Brightbridge Wealth Management Financial and Investment Advice, Current headlines

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Zurich, Switzerland, by night along the Limmat River. (Rubiano Soto / Zurich Tourism)

If your travels take you to Zurich, Switzerland, you’ll save money with an $823 round-trip fare, which includes taxes and fees, from LAX on United or Swiss International.
You must buy your tickets seven days in advance and stay over at least one Saturday night for a visit that’s no longer than three months. The fare is available for travel Sundays-Thursdays between Oct. 30 and March 26, and you must return Mondays-Thursdays by May 15. The fare, as always, is subject to availability.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Stock Market Prices, Asset management and Mutual Funds

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Reuters) – Logitech, the world’s largest computer mouse maker, issued its second profit warning in eight weeks, slashing its forecast for full-year profit and sales after a review by its acting chief executive, sending its shares down 12 percent.

Logitech, which also makers speakers, webcams and keyboards, said on Thursday it expected operating income of about $90 million for its 2011/12 year to end-March, compared with a previous target to meet or beat last year’s $143 million.

Citing the current weak economic environment in mature markets and the company’s product offering, Logitech cut its sales forecast to $2.4 billion from $2.5 billion, having cut it from $2.6 billion in July when announcing CEO Gerald Quindlen had resigned after weak first-quarter trading.

Chairman Guerrino De Luca was named acting CEO at the time.

The company said on Thursday gross margin in its fiscal third and fourth quarters should be well above the full-year average.

Logitech shares, which had lost more than half their value this year, were down 12 percent at 0932 GMT.

“The management completely underestimated market and technology shifts toward stand-alone mobile computing systems not requiring any peripheral interface components or simple gadgets,” said Sarasin analyst Oskar Schenker.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Technology, Sports and Financial World News

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GO SWITZERLAND : Already renowned for its chocolate, the Swiss city is fast building a reputation as a culinary capital, with a panoply of intercultural eating houses offering Thai, Indian, French, American and local cuisine, writes MARIE-CLAIRE DIGBY

FOR MOST PEOPLE, chocolate bars are primarily either milk, dark or white, but for Rudolf Zehnder, general manager of the Ambassador hotel in Zurich, there are seasonal variations. “I have an autumn chocolate, but it gets too hard when I go hiking in winter; in general I like a dark, crisp chocolate in summer and milk chocolate in winter,” he says.

They take their chocolate very seriously here in this most picture-perfect of Swiss cities, which lies on the river Limmat as it flows into Lake Zurich, with the majestic Uetliberg mountain as a backdrop.

The first ever 100 per cent Swiss chocolate was produced at Zurich Zoo last year, using beans grown in the zoo’s Madagascar rain forest exhibit. The plants took six years to bear fruit and the harvest was tiny.

Just 150 premier cru Madagascar pralines were made, and they sold for CHF200 (€165) each, with the profits supporting the preservation of the Indian Ocean island’s Masoala National Park.

On another scale altogether, the giant Lindt chocolate factory perfumes the air in a most delicious way from its lakeside location at Kilchberg, a few miles outside the city, while in town, you’re never more than a few paces from some superlative chocolate.

You can sip a molten hot chocolate while listening to classical favourites being played on the grand piano in the gloriously decadent red velvet salon of Conditorei Schober, the city’s oldest coffee house. Or treat yourself to a Luxemburgerli, Zurich’s answer to the French macaron, at Confiserie Café Sprüngli, on the city’s main shopping street, Bahnhofstrasse.

These tiny meringues, smaller than the French macaron, glow like jewels in the chocolate-scented boutique, and some – the champagne variety – are even painted with gold lustre. They got their name, according to local lore, because the modest, puritanical Zurichers couldn’t bring themselves to call them by the original name, “baiser de mousse” or foam kiss, so they asked instead for the cakes made by the Luxembourg confectioner. This was Camille Studer, who brought the recipe to Zurich when employed by Richard Sprüngli.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Weaker prices dent S. Korea’s IT exports in Aug.

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SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s exports of information technology (IT) products shrank from a year earlier for the second straight month in August largely on lower global prices, the government said Wednesday.
The country exported US$13.06 billion worth of IT products last month, down 2.4 percent from $13.39 billion in the same month last year, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
The country’s trade surplus in the IT sector dwindled from slightly over $7 billion last year to $5.97 billion as its IT imports surged 11.2 percent on-year to $7.1 billion.
In the first eight months of the year, South Korea shipped $99.75 billion worth of IT products, up 34.7 percent from the same period last year.
“Overall exports dropped in August due to a drop in prices of some products, including computer memory chips and display panels, but exports of mobile phones jumped 10.2 percent to $2.07 billion amid improving competitiveness of smartphones by local manufacturers,” the ministry said in a press release.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: New Patents From Google Shore up HTC’s Defenses

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Armed with new patents transferred from Google, HTC has filed a new lawsuit against Apple and amended two previous legal complaints.

HTC filed the new lawsuit against Apple Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. HTC accuses Apple of infringing four patents in a range of products and services including Macintosh computers, iPhones, iPods, iPads, iTunes, MobileMe and iCloud.

The four patents were originally assigned to Motorola but were all transferred to Google either late last year or early this year. Then, last week, all four patents were transferred to HTC.

HTC did not respond to questions about whether it bought the patents from Google or if Google gave it the patents.

In addition, HTC on Wednesday amended its complaint against Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to assert five former Google patents. Those patents originated with Palm and Openwave, were transferred to Google and last week were transferred to HTC.

HTC also amended another previous suit, filed in Delaware, to add the new patents to that complaint.

HTC’s new complaints are the latest in an ongoing battle with Apple, which has attacked several Android licensees in court. The disputes are an indication of just how competitive the mobile phone market has grown. Apple and Android have the largest market shares in the mobile market in the U.S.

In July, the ITC issued an initial determination that HTC infringed two Apple patents. The ITC has also agreed to investigate a separate complaint against HTC filed by Apple and is investigating an HTC complaint against Apple.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Venture Capital: 5 Tips for Nailing the Full Partnership Pitch

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This may sound counterintuitive. However, if you have been asked to come in and present to the full partnership, you have already done a good job defining, defending and articulating your business plan, and addressing many questions and concerns. Your initial contacts from the firm have likely already written up one or more memos introducing your company, and have had multiple internal discussions about your company’s compelling prospective investment.

Now it’s showtime! Most likely, the partnership will already be familiar with the facts around your team, market, business model, product, customers, competition and financial projections. They are now looking for the “X factor” — your ability to present with pizzazz, to capture and sustain the attention of the room, to project a degree of informed enthusiasm and to showcase your natural leadership and sales abilities with a healthy spark of charisma.

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2. Balance Confidence With Thoughtful Introspection

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You know your business better than anyone else. It is important for you to project confidence and conviction around the viability, magnitude and trajectory of your business. It is the job of those in the room to challenge your assumptions or to present perspectives that counter your thesis. It is your job to respectfully but credibly convey what you are doing and how you will actualize your plan.

At the same time, be introspective. The best CEOs and entrepreneurs know their strengths but also recognize where they need help. This is a good time to demonstrate that you are open to coaching and help from your prospective investors. For instance, talk about where there are holes in your team, where you need help and what keeps you up at night. Investors prize their ability to add value to their portfolio companies — help them help you.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Casey Anthony Facebook scam preys on social-media users

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One of the most popular scams masquerades as a Facebook post urging the social media site’s nearly 700 million users to click on a link that plays a secret video confession by Casey Anthony, the 25-year-old acquitted July 5 in the first-degree murder of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Marie.

Scam post message reads: “BREAKING NEWS – Leaked video of CASEY ANTHONY confessing to lawyers. Click To See – She can’t be re-tried, double jeopardy[sic]…OJ all over again!”

There is no video. There is no secret confession. However, scammers gain access to users’ Facebook walls, personal information, and share the viral scam using the unquestioned loyalty of their social media friends.

AllFacebook.com, a site which tracks trends, analytics and news about Facebook, shows that within minutes of the not guilty verdict, users posted 10 comments every second. Given that frenetic activity on the site, it’s no wonder scammers targeted it.

“It makes sense that people are taking advantage given the huge interest in the Casey Anthony trial,” said Josh Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab atHarvard University in Cambridge, Mass. “The mechanism of sharing information can be taken advantage of and it’s a nefarious practice.”

Here’s how the scam baits users:

•Facebook users click on the link which takes them to a site where they confirm their age.

•The scammer then posts a copy of the link to a user’s wall, shares it with everyone on their list of friends, and spreads the scam.

•The user then is taken to another website to answer a never ending succession of questionnaires, giving scammers referral fees and traffic from every completed survey.

Internet scams are not new, but Benton said they are becoming more pervasive on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter because of the evolution of journalism.

“News agencies are relying on their readers to spread their news more than ever before,” Benton said. “Unfortunately, scammers take advantage of the good faith users assume from their friends in sharing links.”