The iworld seems to be divided on Apple’s $275 wireless Airpods for the new iPhone 7 unveiled on Wednesday this week – some believe it’s an incredibly strategic competitive advantage while others are poking fun at the tiny gadgets all over social media;

“Introducing the new Airpods: more expensive and easier to lose”…

In addition to the price tag and likeliness of getting lost, many were outraged, implying that Apple has gone “too far” - but did they, really? Or are they just categorically good at doing things first?

According to this article, Apple has been doing this sort of culling for years - remember when iMac removed the floppy drive? Back then, it was a standard part of virtually all Macs and Windows PCs. Nowadays my little niece would think that floppy was plastic piece of toast for her toy kitchen.

Apple also removed several ports that had been included in every Mac for a decade, replacing them with a cutting-edge (and now ubiquitous) standard called “the USB”. So you see, ditching the headphone jack is just Apple’s next step in their relentless quest to make the iPhone — and all of its products — thinner, simpler, and more reliable. “They’re betting that however much you might hate having to buy new headphones, you’re going to love the sleeker look of the new iPhone 7 so much that you’ll buy one anyway”.

As outlined in the global insight weekly this week, many market participants are also divided lately when it comes to cyclical stocks vs. defensive stocks because cyclical stocks have outperformed defensive stocks by a wide margin on a global basis and in the U.S. since the Brexit low in late June.

A cyclical stock, as defined by Investopedia, is an equity security whose price is affected by ups and downs in the overall economy. Cyclical stocks typically relate to companies that sell discretionary items consumers can afford to buy more of in a booming economy and cut back on during a recession. Cyclical groups include technology, industrials, autos, retailers, and banks, among others. Most cyclical areas of the global market are currently reasonably valued.

Defensive stocks, as defined by Investopedia, are a synonymous to non-cyclical stocks, or companies whose business performance and sales are not highly correlated with the larger economic cycle. These companies are seen as good investments when the economy sours. Defensive groups typically carry higher dividend yields than most cyclicals—a key reason they have outperformed during this multiyear, low interest rate phase. Defensive groups include utilities, telecom, food, beverages, household goods, and pharmaceuticals, among others. They are currently modestly to-highly overvalued in many markets.

So which do you own? We recommend avoiding the “either/or” approach to investing in cyclical and defensive stocks. We believe there are opportunities in both sectors that can potentially boost portfolio performance. Click here to read the full report.

With so much going on and information coming at us from every angle, it's sometimes hard to keep your finger on the pulse of what's happening. In an effort to keep you in-the-know and provide you with some conversation nuggets for the weekend, I've compiled the following hit list to fill your conversation pipeline.

Now you are in-the-know with Word on the Street.