Market is already hugely overextended. INTC can't execute, GE suffering in long cycle businesses, consumers spending more than they earn, national and consumer debt at record levels, dollar getting crushed, high oil passthrough now 6 mos old.... Where's the silver lining except among IPO issuers and corporate insiders KaliCo??? Isn't this "baked in" ?
S&P Keeps Strong Buy on Microsoft
Plus analysts' opinions on Blockbuster, Verizon, and more
Microsoft (MSFT ): Reiterates 5 STARS (strong buy)
Analyst: Jonathan Rudy, CFA- S&P
With Microsoft's $32 billion special dividend being distributed to investors on Dec. 2, along with an additional $1 billion for the company's regular quarterly dividend, we believe that shares of Microsoft could benefit from investors re-investing a notable percentage of these funds back into the company. We are impressed by the demonstration of the company's willingness to return capital to shareholders, and by its $30 billion stock buyback program supported by what we view as strong free cash flow. Our 12-month target price of $33 is based on our discounted-cash-flow and relative valuation analyses.
Vulgarities at Nasdaq
By Bill Mann (TMF Otter) - December 1, 2004
There's a brand new vulgarity at the Nasdaq stock market. No, I'm not talking about the absurd prices for many technology and Internet stocks; I'm talking about the Nasdaq 100 Trust (Nasdaq: QQQQ). This exchange-traded fund has been in existence for several years and has traded in the past on the American Stock Exchange under the ticker QQQ. This never made much sense to me: If the Nasdaq is a stock market, and we're talking about 100 of the biggest Nasdaq stocks -- Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Costco (Nasdaq: COST), et al. -- then why wouldn't the Nasdaq 100 trade on the Nasdaq? It didn't even make sense when Nasdaq owned the AmEx. But for all of its failings as an exchange for companies, the AmEx has become the default exchange for ETFs, including all the biggies: SPDR (AMEX: SPY), Diamonds (AMEX: DIA), and so on.
Apparently the folks at Nasdaq agreed with me, and this week the Nasdaq 100 Trust ETF began trading on its exchange. But on AmEx, tickers are at most three letters long; on Nasdaq they are a minimum of four. So what to do? Add a Q on the end, of course!
So I have a question. If Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (NYSE: MMM) is called 3M, then wouldn't QQQQ be called... ?
Uh-huh. It's not like I thought of this first. Several states prohibit QQQQ vanity license plates for the same reason. How it is that the folks at Nasdaq didn't think of this before they changed the ticker? Or maybe they did, and thought it would be pretty funny nonetheless.
I dunno. But if it's the latter, that's a pretty curious marketing decision.
Bill Mann thinks the ticker NRBQ would be much better
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