Barry Bazzell - Seeking Alpha 'Barry Bazzell' Tag RSS Syndication from SeekingAlpha.com SeekingAlpha.com http://seekingalpha.com/author/barry-bazzell Tech Stocks: Anatomy of a Recession-Proof Fund http://seekingalpha.com/article/127898-tech-stocks-anatomy-of-a-recession-proof-fund?source=feed 127898 A stock fund focused on companies with the largest cash reserves and little relative debt is outperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin. BIG, a Marketocracy virtual fund composed of such stocks managed by yours truly, has outperformed all U.S. large cap growth and value funds tracked by Morningstar over the past three months.


]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:46:38 -0400 Barry Bazzell A stock fund focused on companies with the largest cash reserves and little relative debt is outperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin. BIG, a Marketocracy virtual fund composed of such stocks managed by yours truly, has outperformed all U.S. large cap growth and value funds tracked by Morningstar over the past three months.



Complete Story »]]> AAP ABB AMAT CAJ CSCO TECH Barry Bazzell Charles Schwab - Conservative but Smart http://seekingalpha.com/article/120776-charles-schwab-conservative-but-smart?source=feed 120776 Charles Schwab (SCHW) gained $22 billion in new client assets during the fourth quarter. The online broker got over 200,000 new 401(K) plan participants and brought in an unprecedented $13 billion in assets from disgruntled investment advisors who left other firms. This is probably an ongoing trend given the disillusionment with Wall Street wire houses. Over the past five years, assets transferred to Schwab from other companies has quadrupled.
Registered Investment Advisors ((RIA)) are "the fastest growth channel in the wealth management business today," said Fred Tomczyk, the new TD Ameritrade CEO, at a recent conference for bank investors in New York. The disaffected brokers mostly come from the large wire house firms such as Morgan Stanley (MS), Merrill Lynch, UBS (UBS) and Smith Barney. Schwab now supports some 5,500 RIAs, more than any other firm. The San Francisco broker is talking with about 400 prospects who manage some $35 billion, according to Bernie Clark, senior vice president of sales at the firm's advisor services unit. Clark says that about $600 billion of assets controlled by brokers moves from one firm to another each year - mostly between wire houses. Schwab anticipates gaining $50 billion of this traffic.
Two UBS brokers, Paul Weinstein and Nadine Wilkes, left the outfit in 2008 because of the way it handled the controversy over auction rate securities, reports the Financial Advisor. The investments were promoted as cash equivalents, but turned out to be frozen assets. The two said they left the wire house business altogether because their clients were defecting, unhappy with UBS and its handling of the auction securities.
Mindy Diamond, a headhunter with Diamond Consultants in Chester, New Jersey, said:

Certainly there are plenty of advisors who feel incredibly frustrated, sold out if you will, and really lost confidence in the senior management at their firms, particularly Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney. Those would be the top two, particularly because (the advisors there have) seen their entire deferred compensation, which is their wealth accumulation, blow up. They've lost confidence in senior leadership and they felt people were asleep at the wheel. That's a common complaint.

In 2009, Schwab will be offering exchange-traded funds ((ETF)) for the first time. They will be competing against other big ETF firms, including Barclays, State Street and Vanguard. The only ETF mentioned specifically in Schwab's Securities and Exchange Commission filing will be similar to State Street's Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Index.
CEO Charles Schwab, in a 2007 interview with Money Magazine, was asked what financial advice he would give to young people. "Buy index funds and ETFs. That might not seem like enough action to a 25-year-old, but it's the smartest thing to do." Schwab's conservative strategy prevented it from getting involved in risky investment banking and has not received any TARP bailout funds. Schwab pioneered discount online stock trading. Its more expensive full service Wall Street brokerage competition is in disarray.
Today, many big Wall Street brokerages are under the big tent of the still solvent large banks. New York bankers and brokers do not seem to have learned from history. The failure of New York's Bank of the United States in 1930 is seen by many historians to have started the collapse of the banking industry during the Great Depression. The Bank of the U.S. had heavily invested in real estate, which helped lead to its downfall. Milton Freedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz called it the biggest failure in American banking up to that time.
"Go west, young man" is a quote made famous in an 1865 editorial by Horace Greeley. In 1841, he launched the New York Tribune, which he used to espouse his political views including western settlement. Perhaps we should look to the west for ideas about solving today's financial crisis!
Disclosure: no positions
]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:44:58 -0500 Barry Bazzell Charles Schwab (SCHW) gained $22 billion in new client assets during the fourth quarter. The online broker got over 200,000 new 401(K) plan participants and brought in an unprecedented $13 billion in assets from disgruntled investment advisors who left other firms. This is probably an ongoing trend given the disillusionment with Wall Street wire houses. Over the past five years, assets transferred to Schwab from other companies has quadrupled.
Registered Investment Advisors ((RIA)) are "the fastest growth channel in the wealth management business today," said Fred Tomczyk, the new TD Ameritrade CEO, at a recent conference for bank investors in New York. The disaffected brokers mostly come from the large wire house firms such as Morgan Stanley (MS), Merrill Lynch, UBS (UBS) and Smith Barney. Schwab now supports some 5,500 RIAs, more than any other firm. The San Francisco broker is talking with about 400 prospects who manage some $35 billion, according to Bernie Clark, senior vice president of sales at the firm's advisor services unit. Clark says that about $600 billion of assets controlled by brokers moves from one firm to another each year - mostly between wire houses. Schwab anticipates gaining $50 billion of this traffic.
Two UBS brokers, Paul Weinstein and Nadine Wilkes, left the outfit in 2008 because of the way it handled the controversy over auction rate securities, reports the Financial Advisor. The investments were promoted as cash equivalents, but turned out to be frozen assets. The two said they left the wire house business altogether because their clients were defecting, unhappy with UBS and its handling of the auction securities.
Mindy Diamond, a headhunter with Diamond Consultants in Chester, New Jersey, said:

Certainly there are plenty of advisors who feel incredibly frustrated, sold out if you will, and really lost confidence in the senior management at their firms, particularly Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney. Those would be the top two, particularly because (the advisors there have) seen their entire deferred compensation, which is their wealth accumulation, blow up. They've lost confidence in senior leadership and they felt people were asleep at the wheel. That's a common complaint.

In 2009, Schwab will be offering exchange-traded funds ((ETF)) for the first time. They will be competing against other big ETF firms, including Barclays, State Street and Vanguard. The only ETF mentioned specifically in Schwab's Securities and Exchange Commission filing will be similar to State Street's Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Index.
CEO Charles Schwab, in a 2007 interview with Money Magazine, was asked what financial advice he would give to young people. "Buy index funds and ETFs. That might not seem like enough action to a 25-year-old, but it's the smartest thing to do." Schwab's conservative strategy prevented it from getting involved in risky investment banking and has not received any TARP bailout funds. Schwab pioneered discount online stock trading. Its more expensive full service Wall Street brokerage competition is in disarray.
Today, many big Wall Street brokerages are under the big tent of the still solvent large banks. New York bankers and brokers do not seem to have learned from history. The failure of New York's Bank of the United States in 1930 is seen by many historians to have started the collapse of the banking industry during the Great Depression. The Bank of the U.S. had heavily invested in real estate, which helped lead to its downfall. Milton Freedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz called it the biggest failure in American banking up to that time.
"Go west, young man" is a quote made famous in an 1865 editorial by Horace Greeley. In 1841, he launched the New York Tribune, which he used to espouse his political views including western settlement. Perhaps we should look to the west for ideas about solving today's financial crisis!
Disclosure: no positions

Complete Story »]]> SCHW Barry Bazzell Rumors Cloud the Intel - Nvidia Turf War http://seekingalpha.com/article/119578-rumors-cloud-the-intel-nvidia-turf-war?source=feed 119578 As Intel's (INTC) battle with Nvidia (NVDA) heats up, the chip giant is having trouble keeping its powder dry. Intel rushed a new netbook processor to market ahead of schedule in response to the threat from Nvidia's Ion platform, which also targets the netbook market. The new Atom N280 processor is paired with a chipset that allows users to watch high-definition content on netbooks while using less power. Intel originally developed the Atom N270 with the 945GSE chipset for netbooks to run basic applications, which did not include hardware-based HD video decoders. The Ion platform allows netbooks to display 1080p HD content, which is superior even to Intel's new Atom chip.

A revolution in parallel computing has put Intel on the defensive. Its lethargic legacy CPU serial computing empire is being threatened by faster GPU parallel technology which needs less power. Nvidia's confident leader, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, is often denigrated the way the head of any rebellion would be. The turf war has escalated to the point where rumors make it difficult to see who is winning the numerous battles. The battlefronts most subject to rumors include smartphones, game consoles and partnerships with Apple (AAPL).

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:59:42 -0500 Barry Bazzell As Intel's (INTC) battle with Nvidia (NVDA) heats up, the chip giant is having trouble keeping its powder dry. Intel rushed a new netbook processor to market ahead of schedule in response to the threat from Nvidia's Ion platform, which also targets the netbook market. The new Atom N280 processor is paired with a chipset that allows users to watch high-definition content on netbooks while using less power. Intel originally developed the Atom N270 with the 945GSE chipset for netbooks to run basic applications, which did not include hardware-based HD video decoders. The Ion platform allows netbooks to display 1080p HD content, which is superior even to Intel's new Atom chip.

A revolution in parallel computing has put Intel on the defensive. Its lethargic legacy CPU serial computing empire is being threatened by faster GPU parallel technology which needs less power. Nvidia's confident leader, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, is often denigrated the way the head of any rebellion would be. The turf war has escalated to the point where rumors make it difficult to see who is winning the numerous battles. The battlefronts most subject to rumors include smartphones, game consoles and partnerships with Apple (AAPL).


Complete Story »]]> AMD INTC NVDA Barry Bazzell Intel's Battle with NVIDIA Takes Shape http://seekingalpha.com/article/117969-intel-s-battle-with-nvidia-takes-shape?source=feed 117969 Intel (INTC) is being forced to reinvent itself in order to maintain its leading position in the semiconductor industry. Intel is the king of serial computing. A paradigm shift is taking place, however, and parallel computing is the new game in town. Parallel processing has to do with the practice of writing programming instructions that are divided among multiple processors. Parallel processing on a single chip across multiple cores is faster and uses less power than its legacy serial counterpart.

There is a David and Goliath struggle taking place today between the incumbent chip giant and upstart Nvidia (NVDA), the leading maker of computer graphics cards. A graphics processing unit or GPU uses parallel processing. The expertise that Nvidia has developed designing the GPU has put it in the enviable position of now being able to challenge Intel's CPU domain. To be fair, Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) ATI unit also makes graphics cards. However, it does not have the deep pockets to produce premium graphics cards, which require heavy capital expenditures. It will fare no better in this battle with Intel than it has in the past. It continues to hemorrhage red ink, which, despite a respected brain trust, was its Achilles' heel in the past.

]]> Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:36:34 -0500 Barry Bazzell Intel (INTC) is being forced to reinvent itself in order to maintain its leading position in the semiconductor industry. Intel is the king of serial computing. A paradigm shift is taking place, however, and parallel computing is the new game in town. Parallel processing has to do with the practice of writing programming instructions that are divided among multiple processors. Parallel processing on a single chip across multiple cores is faster and uses less power than its legacy serial counterpart.

There is a David and Goliath struggle taking place today between the incumbent chip giant and upstart Nvidia (NVDA), the leading maker of computer graphics cards. A graphics processing unit or GPU uses parallel processing. The expertise that Nvidia has developed designing the GPU has put it in the enviable position of now being able to challenge Intel's CPU domain. To be fair, Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) ATI unit also makes graphics cards. However, it does not have the deep pockets to produce premium graphics cards, which require heavy capital expenditures. It will fare no better in this battle with Intel than it has in the past. It continues to hemorrhage red ink, which, despite a respected brain trust, was its Achilles' heel in the past.


Complete Story »]]> AMD INTC NVDA Barry Bazzell