Yahoo! Ya-who?

Yahoo!, once known as the revolutionary search engine to the word-wide-web

founded by the two university students from Stanford, is about to become part of
a history, with its recent acquisition by Verizon, the American
telecommunications company for a $4.48 million deal. This amounts to only
fractions of over $100 million worth at its peak since the company went public in
1996, as well as in comparison to the $44 million offer made by Microsoft in
2008

The foreshadow of the fall of Yahoo started from the rise of its direct competitor
Google, with its advanced search algorithm ‘PageRank’ invented by the co-
founder Larry Page. Today, Google has become the most prominent search
engine with its global market share of 80% as the default search engine, as
supposed to yahoo’s 5% share.

Four different CEOs in the period of six years during the 2000s also indicated the
instability of the company’s management.

Even the hopeful outlook by Marissa Mayer, the former Google executive
appointed as the CEO of Yahoo! in 2012 and her efforts since then to transfer the
company to mobile platforms with countless acquisitions including tumblr, did
not save the ship from sinking. Even worse, the recent scandal of its data breach,
affecting 500 million user accounts of Yahoo resultantly reduced Verizon’s
acquisition cost by $350 million from its original agreement of $4.8million in
2016. Post-acquisition, Yahoo will merge with Verizon’s subsidiary AOL, and be
re-branded as ‘Oath’ with the telco’s intention of building an online advertising
powerhouse to compete with Google and Facebook, while what’s left of Yahoo
will also be re-branded as Altaba. The timeline of Yahoo and where it stands
today reflects the directionless management that gradually failed to keep up with
the competitors in the industry that was vastly growing and changing as well as
the management’s persistence to think of their worth higher than the market and
blinded optimism that brought out the exact opposite for the company.

Ryan Choi, first-year Commerce student

The economic value of
multilingualism
Being multilingual has it perks if you’re fluent; but is it worth the time and effort
to start? Research shows long-term cognitive and health benefits to learning a
second language, but is the skill reflected when it comes to earnings? Various
reports show marginal increases, and this depends on what that language it is. So
unfortunately, learning a language does little for personal income. From a
broader perspective, however, speaking more than one language does expand
career opportunities. The value of the language is dependent on its demographic
area, so to a degree, this will affect and/or define the strategic moves that an
organisation might make to maximise revenue as such. The drawback of starting
a language is that a non-native learner of a language will have a harder time
competing with a fluent native bilingual for a job requiring both languages. Hence
it is best to have fluency as the goal to begin with. Another factor to consider is
the economic openness of the country. For example, if the language of a country
is a trade powerhouse, its language will be more economically valuable for an
outsider than the language of a relatively more closed economy.

Despite hard work and long hours, learning a language adds to your human
capital (rather than income) and is a skill for life. Multilingualism can open
opportunities for the growth of wealth, and in turn is worth the long-term
investment - better start late than never.

Jessie Dong, second-year International Relations and Asian Studies student

______________________________________________________________
Australian millennials’ prospect
for home ownership
Since 2016, the topic of home ownership, especially for the millennial population
in Australia, has been widely discussed. We have all heard that our consumption
of ‘Smashed Avo’ for brunch is seriously hindering our ability to buy our first
house, but how badly?

A recent survey completed by international bank HSBC has found that Australian
millennials rank second last in a home ownership survey, coming only before
United Arab Emirates where merely 26% of millennials own a house. The survey
also found that this wasn’t necessarily because of Australian millennials’
spending habits, in fact we go to lot more lengths to save up for our first house,
but the government regulations are not on our side when it comes to buying a
house.

Further research found that tax laws in Australia favour investors looking for
investment properties more than people looking to be homeowners, making it
extremely hard for the millennials to get their foot in the door. Additionally, the
increased buying and selling in the property market is also making it extremely
hard for millennials, as there is no stability in prices making it harder for them to
save.

MPs are saying that policies need to be changed and more help needs to be given
to first time homeowners to make it an achievable dream for millennials. Along
with this, we need to find a way to cool down the property market to stabilize
prices and aid millennials in saving to a realistic target.

Neeraja Shankar, fourth-year Psychology and Commerce student

______________________________________________________________
- Market Watch #2 –
12th September

Bringing you the second of our series of posts canvassing an overview of news
and trends in financial markets.

• At the close of trading today, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index has
increased by 33.30 points, or 0.58 per cent, to 5, 764.40 points, with
similar outcomes in the broader All Ordinaries index, sitting at 5, 806.40
points, an increase of 0.54 percent (Source: ASX).
• AUD hits a two-year high against USD, with AUD rising to 81.1 US cents.
The appreciating exchange rate is expected to result in a slower pick-up in
economic activity and inflation than currently forecasted by the RBA, as
they face increased difficulty in setting higher interest rates. (Source:
Financial Times, SMH).
• After a shocking few weeks, the Big Four banks pushed sharply, rising to
record highs. CBA shares jumped 2.2 per cent, ANZ climbed 1.4 per cent,
Westpac added 1 per cent and NAB 0.8 per cent (Source: SMH).
• APRA is pursuing higher accountability measures against commercial
banks, superannuation and insurance industries to improve transparency
for public confidence. The government is seeking to expand APRA's
powers, moving APRA materially towards a law enforcement body
(Source: AFR).
• Australia's energy markets are being viewed as a crisis, with ensuing
debate as to whether the government should intervene in light of domestic
shortage and structural change in the industry (Source: AFR).
• In mining, markets have reached its second bull market for the year, with a
rise in prices for key commodities. Most notably, copper has surged by
20%, the peak within the last 3 years (Source: Bloomberg).
• A recent study carried out by UBS suggests close to 1/3 of mortgages (up
to $500bn worth) carry factually inaccurate information regarding income,
debts, expenses and assets. Whilst the nature and full extent of the
misrepresentations are yet to be audited, this is likely to leave banks more
exposed to economic downturns (Source: Financial Times, UBS)
• Australia's 10-year government bond yield has increased to 2.64%, with
slower growth in US, at 2.15% (Source: Bloomberg)

Global Markets
• In Asia, the benchmark Hang Seng index is recovering from a sharp dip in
markets last week, with 27, 950.34 points at the close, a fall of 0.02%
(Source: Bloomberg).
 • Whilst oil prices dip in Asian Markets, as traders assess Hurricane
Harvey's impact in the USA, equities overall have hit a breaking 10-year
peak, as political pressures with North Korea have eased, and Hurricane
Irma deviates from its predicted worst outcome (Source: Reuters)

- Market Watch #1 –
24th March
• Trump's political agenda has been viewed with hesitation by global
investors skeptical about his ability to push healthcare and tax changes,
with Australian markets feeling the effects and observing a slight decline.
At the close of trading today, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index slumped
90.1 points, or 1.56 per cent, to 5,684.5, while the broader All Ordinaries
index skidded 87.5 points, or 1.5 per cent, to 5,732. Overall losses from
ASX this session are estimated to be around $26 bn (Source: AFR).
• Commonwealth Bank follows ANZ and Westpac in increasing mortgage
rates for speculative buyers as part of the broader macro-prudential
policies issued from ASIC, APRA and RBA regulators (Source: Financial
Times).
• In commodities, oil prices have recovered, with energy and utilities leading
as the overall highest-performing sectors in the economy (increases of 1.2
- 1.32%), compared with the downturns observed in the other sectors
(telecommunications, IT, financials and health care). (Source: AFR,
Bloomberg).
• Chinese steel and iron ore futures have dropped sharply for a second
straight session, with gold trading at a three-week high at $US1245 an
ounce. (Source: Bloomberg).
• Both US and Australian government yields have retreated following lower
risk aversion by investors this session to 2.41 per cent and 2.76 per cent
respectively. (Source: AFR).

Global Markets
• Despite overall dips in ASX and Wall Street (largely attributable to US
healthcare legislation), global monetary conditions and profits are likely to
improve, with shares likely to trend higher on a 6-12 month horizon
(Source: AMP)
• In Asia, the benchmark Hang Seng index has broken away from its prior
four session lead. It fell 1.1 per cent at the close, to 24,320.41 points.
Banking and securities shares took the most significant hit on the market
downturn, with the Tokyo Stock Exchange's bank subindex shedding 3.2
per cent and the securities subindex dropping 3.8 per cent (Source: AFR).