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Today has nothing to do with Pepsi. It is the Paper effect. When Paper says buy, you buy. Got it?
Kevin
One other thing... After hours is often not indicative of how the stock will trade the next day. SGI reported earnings last night and sold off heavily in after hours. It did sell off early in the day today, but by the end of the day, it was green.
I looked a little at the Microsoft report, and they are a cash flow king. I would expect the stock will go up tomorrow or the next day. They have so many shares, but the report doesn't look disappointing at all. In fact, huge revenues and huge earnings.
Kevin
Now I guess we can see what the Street really thinks about expensing stock options. If AAPL took the same adjustment that MSFT just took, AAPL would never have earned a dime for its shareholders in all these years.
The fact is that successful companies like MSFT "over compensate" the senior employees (apparently to the tune of $2B this quarter) and until now, most investors never noticed.
Kevin
You just have to play both sides. Make a post about long is better than short and another about short is better than long. To some, you will look brilliant.
This is the basis of an old investment con. Cold call 100 people and tell them a different stock is a screaming buy at this point. Keep a list of what you told each person. Then, in a month, call the people who got the tip and the stock went up. Say, you had 30 "winners", so you only recall those 30. Of these 30, give them each a different hot stock. Then, in a month, call the 10 or so people and repeat.
At the end, you should have a few people who will give you all their money to get in on the next "hot pick".
Repeat this process every day and you will be a rich con man.
And, what laws have you broken? Not calling back the losers?
I've seen several business built this way.
Kevin
People are completely responsible for keeping themselves employable! This is the basis of our whole economy. There is no constitutional amendment stating that I have a right to a job just because I want one.
Now, we do all have to be given equal opportunity to succeed. We just aren't guaranteed the outcome.
Buggy whips... buggy whips...
Kevin
Better being short AAPL than long.
Kevin
I'm holding, but I wish I had sold last Wednesday before earnings. Still have a hard time understanding why the stock is taking so long to move to new 52-week highs. The outlook for Apple has improved in the last few weeks (especially with the HP deal). This should be reflected in the stock. But, I guess patience is warranted here. I would really be surprised if we dropped below $20 again and I expect the stock will be much higher in a month than it is now.
Kevin
Shorting here is no good. Better trade is to go long.
Kevin
Nice orderly open. Hope we finally see an up day in AAPL!
I was expecting a press release by now about 20th Mac anniversary celebration. Looks like this event might pass without much acknowledgment from Apple.
I guess it makes sense since the Mac is all about the past and the future is all about the Digital Music business for Apple.
Kevin
Back to green! AAPL not really going anywhere, it seems, but green is better than red.
Kevin
10 free songs a day. 200 free songs total.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/pepsi/rules.html
Now, I just need to get the word out that I want Pepsi caps...
Kevin
Here are a couple of Dean anxiety links:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/1/19/151357.shtml
http://people.aol.com/people/features/peoplespecial/0,10950,576954-4,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63754-2004Jan7.html
All this is about anxiety suffered in the 1980s.
Kevin
For the record, Dean denies the "anxiety attacks" story. Why are you spreading it if you don't know if it is true?
BTW, the story goes that Dean said when he was first elected governor of Vermont, that he had a panic attack just thinking about his incredible new power he had (and responsibility).
Whether he did or he didn't is something someone should prove before throwing mud around.
Correction: I now see it was Lango who said Dean had a panic attack this week. I can't imagine this happening and no one reporting on it. Do you know this is true? Do you have a reference?
Kevin
For the record, I no longer own any SUNW. I bought in around $4.20 and sold at $5.60 something.
I have a boatload of AAPL, a reasonable amount of SGI, and a little ASCL (which I sold and then bought back in).
I'm really thinking of dumping AAPL. I got into it thinking there was going to be short term price appreciation, and there hasn't been much. I have a profit still so that is good, but is AAPL going anywhere this year? I'll probably wait until the SuperBowl (see if there are any 20th anniversary surprises and whether the iTunes ads are a hit).
As for SGI, it doubled rather quickly and since I'm in at about a dollar a share, I will take profit soon. I figure that if earnings show they are no longer on life support (having refinanced the debt into convertibles and still have a boatload of sales - although declining at a rapid rate), and if the business improves for super scalable computers, SGI could go to $4 or $5.
I'm holding on seeing what plays out. I would like to go to 100% cash at some point and start over in my investing (clean slate).
Oops! Gotta go. The President is about to speak.
Kevin
Why should Microsoft pay this kid anything? Extortion?
Kevin
Finally green. Let the buying begin.
Kevin
Signup to get an email from Apple on February 1st!
What a deal!
http://www.apple.com/itunes/pepsi/
Seriously, the use of "ads" instead of "ad" is promising. Maybe this is going to be huge?
Kevin
I'll bet Dean wins this thing because of the money. The Iowa Caucus is different in that you vote publicly and your peers try to change your mind before it is over.
Where does Kerry go now? He put all his eggs in this one basket (and it has paid off, for now). But, unless he starts raising serious money (maybe this will be enough, but in a week or two, Iowa will be forgotten).
Kevin
Clinton had 2.8% in 1992 in Iowa (way behind runaway winner Tom Harkin).
Kevin
Don't count Dean out. He has money and in this country, money buys votes. Iowa is just one little contest. The country doesn't like to elect a senator to become president. Dean has the advantage of being a governor.
When was the last senator elected? Elder Bush doesn't count since he was vice president and rode the coat tails of a very popular president.
Dean just needs to stop coming across as a looney and stop the "angry" man act. If he is any kind of politician, he will morph into whatever the polls say he should to get the nomination.
I'd pick someone else if they had boatloads of money.
Maybe Kerry will not have to mortgage the Renoirs after all...
Kevin
Apple still needs Microsoft Office and will not do anything to compete with Office. I think AppleWorks is kept alive just for the education market. A fair number of Macs are still sold dependent on having a compatible version of Office (even to the home users).
There is no upside to improving AppleWorks.
I do hope that Apple has an iOffice somewhere stashed away that could be released if Microsoft drops Office or makes some other competitive move.
Also, this is a niche that Open Source might eventually fill. I don't know how good OpenOffice is on other platforms, but it might be the ticket some day.
Kevin
More iBooks for Maine students
http://www.macsonly.com/index.html#1178
Kevin
iLife and DVD drives
Someone asked a while ago whether iLife required a DVD drive.
Well, iLife comes with two installation disks. The first is a DVD that has everything on it and the second has iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie.
So, GarageBand and iDVD require a DVD drive to install, but you can upgrade to the new iPhoto and iMovie even if you only have a CD drive.
Kevin
In twenty minutes or so, I watched about a dozen iPods (6 15GB and 6 20GB) being sold at the Apple Store. Half the people were young with their parents buying the iPod for them. Almost all the iPods on display in the store had someone playing around with them (around 20 units on display). Lots of younger people hoping to scrape enough together to get one.
I don't think demand has slacked one bit (maybe the urgency to get one by Christmas has past, but those that didn't get one now know they have to save up to get one themselves).
Kevin
I'll bet you that iPod unit sales will be higher this quarter than last. That is, Apple sells more than 733,000. If they don't, it will be because Apple remains conservative and doesn't make enough.
I'm assuming iPod minis will be available early in February and they don't have problems ramping up production and that they satisfy demand by the end of the quarter.
Note that iPod sales have been growing very quickly and the only reason they didn't sell more over Christmas was they couldn't make them fast enough. The world has billions of people in it and it should be a snap to keep the growth going.
Kevin
PageMaker was replaced by InDesign (a very nice modern program). Adobe makes a plug-in to transition users to InDesign but make it look "PageMaker-like".
As to FrameMaker, it doesn't have much of an installed base anymore. We still have a few documents at work that are in FrameMaker (we run FrameMaker on AIX), but almost all documents are now done in Word.
Word and the Microsoft Office apps are a monopoly in business and you aren't going to see any of the big word processors of the past like WordPerfect and FrameMaker anymore. There just isn't enough of a market to continue to put these programs out.
Adobe has a full line of products for Mac OS X. It may not be their major money makers anymore since Apple's market share has dwindled, but just like Microsoft Office, they are still very profitable to the company and they aren't going away.
Kevin
Cotton - You were looking for signs that companies are hiring again.
IBM is hiring.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040117/tech_ibm_8.html
I've noticed that hiring is happening in the software industry (I work in the Unix/Linux software market) and this helps confirm what I am seeing.
Some of these jobs are outside the US, but there is a good number of them in the US and I can tell you that these jobs are good paying jobs (at least the one's in the US).
Kevin
The ML analyst estimates that 600,000 iPods will be sold this quarter. Not much of a drop and I bet it is very conservative. Really, they couldn't make enough so it will probably depend on how many they make as to how many they sell.
Kevin
I was in the Apple Store in Northern Virginia (Tysons Corner) today to pick up a copy of iLife.
The joint was jumping. People everywhere. 6 checkout stations all busy all the time. Laptops and iPods flying out the door (even saw one 15" iMac sold, no G5s). It was amazing how many people were buying accessories for iPod.
In fact, the store's emphasis is at least 50% on iPod now. iPods are on display everywhere (maybe 20 or so out on display hooked up to everything).
Lots of people walking out with iLife. I was there for about 15 minutes and saw maybe 40 copies sold. I expect they will be out of stock shortly.
No 40GB iPods sold though. Sales of iPod seemed split between the 15GB model and the 20GB model.
I guess this isn't surprising since the Apple Retail stores turned a $9M profit last quarter with another $52M in profit to Apple from the items they sold (this is almost all the profit Apple made).
Kevin
I'm not sure I agree with you that my having a goal affected my trade on AAPL.
Of all the stocks I own, I follow AAPL the closest. This "I'm in love with the company" probably has caused me to hold through earnings.
On the other hand, I'm still convince (even after two slightly down days) that AAPL will break $25 soon. The fundamentals are just too good and the overall market is with us. And, we now have a few analysts upgrades (something that people often dismiss but can be a powerful short term stimulus to stock price).
If I had to do it over, I would sell one third before earnings. I had entered the order to do so, but couldn't pull the trigger. But, I wasn't thinking of my eventual goal when I will be able to retire. In fact, I liquidated everything but two stocks to reduce my risk (I felt the two stocks I kept weren't at a good sell point yet - when they are, I will be in cash again). I am still short of my goal, but there comes a time when you make so much money in a few short weeks, that you want to take the profits and start over.
Of course, unlike Linda, I'm not in that much of a hurry to get to my end goal. Linda seems desperate and I worry about her ending up on perpetual margin and getting wiped out. I don't know her trading style, but she did say she received some margin calls a few weeks ago. This means that as her stocks grow, she is buying more, maxing out the margin (or coming close).
As you know from Elliot Wave, stocks, even those that keep going up, tend to retrace around 60% of the gains from time to time. If Linda is highly margined, these retracements can have a devastating affect on the value in her account. The worst thing about margin is that when you start getting margin calls, you have no choice but to sell when things are low. As long as your stocks are rising, no one forces you to sell (and Linda seems to be increasing her leverage). But, when things retrace (as they always do), you are forced to take losses.
Anyway, enough on the evils of margin. If you are going on margin, make sure you aren't maximally margined (that you have a cushion if the stocks retrace their recent gains) or make sure it is a very temporary situation because you think things are surging and you will get out if things retrace.
Kevin
Interesting interview with an HP guy on Mac Night Owl last night:
rtsp://stream.mactvnetwork.com/nightowl_archive/nightowl_01_16_04.mov
Advance to the 12 minute mark for the start of the interview.
Not a whole lot of news, but interesting like they haven't picked the final color yet for the HPod. Contrary to the rumors, it is good to hear the scoop directly from HP.
Kevin
I was looking at the charts of stocks I sold recently, and people here might want to check out MOT. It really is on a roll (stock price wise). Although MOT is dumping its semiconductor division, it is really becoming a darling (for a large cap). It doesn't hurt that it does a good (but still small) business in China.
Just thought I'd point it out... maybe a good momentum trade?
Kevin
Nope. I bought a hundred K worth of one stock I had sold a couple days ago that was $2 lower (now went up half a dollar), but other than that, I'm sitting on some cash looking to sell out of all my SGI and AAPL. Oh! I did buy another 50K shares of SGI at $2.84 yesterday (or was it the day before).
So, I'm sitting on a boatload of AAPL and some SGI and a very little of another stock (just looking for the $2 pop).
I hope to go to cash soon. I blew it with AAPL as I should have sold some or all when I was liquidating earlier this week. I'd be a buyer now for a $1.50 less so I would have pocketed a good chunk of money. I did go to enter an order for AAPL at $22.50 yesterday, but I couldn't pull the trigger (I have too many shares now).
Anyway, since I'm off margin, the pressure is really off with AAPL. I'm not diversified, but I have confidence that AAPL will be higher than it is now sometime in the future and hopefully I can pull the sell trigger.
That's where I stand. I have to get back to work soon (I'm doing a month in England), but after that, I'm going to take a swat at being more serious about my trading (and learning when to take a profit or swallow a loss).
Kevin
Spymac 3 goes online
http://www.spymac.com/
Looking for an alternative to .Mac? Looks like the folks at Spymac are giving it a try. You might want to check it out.
Kevin
G5 really do scream on certain applications. I know the software I work on is very compute intensive. We don't run on OS X, but we do support Linux on both Intel and the G5. Our test jobs that run over night are 4 times faster on the dual 2.0 G5s than on dual 2.8GHz Dells we currently test on. Both have the same amount of memory.
On the G5, we can turn around testing in an afternoon while we have to wait overnight for the Dell results.
Note the testing jobs do lots of disk accessing so it may be that the G5 are just so much better at moving data through the system than the Intel computers are.
Kevin
Religion isn't all about avoiding Hell. It is mostly about having a place with God. Many Christians don't even believe in Hell. The punishment is simply to be left outside the presence of God and the other believers. Most of the world's major religions really teach having personal conduct that is along the lines of the Golden Rule ("do unto others as you would have them do unto you").
I also agree that you can never tell whether someone is a true believer, especially politicians and those that would seek fame (like some of those TV preachers that end up be phonies). You have to put yourself in their place and see if you would do the same thing. I remember Clinton hurling a few missiles in Iraq at the height of the Lewinski scandal. I thought that showed his true character better than even his sexual addiction (addiction is a powerful thing, but hurling missiles to divert attention and not following up is just a tragedy).
Kevin
OT: I don't blame Bush for wanting to take out Saddam even before 9/11. I was all for taking him out in 1991 when we had a chance. A lot of innocent people died when we didn't follow up. It was a judgment call then, but Bush made the case this time around and prosecuted the war in the most humane way our technology allows. And, we aren't cutting and running this time and leaving the good people of Iraq hanging out to dry (no matter what it costs).
Good riddance... The Middle East is better off.
Kevin
re: morality and Christianity
I didn't mean to single out Christianity. If he was a devout Muslim (not the radical kind, but one that believes in a higher power and that you will one day be held accountable) or was a devout Jew or whatever, I would think the same.
I believe that if a person really believes in God (whatever the religion) and that he will be held accountable for his actions, that that person will likely have higher morals.
If you don't believe that there is a God, the tendency is to do things that make you happy even if it comes at the expense of others. After all, when you and your family die, you will just blink out of existence. I think this probably motivated Saddam to take some of the actions he did.
I would hope that someone of real religious belief would never do things like Saddam did.
Kevin
A couple of things to remember on G5 performance...
IBM just released their G5-optimizing xlC compilers for Mac OS X. I work on AIX systems (where these compilers originate) and the IBM compilers produce much better PowerPC code than the GCC compilers. I'd expect an average of 30% to 50% on many processor intensive operations by simply changing compilers.
Also, Apple really hasn't optimized OS X yet for the G5. The G5 is in so few Macs, that Apple has to keep the compiler switches to generate good G4 code. Once the G5 is in the majority of Apple's computers, they will turn on the G5 optimizations (which will run on the G4, only with a potential performance penalty).
Finally, the current G5s are the first of their kind. If IBM and Apple deliver 3GHz G5s by this summer, they will be very competitive.
I have a dream that the twentieth anniversary Mac has 3GHz G5s in them (could probably happen if they only need limited quantities).
Kevin
Amazingly, options expiration looks like it is making AAPL go out near $22.50 today.
Some day, I would like someone that really knows this stuff, if the market makers in the NASDAQ really can make the stock go in the direction they want for a couple days just before expiration. I would think most of these options writers that are market makers in the stock have hedged their positions with common well before the last few days before expiration. I would think they make their money off the commissions and not by playing options themselves.
But, it does seem uncanny how stocks sometimes move on days like this.
Oops! Just got a little buying spike in AAPL. Let's see where it goes out.
Kevin