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Sony Group is a conglomerate with consumer electronics roots, which not only designs, develops, produces, and sells electronic equipment and devices, but also is engaged in content businesses, such as console and mobile games, music, and movies. Sony is a global top company of CMOS image sensors, game consoles, professional broadcasting cameras, and music publishing, and is one of the top players on digital cameras, wireless earphones, recorded music, movies, and so on. Sony’s business portfolio is well-diversified with six major business segments, but it plans to partially spin off and relist its financial arm in late 2024.

In the metals space, the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV) looks interesting, at least from a short-term technical perspective. SLV hit an intraday high of $27.24 on April 12, the day that both SLV and the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) reversed sharply lower on huge volume. SLV fell to an intraday low of $23.87 on May 3, or just over 12% and right back to its 50-day exponential average as well as to a 50% retracement of the rally from late February until April 12.

Apple is among the largest companies in the world, with a broad portfolio of hardware and software products targeted at consumers and businesses. Apple’s iPhone makes up a majority of the firm sales, and Apple’s other products like Mac, iPad, and Watch are designed around the iPhone as the focal point of an expansive software ecosystem. Apple has progressively worked to add new applications, like streaming video, subscription bundles, and augmented reality. The firm designs its own software and semiconductors while working with subcontractors like Foxconn and TSMC to build its products and chips. Slightly less than half of Apple’s sales come directly through its flagship stores, with a majority of sales coming indirectly through partnerships and distribution.

Innovation may be hard to define but, to borrow from former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, you know it when you see it. The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles, to a large degree - have moved overseas, where costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy is at its largest point in history and still growing. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, creating new products and services, and moving into new markets and applications, the domestic economy would be contracting, not expanding, and capital would not be flooding into the country. Particularly at this juncture of the market and economic cycles, when uncertainty is high due to high inflation and rising interest rates, we look to innovative companies to navigate the challenges. At Argus, a 90-year-old independent research firm that has innovated a time or two in its long history, we have focused on four types of innovative companies: Industry Disruptors; First to Market; New Product Specialists; and Product & Process Perfectors. Here are some examples of companies, featured in our Innovation Theme Model Portfolio.