Strategy in TECH...
I recently reported that I had discovered that the primary website for Masimo Corporation (Nasdaq: MASI) – Masimo.com – was down…and down for a few days. This is very unusual for a public company and the message displayed on the inactive site sounded suspiciously untrue – saying the site was undergoing “maintenance.” Now we’ve learned from a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company had suffered an intrusion and “unauthorized activity” on its systems.
Last week, Masimo Corporation (Nasdaq: MASI) finally announced the long-anticipated sale of its Masimo Consumer division – the audio division created after its acquisition of Sound United back in February 2022 – to Harman International Industries Incorporated. Harman is a division of Samsung Electronics with a large automotive electronics business, along with professional audio and high-end audio businesses as well.
But is this truly a good home for Sound United?
Strata-gee Founder & Chief Content Creator Ted Green was hospitalized on Monday after suffering injuries from an accident early Monday morning. Green remained hospitalized through Wednesday evening following three intensive days of extensive testing, treatment, and recuperation.
**Click here to see the latest update below the main story, posted on May 11, 2025.
For the last two days or so, I have been diligently attempting to find out what is going on at Masimo as the company’s main website – Masimo.com – has been down for at least the last 2½ days (as of the time of this writing on mid-day Thursday)! The only thing visitors find when they navigate to the site is the “be back shortly” message shown above, along with a Masimo logo above it.
Gentex Corporation (Nasdaq: GNTX), the new owner of Voxx, Premium Audio Company, Onkyo, Integra, and Klipsch reported the financial results for its first quarter of fiscal 2025 – the period that ended on March 31, 2025. Note that these results do not include the Voxx et. al. acquisition in its numbers, as that merger did not close until April 1, 2025. Gentex reported declines in sales, gross profit dollars, income from operations, and net income.
And all that happened before the new tariffs launched by the Trump administration took effect in full force.
It was a small thing really. I mean, any decline in revenue is not good, but a 3% decline doesn’t sound particularly troublesome. But when that small 3% revenue decline hit Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), that slight shudder hit more like an earthquake that had the whole world of luxury shaking. You see LVMH is the world’s most valuable luxury company.
Or, I should say, LVMH was the world’s most valuable luxury company…
On Tuesday, a Schedule 13G/A Form was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on behalf of former Masimo Corporation CEO Joe Kiani. The form is a “Statement of Ownership” and it is used to disclose the amount of ownership of top holders of public company stock. In this filing, Kiani reports to the SEC that he holds 13.2% of Masimo stock.
There’s just one problem…he doesn’t…
The reality is beginning to set in. Most industry manufacturers have updated their pricing with tariff-driven price increases…some as high as 50+%. Two weeks ago, on a day I call T-Day (for tariff day), the Trump Administration announced a new “reciprocal” tariff program on America’s top 100 trading partners that is bigger and more impactful than anything he ever toyed with during his first term. Even though most of that plan has been put on a 90-day hold (except for China), anywhere from 10%…to 10%+20% is now implemented. The impact of that is starting to hit economies around the world.
And the reality and impact of that is also beginning to hit individual businesses and consumers.
According to the latest Chinese customs data, outbound shipments in March increased by 12.4% year-over-year (YoY) far exceeding all previous estimates. In addition to that, first quarter GDP lept 5.4% in China, a huge increase over recent historical moves. It appears that exporters are seeking to beat the newly aggressive U.S. tariff policy by front-loading their needs.
The University of Michigan (U of M) has released a preliminary reading of its Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS) for April and it shows a continuing and startling slide in consumer sentiment, dropping another double-digit percentage from last month’s reading. In fact, this preliminary reading for April is the second-lowest reading in consumer sentiment in the entire 73-year history of the survey!
