Over the past few weeks, fluctuating polls have shown that Donald Trump has narrowed Hillary Clinton's lead, improving his odds of becoming president. As the presidential race hurdles towards the November finish line, a few stocks stand out as potential winners if Trump is elected.

In general, energy and military-based companies stand the best chance of substantial gains. Under a Trump presidency, coal industries, for example, would avoid the substantial hit from Clinton's promise to close down plants and enact stricter regulations. In addition to coal and oil stocks such as Cloud Peak Energy Inc. (NYSE:CLD), Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL), and Continental Resources, Inc. (NYSE:CLR), companies that provide for military, including Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT), will also benefit.

Funds following semiconductor firms have had their best week in months, but it should be noted that stocks are behaving wildly with all of the technology news coming out now. VanEck and PHLX both saw gains over 4 percent in the past week, but Skyworks and Cirrus Logic might be the real winners in all of this. (I am holding a December Call option of CRUS) Skyworks is closely connected with Intel, who has recently enjoyed a large volume of trading as the company increased its revenue expectations for the quarter.

Apple's value appreciated by over 11 percent over the week, which is probably due to the large number of pre-orders of the iPhone 7. That could help to explain the 13 percent growth that Cirrus Logic enjoyed as well as the almost 14 percent gains seen by shareholders of Skyworks.

Apple's annual September IPhone event will begin a bit earlier than usual this year. This gives them a chance to book IPhone 7 sales before the fiscal year ends. Apple (AAPL) does not expect to have a strong fourth quarter, so this affair may help them prepare for the regression.

According to analyst reports, the IPhone is still tremendously desired among smartphone users. Due to the demand, there may be IPhone estimate hikes that surpass the current estimates put forth by experts. Not only will this benefit Apple, it will also create a good situation for major chip manufacturers such as Cirrus Logic, NXP, and Broadcom.

Many invitations went out for this highly-anticipated event on Monday. The affair will begin on Wednesday September 7 at 1pm in San Francisco. Apple will introduce three new products on this day -- a 4.7-inch IPhone 7, a 5.5-inch iPhone 7-plus, and a new compatible Apple Watch model.

Kobe Bryant is going the route of investing his millions after the close of his long-term basketball career.

Wall Street Journal reported that Kobe got together with Jeff Stibel (brain scientist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist) has launched a massive $100 million fund for tech companies. The two have merged and called their union the "Bryant Stibel" union. They had previously worked with about 15 companies since they started doing business together in 2013. The new firm will have a Los Angeles-based headquarters.

Both Bryant and Stibel used their own funds to invest in this venture. No one else funded the Kobe Bryant investment fund. Kobe and Jeff expect this venture to be quite profitable and last at least a few years.

Bryant believes that his decision will be fruitful, and he based that opinion on his success with social media tools and sites. He said that he felt he had a knack for identifying fruitful entrepreneurs.

According to the latest released news from Goldman Sachs, the financial company's strategists have decided to veer away from stocks for three months. Global rates on stocks have been cut due to slow growth in earnings as well as expensive valuations. A lack of investor confidence has also influenced this decision.

Sachs strategists have also noted that risk aversion is another important reason for this avoidance of stocks for the short term this current year. Pick-ups in investor confidence are predicted to take time, according to the company experts' latest forecasting data. Over the rest of the year, neutral ratings on global stocks will be monitored closely at Goldman Sachs.

Despite all of the unpredictability and uncertainty inherent in today's ad tech world, it's still possible for the optimum outcome to manifest. Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo's core assets is such an example.

Although the future will not necessarily be 100% rosy, it is surely the best current outcome for consumers, marketers and the industry as a whole. Verizon will certainly need to heed the lessons of poor previous mergers such as AOL - Time Warner.

Fortunately, there are many positives to focus on, such as both companies having impressive sales and industry knowledge expertise. In addition, there is the benefit of owning both production and distribution aspects of the system.

CargoX is a fantastic Brazilian trucking startup company that Goldman Sachs funded with a $10 million dollar investment.

Some people are referring to CargoX as if it is a type of Uber for the trucking industry. The startup announced that it reached its $10 million goal almost effortlessly.

It is not a surprise that people refer to CargoX as being similar to Uber. Uber's founder, Oscar Salazary, had a lot to do with the startup. He was delighted to support the venture and says that he sees a great deal of potential in it because of the flawed trucking market in Brazil.

Salazar made nothing but positive statements about the start up. He said that it seemed to be a billion dollar opportunity. Information asymmetry is what he attributed to the company's potential.

Frederico Vega, the CEO of the company, said that the startup probably has a closer likeness to Airbnb than it does to Uber. Nevertheless, one of the company's main goals is to reduce costs for people who own freight. What it does is bridge the gap between truckers and businesses who need to move product. It finds truckers who have no freight in them and puts them together with the businesses that need them. This results in having two happy parties and less trucks traveling on the highways empty.

Today, US stocks have opened at a higher price, triggered by an unexpectedly good jobs report. The report from last month led to anxiety and fear in the market. However, the report today has eased investors' worries, offering further evidence that the economy has moved in the right direction.

Over the days of June, roughly 287,000 jobs were generated in America, exceeding economists' predictions of 175,000 jobs. Nonetheless, the rate of joblessness increased slightly to 4.9 percent, whereas economists predicted it would increase to 4.8 percent. The shooting in Dallas has had an effect on numerous stocks as well, a phenomena we will address below.

Today, Twilio announced that it would set the price of its' first offering to the public at fifteen dollars per share. This values the firm at about $1.23 billion, which is over its' prior one billion dollar valuation from the previous financing round.

The firm expects to make about 150 million dollars, with an additional 1.5 million shares available for sale. Also, this is a bigger price than the twelve to fourteen dollars per share amount that the firm targeted in the past.

The Twilio IPO is important, because tech IPOs have dried up considerably in 2016. Concern has spread among many small businesses that have run into problems, due to the dearth of tech IPOs this year (Twilio is just the third of 2016). Most startups hope that Twilio will revitalize the tech IPO industry, with a good showing once trading starts tomorrow.

The debate over the $15 dollar minimum wage has two sides, one that believes that the higher wages will mean less jobs and the side that wants to see better incomes for employees in low skill jobs in America. Currently 2 states and 4 cities have passed laws to increase the minimum wage to this level over the next couple of years. This higher wage will have negative impacts on businesses and the workers that currently are employed there, while limiting the number of available jobs for young workers.

Franchise locations of the popular fast food chain McDonalds are everywhere and employee millions of American workers. But the franchises only keep 6 cents of every dollar of revenue that they generate, the rest goes to staff, food, rent, etc. A typical franchise has income of $2.6 million a year or $156,000. With this new minimum wage, 15 employees will cost the franchise 75% of its profit for the year. The company will attempt to increase revenue through price increases but customers are sensitive to these increases and lower wage earnings will be most affected by the increase in their purchases.