It's a question of when, not if, we get a third round of easing from the Fed, observes PIMCO Managing Director Neel Kashkari. All ears will be tuned in to Mr. Bernanke at Jackson Hole in the hope that he'll give some clarity, but it's not likely he will. Nevertheless, Kashkari says, more easing is already being priced in. [View news story]
Neel Cash and Carry, the man who handed out the TARP cash by the eighteen wheeler to the banks before taking the revolving door to the private sector, now shares his wisdom with us, whom he looted by cheapening our savings and cash....Thanks Neel, looks like you feathered your nest before you left the government.
Facebook Target Price Is $5, But More If Zuckerberg Quits [View article]
And since you believe in the efficient market hypothesis, why are you even here? Shouldn't you be buying all the indexes and every other asset class as a proportionate share of the economy. To quote the efficient market hypothesis and show up on SA is like claiming to be an atheist and then attending church...
Facebook Target Price Is $5, But More If Zuckerberg Quits [View article]
I don't believe the author is a bully for stating his opinion against the CEO of a publicly traded company. He states his reasons for doing so. As for his caring about your or anyone "investment circumstance" are you implying before he writes an article on the short side of the opinion, he should check with long holders of the stock? Do you expect the reverse too? This is an investing website and people like me are interested in hearing all sides of the story regardless of whether or not we agree with the author.
Your post would have been more useful to all of us if you specfically stated WHY you think the author is wrong instead of making it a personal attack upon the author. There is not a single fact or business precept in your post. It's a good idea in the long run to separate emotions and investing.
Apple-Samsung commentary: 1) Tristan Louis considers Apple a winner (strategy validated) and a loser (image could suffer). He also views startups (more exposed to software patent suits) and consumers as losers. 2) Jesus Diaz: "Apple's court triumph will drive innovation, not stifle it," as the industry works harder to differentiate. 3) Dan Rowinski: "Can anyone say that Samsung could win a case with a Californian jury in the shadow of Cupertino? Samsung never really stood a chance." [View news story]
Two strongest claims asserted by Apple are a) the trade dress (i.e. only Apple can produce a phone with a rectangular glass screen on the front) b) the pinch to zoom.
Both of these are also the weakest to defend against in appeal. In this case Judge Koh bent over backward to ensure that Samsung would not be able to present prior art on the rectangular screen and also prevented Samsung from introducing evidence invalidating the pinch to zoom patent.
Not that it would have mattered this jury (must have been a good reunion for the OJ jury). But I cannot foresee the trade dress argument being upheld without chaos in the economy. Have you ever seen a DSLR, a flat screen TV, or a box fan or a blender or virtually any class of device, they all tend to look grossly alike as form follow function just as every car has four wheels and a steering wheel.
Apple produced some unbelievable testimony such as a Apple Mac designer claiming that she could not tell the difference between a 4.8 inch Samsung Galaxy S II and a 3.5 inch iPhone even when she held them in her hands and turned them on. A OJ type jury in Silicon Valley with jingoistic emotions is one thing, cold hard review in appeals court is another.
On another front, I've been struck by the amount of racist anti-asian comments spewed out on virtually every forum, SA, WSJ, you name it.
How much of Sprint's "earnings" result from the massive impairments of the Nextel platforms, which have the convenient effect of reducing/shifting amortization expenses out of the operating section and into "one time charges", while keeping the revenues in the operating section and thus grossly inflating earnings?
The postpaid subs gains on the sprint platform in the last quarter were 442,000 of which 431,000 came from Nextel. Clearly Sprint is not doing a good job of attracting subs from Verizon or At&T. The net "port positive" from other carriers was a measly 11,000 for the quarter. I shudder to even think what the acquisition cost per subscriber must be, when you attract only 11,000 in a quarter. Overall Sprint is still shedding postpaid subs.
I would no more buy a 20 year Sprint bond than buy auto manufacturer bonds.
Remedial Math For Business Reporters Covering Salesforce.com [View article]
Management and employees are busy converting the funny money (CRM stock) to real cash. The ones left holding the bag will be the investors who are fool enough to long the stock.
Remedial Math For Business Reporters Covering Salesforce.com [View article]
Interesting link. In effect CRM is functioning as a central bank issuing stock in lieu of currency. The stock/"CRM Currency" (currency) has value only as long as investors believe that the revenues (economy) is growing faster than stock dilution (inflation).
Hence the desperate urge by Benioff and Co. to seek revenues by any means at any cost. One of the biggest red flags in financial gimmicks is a constant stream of acquisitions, where one can record all kinds of impairments, restructuring charges and other "one time" items in the non operating sections thus reducing expenses and future amortization charges, while recording the revenues in the operating sections, thus boosting revenues and earnings.
CRM is applying Keynesian economics and Enron accounting to an equity! I've often pondered buying LEAPs to short CRM, but I'm always dissuaded by the Greater Fool Theory, arguing to myself, that I can perfectly see some foolish ego driven CEO buying CRM at $250 a share. When Skype and Instagram and Palm and EDS sold at sky high valuations, why not CRM?
Apple-Samsung commentary: 1) Tristan Louis considers Apple a winner (strategy validated) and a loser (image could suffer). He also views startups (more exposed to software patent suits) and consumers as losers. 2) Jesus Diaz: "Apple's court triumph will drive innovation, not stifle it," as the industry works harder to differentiate. 3) Dan Rowinski: "Can anyone say that Samsung could win a case with a Californian jury in the shadow of Cupertino? Samsung never really stood a chance." [View news story]
Apple had the element of surprise inasmuch as no one seriouslys thought it could win a trade dress case or have it's patents upheld. The next case everyone knows what to expect. Sort of like WW II when blitzkreig took people by surprise. By December 1941, it was being employed against those who pioneered it. Expect every phone manufacturer to patent every little thing and woe betide Apple. I think they have made things difficult for everyone else and themselves to boot.
Apple (AAPL) is seeking U.S. bans on 8 Samsung (SSNLF.PK) smartphones, Bloomberg reports. The devices include four Galaxy S II models and the Epic 4G, but not the Galaxy S III or the Galaxy Nexus. The S III was launched too late to be included in Apple's suit, thus an injunction request might require another legal action. But the Nexus was declared to be infringing - was it spared due to its use of stock Android (previous), or is it already covered by a pre-trial injunction? (more) [View news story]
I wonder why everyone is so sure that Apple is immune from being the defendant. In this case they performed an orchestrated mugging of Samsung that Samsung did not expect.
I think Apple is more vulnerable because they usually have one single marquee phone model and all their phones run the same operating system and they have the most money in the bank.
Add to the fact that their phone lineage doesn't go back very far, if I was a troll, the juiciest target on the horizon is ....Apple. A phone is made up of thousands of little pieces of intellectual property. Much of it is patented and patents are held by others.
Now with Apple's scorched earth policy and also by demonstrating the low bar to winning, no one has slightest reason to hold back from suing Apple. whether you are a phone manufacturer or a NPE troll. Apple has just put itself against the entire world. Remember the first battle is not the war. The SCOTUS has proved much less sympathetic to patent claims than lower courts. The perfect example was Myriad Genetics, which won in all the lower courts to finally lose in the SCOTUS.
Sprint Could Win The Unlimited Data Battle [View article]
In war, you have to plan based on the capabilities of enemy not their intent.
Simply put, if Sprint were to actually gain any significant market share at the expense of Verizon or AT&T then they would quickly match Sprint's offer. Hence while Sprint has an advantage now, it is not a sustainable advantage.
Secondly, if there is a shortage of spectrum/bandwidth then eventually Sprint will run into it as well. If there is no shortage of spectrum/bandwidth then nothing stops Verizon/AT&T from matching Sprint's offer if they lose any market share. So I do not believe that Sprint will ever gain any significant market share at the expense of Verizon/At&T.
Another possiblity is that Verizon/At&T might be trying encourage adverse selection of high data usage customers by the Sprint platform. They can finely calibrate this by adjusting the data cap of their plans to capture the bulk of the low data usage customers. they can always adjust the cap upward to capture as many customers as they want while leaving the data hogs to Sprint.
Thirdly, Sprint's ARPU growth and postpaid Sprint platform growth are a result of a massive exodus of Nextel customers that were captured as a one time event in the 2Q and unlikely to be repeated in the 3Q (please read the earnings conference call).
I also find it disturbing that such a huge proportion of subscriber adds are from cannibalization. 431,000 of 442,000 of the subscriber "adds" came from Nextel! On the actual "port postive" boast which Sprint management used to refer to how many subscribers left Sprint vs. how many joined Sprint, the total of these, thus cannot exceed 11,000 subscribers, a tiny number indeed.
Fourthly, Sprint's earnings have been goosed by massive impairments of the Nextel ($782 million + 184 million). Which has the convenient effect of reducing amortization expenses for the succeeding quarters , while still generating the revenues and thus inflating profits. in 2Q this effect was $85 million. And that is not counting the benefits of reduced amortization charges from previous impairments. Always be suspicious when a company "updates" it's view on the useful life of assets, it's usually a huge accounting red flag.
I believe now that the Nextel impairments appear to be coming to an end, Sprint management is impairing CLWR to create a reserve that can be used to goose earnings. I believe the quality of Sprint's earnings reports are poor.
Fifthly, I believe the 3Q reports will be poor in terms of post paid subscriber adds as Nextel winds down further and ARPU, but will be earnings goosed by reduced amortization charges. I believe there is also downside risk of a negative earnings surprise from recent discounting of iPhones and offers of gift cards etc.
Due to all these reasons and the fact that no one seems to question the numbers put out by Sprint, I am neither long nor short S. I am bearish, but recognize that the market can stay bullish/irrational longer than I can stay solvent.
"Come on. This is farce," says tech legal site Groklaw, incredulous Apple-Samsung jurors took only 21 hours to deliberate over a 700-question form one lawyer says would take him 3 days to understand. Groklaw is also unimpressed with contradictory statements from jurors, several verdict inconsistencies, and the fact jurors reached a decision without reading a 109-page instruction form (.pdf). Some lawyers are predicting this case will reach the Supreme Court, due to the issues it raises about UI and design patents. (more) [View news story]
Stick to coding. The law says it is wrong to steal. Juries don't get to make law...juries merely get to decide *whether* someone has in fact stolen...
"Come on. This is farce," says tech legal site Groklaw, incredulous Apple-Samsung jurors took only 21 hours to deliberate over a 700-question form one lawyer says would take him 3 days to understand. Groklaw is also unimpressed with contradictory statements from jurors, several verdict inconsistencies, and the fact jurors reached a decision without reading a 109-page instruction form (.pdf). Some lawyers are predicting this case will reach the Supreme Court, due to the issues it raises about UI and design patents. (more) [View news story]
Really...the next higher court (which incidentally specializes in IP issues) overturns 50% of the jury verdicts (read the WSJ...either then the procedure in trial courts are extremely sloppy or the higher court is finding that juries don't know their heads from their rear ends....
"Come on. This is farce," says tech legal site Groklaw, incredulous Apple-Samsung jurors took only 21 hours to deliberate over a 700-question form one lawyer says would take him 3 days to understand. Groklaw is also unimpressed with contradictory statements from jurors, several verdict inconsistencies, and the fact jurors reached a decision without reading a 109-page instruction form (.pdf). Some lawyers are predicting this case will reach the Supreme Court, due to the issues it raises about UI and design patents. (more) [View news story]
Agreed. Or smart enough to have negotiated a nice deal with Apple for jobs or stock at an Apple funded entity....
Samsung (SSNLF.PK), unsurprisingly, plans to appeal its harsh legal loss to Apple (AAPL). Apple's response to the jury's verdict: "We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right." Samsung's response: "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies." (more) [View news story]
Looks like the bulk of your profession at tech law website groklaw disagrees with you....
Samsung (SSNLF.PK), unsurprisingly, plans to appeal its harsh legal loss to Apple (AAPL). Apple's response to the jury's verdict: "We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right." Samsung's response: "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies." (more) [View news story]
Hmm... given Koh's pro Apple rulings such as
a) allowing Apple to stash its chief designer in Hawaii for the duration of the trial b) allowing Apple to "find" only 55 emails in the entire company dealing with either the iPhone or iPad c) allowing expert testimony without an explanation of how the experts reached the conclusion forcing Samsung to decide whether to cross Apple's own experts to even bring out their basic testimony before beginning to even cross them. d) suppressing Samsung's prior designs and many of Samsung's witnesses e) allowing only 25 hours of time to Samsung to present on 600 questions in the jury verdict form (about 2.5 minutes of court time per question the jury was asked to decide) f) forcing Samsung to grant discovery from the date of the alleged infringement while allowing Apple to only turn over documents after the FILING date (thus allowing Apple to fish further back in time) h) going to great lengths to suppress evidence from Samsung prior to the iPhone announcement
I could go on and on and on...but Judge Koh basically acted the part of someone who, any reasonable observer would conclude, seemed to have some sort of revolving door arrangement with Apple.
It's a question of when, not if, we get a third round of easing from the Fed, observes PIMCO Managing Director Neel Kashkari. All ears will be tuned in to Mr. Bernanke at Jackson Hole in the hope that he'll give some clarity, but it's not likely he will. Nevertheless, Kashkari says, more easing is already being priced in. [View news story]
Facebook Target Price Is $5, But More If Zuckerberg Quits [View article]
Facebook Target Price Is $5, But More If Zuckerberg Quits [View article]
Your post would have been more useful to all of us if you specfically stated WHY you think the author is wrong instead of making it a personal attack upon the author. There is not a single fact or business precept in your post. It's a good idea in the long run to separate emotions and investing.
Apple-Samsung commentary: 1) Tristan Louis considers Apple a winner (strategy validated) and a loser (image could suffer). He also views startups (more exposed to software patent suits) and consumers as losers. 2) Jesus Diaz: "Apple's court triumph will drive innovation, not stifle it," as the industry works harder to differentiate. 3) Dan Rowinski: "Can anyone say that Samsung could win a case with a Californian jury in the shadow of Cupertino? Samsung never really stood a chance." [View news story]
Both of these are also the weakest to defend against in appeal. In this case Judge Koh bent over backward to ensure that Samsung would not be able to present prior art on the rectangular screen and also prevented Samsung from introducing evidence invalidating the pinch to zoom patent.
Not that it would have mattered this jury (must have been a good reunion for the OJ jury). But I cannot foresee the trade dress argument being upheld without chaos in the economy. Have you ever seen a DSLR, a flat screen TV, or a box fan or a blender or virtually any class of device, they all tend to look grossly alike as form follow function just as every car has four wheels and a steering wheel.
Apple produced some unbelievable testimony such as a Apple Mac designer claiming that she could not tell the difference between a 4.8 inch Samsung Galaxy S II and a 3.5 inch iPhone even when she held them in her hands and turned them on. A OJ type jury in Silicon Valley with jingoistic emotions is one thing, cold hard review in appeals court is another.
On another front, I've been struck by the amount of racist anti-asian comments spewed out on virtually every forum, SA, WSJ, you name it.
Sprint Bonds Offer 8% Yields [View article]
The postpaid subs gains on the sprint platform in the last quarter were 442,000 of which 431,000 came from Nextel. Clearly Sprint is not doing a good job of attracting subs from Verizon or At&T. The net "port positive" from other carriers was a measly 11,000 for the quarter. I shudder to even think what the acquisition cost per subscriber must be, when you attract only 11,000 in a quarter. Overall Sprint is still shedding postpaid subs.
I would no more buy a 20 year Sprint bond than buy auto manufacturer bonds.
Remedial Math For Business Reporters Covering Salesforce.com [View article]
Remedial Math For Business Reporters Covering Salesforce.com [View article]
Hence the desperate urge by Benioff and Co. to seek revenues by any means at any cost. One of the biggest red flags in financial gimmicks is a constant stream of acquisitions, where one can record all kinds of impairments, restructuring charges and other "one time" items in the non operating sections thus reducing expenses and future amortization charges, while recording the revenues in the operating sections, thus boosting revenues and earnings.
CRM is applying Keynesian economics and Enron accounting to an equity! I've often pondered buying LEAPs to short CRM, but I'm always dissuaded by the Greater Fool Theory, arguing to myself, that I can perfectly see some foolish ego driven CEO buying CRM at $250 a share. When Skype and Instagram and Palm and EDS sold at sky high valuations, why not CRM?
Apple-Samsung commentary: 1) Tristan Louis considers Apple a winner (strategy validated) and a loser (image could suffer). He also views startups (more exposed to software patent suits) and consumers as losers. 2) Jesus Diaz: "Apple's court triumph will drive innovation, not stifle it," as the industry works harder to differentiate. 3) Dan Rowinski: "Can anyone say that Samsung could win a case with a Californian jury in the shadow of Cupertino? Samsung never really stood a chance." [View news story]
Apple (AAPL) is seeking U.S. bans on 8 Samsung (SSNLF.PK) smartphones, Bloomberg reports. The devices include four Galaxy S II models and the Epic 4G, but not the Galaxy S III or the Galaxy Nexus. The S III was launched too late to be included in Apple's suit, thus an injunction request might require another legal action. But the Nexus was declared to be infringing - was it spared due to its use of stock Android (previous), or is it already covered by a pre-trial injunction? (more) [View news story]
I think Apple is more vulnerable because they usually have one single marquee phone model and all their phones run the same operating system and they have the most money in the bank.
Add to the fact that their phone lineage doesn't go back very far, if I was a troll, the juiciest target on the horizon is ....Apple. A phone is made up of thousands of little pieces of intellectual property. Much of it is patented and patents are held by others.
Now with Apple's scorched earth policy and also by demonstrating the low bar to winning, no one has slightest reason to hold back from suing Apple. whether you are a phone manufacturer or a NPE troll. Apple has just put itself against the entire world. Remember the first battle is not the war. The SCOTUS has proved much less sympathetic to patent claims than lower courts. The perfect example was Myriad Genetics, which won in all the lower courts to finally lose in the SCOTUS.
Sprint Could Win The Unlimited Data Battle [View article]
Simply put, if Sprint were to actually gain any significant market share at the expense of Verizon or AT&T then they would quickly match Sprint's offer. Hence while Sprint has an advantage now, it is not a sustainable advantage.
Secondly, if there is a shortage of spectrum/bandwidth then eventually Sprint will run into it as well. If there is no shortage of spectrum/bandwidth then nothing stops Verizon/AT&T from matching Sprint's offer if they lose any market share. So I do not believe that Sprint will ever gain any significant market share at the expense of Verizon/At&T.
Another possiblity is that Verizon/At&T might be trying encourage adverse selection of high data usage customers by the Sprint platform. They can finely calibrate this by adjusting the data cap of their plans to capture the bulk of the low data usage customers. they can always adjust the cap upward to capture as many customers as they want while leaving the data hogs to Sprint.
Thirdly, Sprint's ARPU growth and postpaid Sprint platform growth are a result of a massive exodus of Nextel customers that were captured as a one time event in the 2Q and unlikely to be repeated in the 3Q (please read the earnings conference call).
I also find it disturbing that such a huge proportion of subscriber adds are from cannibalization. 431,000 of 442,000 of the subscriber "adds" came from Nextel! On the actual "port postive" boast which Sprint management used to refer to how many subscribers left Sprint vs. how many joined Sprint, the total of these, thus cannot exceed 11,000 subscribers, a tiny number indeed.
Fourthly, Sprint's earnings have been goosed by massive impairments of the Nextel ($782 million + 184 million). Which has the convenient effect of reducing amortization expenses for the succeeding quarters , while still generating the revenues and thus inflating profits. in 2Q this effect was $85 million. And that is not counting the benefits of reduced amortization charges from previous impairments. Always be suspicious when a company "updates" it's view on the useful life of assets, it's usually a huge accounting red flag.
I believe now that the Nextel impairments appear to be coming to an end, Sprint management is impairing CLWR to create a reserve that can be used to goose earnings. I believe the quality of Sprint's earnings reports are poor.
Fifthly, I believe the 3Q reports will be poor in terms of post paid subscriber adds as Nextel winds down further and ARPU, but will be earnings goosed by reduced amortization charges. I believe there is also downside risk of a negative earnings surprise from recent discounting of iPhones and offers of gift cards etc.
Due to all these reasons and the fact that no one seems to question the numbers put out by Sprint, I am neither long nor short S. I am bearish, but recognize that the market can stay bullish/irrational longer than I can stay solvent.
"Come on. This is farce," says tech legal site Groklaw, incredulous Apple-Samsung jurors took only 21 hours to deliberate over a 700-question form one lawyer says would take him 3 days to understand. Groklaw is also unimpressed with contradictory statements from jurors, several verdict inconsistencies, and the fact jurors reached a decision without reading a 109-page instruction form (.pdf). Some lawyers are predicting this case will reach the Supreme Court, due to the issues it raises about UI and design patents. (more) [View news story]
"Come on. This is farce," says tech legal site Groklaw, incredulous Apple-Samsung jurors took only 21 hours to deliberate over a 700-question form one lawyer says would take him 3 days to understand. Groklaw is also unimpressed with contradictory statements from jurors, several verdict inconsistencies, and the fact jurors reached a decision without reading a 109-page instruction form (.pdf). Some lawyers are predicting this case will reach the Supreme Court, due to the issues it raises about UI and design patents. (more) [View news story]
"Come on. This is farce," says tech legal site Groklaw, incredulous Apple-Samsung jurors took only 21 hours to deliberate over a 700-question form one lawyer says would take him 3 days to understand. Groklaw is also unimpressed with contradictory statements from jurors, several verdict inconsistencies, and the fact jurors reached a decision without reading a 109-page instruction form (.pdf). Some lawyers are predicting this case will reach the Supreme Court, due to the issues it raises about UI and design patents. (more) [View news story]
Samsung (SSNLF.PK), unsurprisingly, plans to appeal its harsh legal loss to Apple (AAPL). Apple's response to the jury's verdict: "We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right." Samsung's response: "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies." (more) [View news story]
http://bit.ly/Pk4M45
Samsung (SSNLF.PK), unsurprisingly, plans to appeal its harsh legal loss to Apple (AAPL). Apple's response to the jury's verdict: "We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right." Samsung's response: "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies." (more) [View news story]
a) allowing Apple to stash its chief designer in Hawaii for the duration of the trial
b) allowing Apple to "find" only 55 emails in the entire company dealing with either the iPhone or iPad
c) allowing expert testimony without an explanation of how the experts reached the conclusion forcing Samsung to decide whether to cross Apple's own experts to even bring out their basic testimony before beginning to even cross them.
d) suppressing Samsung's prior designs and many of Samsung's witnesses
e) allowing only 25 hours of time to Samsung to present on 600 questions in the jury verdict form (about 2.5 minutes of court time per question the jury was asked to decide)
f) forcing Samsung to grant discovery from the date of the alleged infringement while allowing Apple to only turn over documents after the FILING date (thus allowing Apple to fish further back in time)
h) going to great lengths to suppress evidence from Samsung prior to the iPhone announcement
I could go on and on and on...but Judge Koh basically acted the part of someone who, any reasonable observer would conclude, seemed to have some sort of revolving door arrangement with Apple.
If I had bet, again, I would bet on Samsung.