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"Nasdaq records best start to year in four decades

Tech-dominated index rises 32% in first half of 2023 as investors bet on AI

Nicholas Megaw in New York and Daria Mosolova in London JUNE 30 2023 ..."

https://www.ft.com/content/8402f4e6-d68c-4ee6-9f82-18b5a2388e6f

"SMALL COMPANIES ...

July 10, 2023

By Simon Thompson

... In the past six months, the FTSE All-Share Total Return (TR) index is down 6.5 per cent, but the FTSE Aim All-Share TR index has plunged 14.5 per cent in value. ..."

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/ideas/2023/07/10/time-to-sell-this-disappointing-healthcare-minnow/

The huge contrast between American & UK shares returns in H1 is reflective of a much longer trend, as I have posted previously:-

Hedgehog100 Posts: 3,023 Price: 55.00 Strong Buy

American Outperformance 14 Mar 2023 16:38

"The USA is the world's largest economy, and accounts of over half of the world's stock market valuation.

And American outperformance compared to Britain, for both economic and investment returns, is enormous:-

... Annual Performance Across The Major Sectors [rough non-compounded %s]:-

North America, average c. 16.9% p.a., 2011 - 2021

UK All Companies, average c. 9.8% p.a., 2011 - 2021

And the effect is heightened by year-on-year compounding over the long term:-

• North America's 16.9% p.a. annual growth, compounded for 10 yrs., would compound $100K. into $477K.: a $377K. gain. on $100K.

• Britain's 9.8% p.a. annual growth, compounded for 10 yrs., would compound £100K. into £255K.: a £155K. gain. on £100K.

I.e. a ten year percentage return of well over double. ..."

https://www.lse.co.uk/ShareChat.html?ShareTicker=NWT&share=Newmark-Security&page=5

So with NWT subsidiary Grosvenor Technology poised to generate perhaps c. £18M. in revenue for its the year ending 30.4.23, with over half of that in the USA, this looks like an almost heaven-sent opportunity to obtain top American growth exposure at a bargain basement price.

Without the foreign dealing costs and potential research etc. difficulty of buying American stocks directly.

The United States has been called “the indispensable nation”.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300256956/indispensable-nation/

And NWT could be "an indispensable share", for Brits wanting to improve their investment returns.

From the website of Grosvenor Technology's Access Group software partner, an interesting new article that highlights the technology zeitgeist that GT is riding:-

"Festival of Work - The role of technology to help HR thrive through change

Posted 7 July 2023

The Access Group recently exhibited at CIPD's Festival of Work which focused on the topic "Driving people with purpose to thrive". During the event, we hosted a panel discussion looking at the role of technology to help HR thrive through disruption and change. Teri Atif, Digital Head of GTM at The Access Group chaired the panel which included analyst David Wilson from Fosway Group, ... They spoke about the growing role of HR in organisational agility and how technology can be leveraged to drive performance and support culture.

Panel discussion:

TERI: Everything about HR has progressively changed over the last three years. This year, in addition to all the challenges that we've had, such as hybrid working models and talent and skills shortages, we've also got employee burnout and health and wellbeing. HR leaders are now facing an unprecedented economic landscape which is impacting the way businesses are operating and how they will prioritise their people.

The volatility of the past few years hasn’t really slowed down, and it's showing no signs of doing so as we enter into the second half of 2023. While the priorities of HR will continuously evolve, one thing is for sure: it’s going to be people focused and business oriented with technology at the heart of this new landscape.

If I had to sum up the last decade in one word, it would be uncertain. Given the work that Fosway is doing and the conversations that you are having with HR leaders, what specific challenges do you see and how should businesses address and tackle them David?

DAVID: Companies are under pressure to adapt to external factors such as economic challenges in the post-pandemic world. We also talk a lot about hybrid working, but I'm not sure many companies truly understand what it is - do they want their employees in the office twice a week, all of the time, or never? They need to deal with all these scenarios.

There are also significant challenges around Skills. With a tight employment market, you can't just hire all the people that you need in order to fill the skills gaps, you also have to reskill the existing organisation. That is an even bigger need following Covid. From an HR leadership point of view, all of these are a pressure on business and the people function. Organisations have to be agile in responding to change and people are fundamental to that.

Finally, it is clear that digitally mature organisations also found it easier to respond to the pandemic and the changes that came after. Digital maturity is a huge factor in how you are able to respond. ..."

https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/blog/hcm-the-role-of-technology-to-help-hr-thrive-interview/

"The journey of facial recognition solutions at Grosvenor Technology

... It’s not just about the technology, as much as it is about effectively communicating the real-world capabilities of facial recognition technology, and importantly how it can be successfully implemented in differing environmental conditions.

That is why our Professional Services team always lead a Face Recognition opportunity, to ensure the partner is fully guided through the process. As much as I would like to say this is a point-and-shoot solution, it isn’t. The technology available today at this price point simply cannot do that. However, with good planning and customer engagement, our Face recognition solution is hugely powerful and reliable, processing staff in a touchless mode, quickly with minimal fuss, whilst ensuring end user information is protected and the end user’s attestation is given, logged and maintained.

Grosvenor along with our partners have learned a huge amount about successfully implementing face recognition and here are a few of the considerations to think about:

What to consider when implementing a face recognition solution?

1. Compliance and attestation to use the Facial data for punching in and out. Number one and in a legal sense extremely important. We have developed both on clock apps and Cloud based middleware, to not only securely collect and process facial data, but to allow clear attestation of the biometric owner for the system to collect and process it. We even ensure it is destroyed automatically if the attestation expires or is revoked. ...

Having said all the above, we continue to actively improve the technology, and have a busy schedule of planned updates to face recognition over the coming months. Our philosophy is to continually leverage customer feedback and advancing technology to mistake-proof the solution and improve customer experience, and we continue to invest to make that a reality. ..."

https://www.grosvenortechnology.com/insights/the-journey-of-facial-recognition-solutions-at-grosvenor-technology/

"The journey of facial recognition solutions at Grosvenor Technology

... To set the scene, we already had many 1000’s of devices in the field so whatever solution we developed, it needed to operate where possible with our existing solutions. Operation had to be as fast and easy to use as the established solutions, and importantly it had to be secure as we were capturing and processing people’s facial data. Finally, and most technically challengingly it had to be cost-effective, the incremental cost of the technology could not move the overall solution outside of the market price for a timeclock.

As a result of these key design parameters and after some rapid prototyping, we chose to utilise the onboard cameras already present in our GT8 and GT10 clocks, and to develop algorithms to recognise a face and apply software-based recognition algorithms for both verify (Card or Pin + Face) or Identify (Face only).

Our initial prototyping also included Mask Detection and subsequently we also scoped in thermal screening, both specific requirements driven by the pandemic.

On a bench, we were able to rapidly develop a demonstrable prototype which was performant and user friendly, able to recognise a face and match 1:10,000 faces in around a second on our GT8 Clock. So far so good! Then the real work started in terms of translating that to the real world, making it work for our partners in the multitude of environments it needed to.

It became very quickly apparent that the environment and lighting were key factors, and luckily the technology choice we had made of Visible Light and IR Cameras in the GT8 turned out to be the right one. Our GT8 device is equipped a combined Visible and IR capable camera, augmented with both LED(White) and IR illumination, both of which significantly improve the solution in poor lighting environments.

But technology only takes us so far and whilst we continue to develop facial recognition software updates and features such as temperature screening, the reality is that the installation and environment really do count. Also key here is the customers perception of what face recognition can do – can it recognise the face of someone wearing a large mask, glasses and a hat for example? The simple answer is no. If there is not enough information (or put another way, points of minutia available for the algorithm to work effectively) then this is not possible. It may be possible for a verify where it’s a one-to-one match, but generally not suitable for identify. ..."

https://www.grosvenortechnology.com/insights/the-journey-of-facial-recognition-solutions-at-grosvenor-technology/

Another excellent article from Grosvenor Technology's MD, that has just been added to its website:-

"Insights | Human Capital Management

The journey of facial recognition solutions at Grosvenor Technology

Hear from Colin as he explains the journey that Grosvenor Technology has taken with facial recognition…

Colin Leatherbarrow

Managing Director

Back in early 2020, Grosvenor was working on a solidified product roadmap focussed mainly around the development of our next generation time clock – the GT8, a range topping design from the outset, as a feature-rich, highly secure and performant timeclock, building on the success of the original GT10 Android 6 device which had catapulted us into large HCM opportunities, predominately in North America. We were also in the early stages of developing GT Connect, our revolutionary SaaS Cloud-based clock management platform encompassing middleware, PII/Biometric data compliance and data distribution.

At that time, our biometric roadmap was in a steady state, fingerprint technology provided by recognised industry leaders such as HiD’s Lumidigm and Suprema SF range were fully integrated into our timeclock solutions, along with advanced on clock capability for 1:N identification into the tens of thousands. Tried and tested technology, ideal for the HCM industry and adopted as the Defacto solution for biometric identification or verification needs for HCM applications.

The pandemic rolled up in early 2020 and a lot of things changed very rapidly, and our product roadmap was one of the early business casualties of the uncertainty the pandemic wreaked upon us all.

In terms of clock technology, the pandemic impacted one key area more than others and that was the touchless operation. In a short time, fingerprint technology (the most widely used, trusted and performant biometric technology) was demoted in terms of its functionality to a favoured touchless mode of operation.

Roll on Facial Recognition

Grosvenor Technology had in fact evaluated facial recognition prior to this, but conversations with our existing customers led us to believe there was insufficient demand in the HCM market. Fingerprint technology was regarded as mature, reliable and an accepted solution for both identification and verification applications.

And whilst it is fair to say facial recognition had already been around for some time in the market, it is also fair to say, it was mainly used in high end security applications. Entering a secure facility is one thing but clocking in 100 people starting a shift where every second is either their time or your money is entirely another.

So that was the challenge we faced and I wish I knew back then what we have learned as a company since that day. ..."

https://www.grosvenortechnology.com/insights/the-journey-of-facial-recognition-solutions-at-grosvenor-technology/

"Nasdaq records best start to year in four decades

Tech-dominated index rises 32% in first half of 2023 as investors bet on AI

Nicholas Megaw in New York and Daria Mosolova in London JUNE 30 2023

The Nasdaq Composite recorded its best first half of the year since 1983, after investors flocked to companies in the tech-heavy index that they expect will benefit from the growth of artificial intelligence.

... the UK’s FTSE 100 has trailed behind with a 1 per cent gain. The FTSE has been weighed down by the UK’s stubbornly high inflation and the index’s disproportionate exposure to falling oil prices. ...

“We’re constructive on US stocks, we like the inflation moderation . . . and are increasingly confident that the likelihood of recession is falling . . . [but] we’re much more cautious about Europe, particularly [the eurozone]. That view is driven by sticky inflation, and the fact the ECB will need to hike more.”"

https://www.ft.com/content/8402f4e6-d68c-4ee6-9f82-18b5a2388e6f

A mere 32% rise in H1 ... pah! PAH!

It's barely half of NWT's 62.12% H1 rise, LOL.

The outperformance of AI and America are clearly trends that NWT is well-exposed to.

But without the foreign dealing costs and potential research etc. difficulty of buying American stocks directly.

And without the risk of overpaying for a sky-high valuation, &/or risking a lossmaking stock.

Grosvenor Technology's MD relatively recently highlighted AI as the leading trend that is shaping its sector:-

"Insights | Company News

... 1. Artificial intelligence will continue to lead the way

According to recent figures, AI in the security market was valued at US$5.08 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach US$14.18 billion by 2026. Indeed, for several years running, artificial intelligence (AI) has been the predominant trend as companies continue to leverage its advanced capabilities for functions such as facial recognition, video surveillance, audio analytics, and more.

More recently, we have seen a shift towards AI being used as a preventative rather than a reactive measure, meaning that security teams can stop incidents taking place in the first place thanks to things like predictive analytics and machine learning. ..."

http://www.grosvenortechnology.com/insights/key-security-industry-trends-in-2023/

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