comprises PHH Arval, a North American fleet management services provider, and PHH Mortgage, a retail originator and servicer of residential mortgages in the United States. PHH Corporation will be purchased by GE, which will retain PHH Arval and sell PHH Mortgage to Blackstone immediately after closing.
GE announced it is accelerating its solar energy research program with the help of an $8.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of President Bush's Solar America Initiative.
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and AAA announced a special agreement to put technology in the hands of tens of millions of new customers, AAA members at home and on the road. AAA members will receive 6-percent discounts on Dell systems beginning today. Through the agreement, members also can learn about various resources available from Dell to help make choosing the right mobile or home and office technology as easy as making travel arrangements.
Dell(TM) and Alienware(R) customers purchasing select XPS(TM), Aurora(TM) and Area 51(R) gaming desktop computers can super-size their storage space by adding the world's first consumer one terabyte (TB) hard drive from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. The extra hard drive capacity provides enough space to store an incredible amount of data -- a million photos, 16 days of DVD quality video or even a million minutes of music.
Dell announced the launch of Direct2Dell Chinese (www.direct2dell.com/chinese), becoming the first computer systems company to open a corporate blog in Chinese. The new blog was announced on the eve of Michael Dell's latest visit to China.
IBM Corp. (IBM) and Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) on Tuesday launched a new all-in-one service for governments and institutions to buy disaster communications services. The new product line combines hardware, software and support services into a single bundle. According to IBM, it will allow cities and small countries to rely on a backup communications network without having to build and maintain it themselves.
Linksys(R), a Division of Cisco Systems, Inc., announced the ADSL2+ Gateway with VoIP (AG310), its newest intelligent ADSL Gateway solution for internet connectivity and VoIP. Linksys(R) also announced the Linksys 8-Port Analog Telephone Adapter (SPA8000). This new ATA can be used in business and consumer environments where multiple phones require access to the Internet to use Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) service.
TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), together with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced that "Amazon Unbox on TiVo" is now available to more than 1.5 million broadband-ready TiVo subscribers.
The Innovation Index Annual ReportI posted
The Innovation Index Annual Report earlier in the year that included three Chapters:
Chapter One - Total Innovation Activity at the Top 20 Innovators
Chapter Two - The Top Innovator - The Innovator of Innovators
Chapter Three - The Innovation Insights and Roundup
About
The Innovation IndexThe Innovation Index introduced in December 2006 is a weighted stock price index of the top 20 Innovators in North America.
The Innovation Index has returned 119% over the last five years. This assumes an investment in each stock of The Innovation Index (buying each stock). An average of $100 invested in The Innovation Index on December 31, 2001 returned $219 as of December 29, 2006. By comparison, $100 invested in each of S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index returned $124. The Innovation Index beats the S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index by 77% over the last five years.
The Normalized Innovation Index has returned an impressive 174% over the last five years. This assumes equal investment in each stock of The Innovation Index.
Alphabetical list of the top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index and their stock ticker symbols:
3M Company - (NYSE: MMM)
Amazon.com, Inc. - (NASDAQ: AMZN)
America Movil - (NYSE: AMX)
Apple Inc. - (NASDAQ: AAPL)
Cisco Systems, Inc. - (NASDAQ: CSCO)
Dell Inc. - (NASDAQ: DELL)
eBay Inc. - (NASDAQ: EBAY)
General Electric Co. - (NYSE: GE)
Google Inc. - (NASDAQ: GOOG)
Hewlett-Packard Co. - (NYSE: HPQ)
Intel Corporation - (NYSE: INTC)
International Business Machines Corp. - (NYSE: IBM)
Microsoft Corporation - (NASDAQ: MSFT)
Research In Motion Limited - (NASDAQ: RIMM)
Southwest Airlines Co. - (NYSE: LUV)
Starbucks Corporation - (NASDAQ: SBUX)
Target Corp. - (NYSE: TGT)
The Proctor & Gamble Company - (NYSE: PG)
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. - (NYSE: WMT)
Yahoo! Inc. - (NASDAQ: YHOO)
The Innovation Index will analyze the positions and standings of the top 20 Innovators at the end of each year. For 2007, there will be no further changes in The Innovation Index.
Disclaimer: I invest in the stocks comprising The Innovation Index.
