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After beating expectations in its first two FY 2016 earnings reports,Microsoft’s [stckqut]MSFT[/stckqut] multi-year turnaround seemed like it might finally have taken root. Unfortunately, its earnings miss last week came as a sharp rebuke to that idea, a fact not missed by investors.

To chart its path into the post-PC world, Microsoft has placed aggressive bets in growth markets, including big data and productivity tools. At the same time, many view Microsoft’s cloud-computing business as, perhaps, the company’s biggest opportunity, which is why investors should take note of the relatively weak performance of its cloud business this past quarter.

Though far from cataclysmic, Microsoft’s cloud business showed several signs of weakness in Q3, especially when considered in total. For starters, though growing faster than other reporting segments, Microsoft’s intelligent cloud business produced its slowest growth thus far in its fiscal 2016.

Source: Are Microsoft’s Weakening Cloud Margins a Cause for Concern?

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Why is it easier, in most states, to become a broker or an investment adviser than a hairdresser or electrician?

According to a survey  co-directed by Patrick Lach, a finance professor at Eastern Illinois University and a registered investment adviser, along with marketing professor Leisa Flynn and finance professor G. Wayne Kelly of the University of Southern Mississippi:

In most states, the minimum level of education needed to become a broker or an investment adviser is lower than the education requirement needed to become a hairdresser or an electrician. Electricians are required to complete several years of apprenticeship work under the supervision of a licensed electrician while brokers and investment advisers face no such requirement. Most states do not require a high school diploma or a Graduate Equivalency Degree (GED) to become a broker or an investment adviser. No minimum education requirement exists to qualify to sit for the Series 7 or Series 65 exams [regulatory qualifying tests to be eligible to sell securities]…many people who work one-on-one with clients do not attain education beyond this level.

Nearly a sixth of the survey participants work or used to work in the investment business — but, says Mr. Lach, it is “alarming” that they were wrong nearly as often as the general public about which financial professionals have a fiduciary duty. The difference between the general public and a broker in answering those questions correctly was tiny and statistically insignificant.

This is why I suggest to my readers to fire their broker and that they can actually beat the market with just a little bit of effort and following the strategy that I lay out in The Confident Investor, my book on investing. You can purchase my book wherever books are sold such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books A Million. It is available in e-book formats for Nook, Kindle, and iPad.

Source: How Come It’s Still Harder to Become a Hairdresser than a Financial Adviser? – MoneyBeat – WSJ