Etoile Brilliant

How Apple's Market Share Will Propel Stock to $500, Part 1

Apple may well become a $500 stock but it won't be linked to its performance in the $1000+ laptop market. The future has been and will be low priced netbooks.

Cramer's Mad Money - Paul Krugman Is Wrong (8/10/09)

When did Arafat win the Nobel Prize for Economics - I must have slept through that one?

ETF Pick of the Week: Sweden

1. Ericsson is a stock that is traded by 90% of investing Swedes not on rationale but national pride. Beware the bubble.

2. Anders Borg is good but with two years to the election, it will be a miracle if Reinfeld's government can pull off what no other conservative government has ever managed to do - a second term.

3 Swedish banks are in as dire state as the rest of the world's. Not sub-prime but exposure to the Baltic economies.

4. Agree. Sweden's finances are in excellent shape compared with any other OECD economy (Norway and Finland excluded). I'm not sure how that benefits shareholders though.

5. SEK is a yo-yo currency. Whilst the Sweden's budget surplus is still intact, even the Riksbank realises how fragile the curency markets have been /will be. They are forever writing long term FX swaps with the ECB whenever opportunity arises as they realise that should the swap markets dry up again, Sweden and its major companies and bank's have big USD and EUR exposure.

I agree the Sweden ETF looks interesting but beware the risks having an independent SEK brings. This is not a currency of last resort like NOK.

Seeking the Fix That Will Finally Work

Banks won't lend to each other? Let's start the process of ultimate disintermediation - take the banks out of the equation and let the central banks lend directly to the borrowers. What worries me is when Central Banks stop lending to each other. We've already seen the first signs of it with Iceland. Wait until it happens with Italy, UK or even Uncle Sam

Sentiment Overview: Cash is King

I held cash in my Internax trading account. On Friday after Fortis' share price dropped 26% (the JV partner in Internax who holds my cash) I telephoned my dealer about my concerns. If Fortis goes bankrupt, the stocks are in your name and only your first Euro 30k are insured.

Cash is NOT king when there is no where to hide it. I moved it into a diversified government bond fund for last resort.

Cresud: Buying Into Argentina Agriculture

Like the fundamentals but find it difficult to ignore the event risk this stock has in terms of political interference. Argentinia seems to be getting back to its bad old ways, while Brazil is romping ahead.

Don't Try to Fix the Rating-Agency Model: Get Rid of It

One small problem, Basle II. After 5 years of negotiating and another 5 years of implentation, you can't get away from the fact that ratings underpin the whole concept of bank regulatory capital. Bring on Basle III (2018?)

Is Brazil 'Investment-Grade' for Individual Investors?

iShares provide a pure Brazilian ETF play (EWZ). It claims to mimic 85% of the total capitalisation of Brazilan equity market. Good article in this morning's FT about Brazil debt new issue launched tighter than Berkshire Hathaway. That's what I call an improvement in the credit score!!!

Could the U.S. Lose Its AAA Rating?

Sir,

I am a Wiki-plaguerist, check out this link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I hope this helps.

EB

Spinning Deutsche's Loan Sale

Great article Felix, I've been scratching my head on the Deutsche Bank versus Goldmans conundrum.

On the same day, Deutsche Bank sold or planned to sale €36 billion of loans "in the hope of taking advantage of a recent slight improvement in debt market conditions" as Goldmans sold parts of their portfolio at 65 cents in the dollar.

Me thinks, somebody's not being totally truthful.

Could the U.S. Lose Its AAA Rating?

Eddy, I can see where your analysis is coming from but I would have to comment that its a little intro-spective. Whilst there is a good argument that domestic lenders (or investors) would be more or less unmoved by a downgrade of the US, I'm inclined to think that external investors might have an alternative view.

Given that the US is the world's largest debtor nation, I'm absolutely certain that a downgrade would result in a parallel shift in the yield curve. The benchmark might become the German Bund or more likely one of the Supras (although their ratings might be affected given the contributions the US make to their balance sheet).

Regardless, of whom takes on the mantel of the provider of the "risk free rate of return", this will only lead to a further weakening in dollar (maybe even the final death throes everyone has been anticipating).

In the long term, I'm actually very bullish about the USD. However, I'm keeping my money in other currencies until this particular alcoholic has reached the step one of the twelve step programme ("We admitted we were powerless over "debt" - that our lives had become unmanageable")

The U.S. Dollar: A Contrarian View

I wasn't aware that China actually bought the USD, my feeling is that WalMart dumps USD on them as a trading currency.

Apple's 10 Million iPhone Target

10 million by 2008, no problem. But on what terms and how will the terms affect earnings? This would help us get a better idea of share price.

Apple's iPhone 2.0 'Bigger than the Personal Computer'

Apple's iPhone 2.0 'Bigger than the Personal Computer".

What kind of PC is that? I've just read another article on Seeking Alpha that says SDK can only run one application at a time. The last time I did that was on a pre-Windows DOS 2.0 Compaq in 1986.

Can somebody tell me who to believe on this one?

Sony Ericsson, Microsoft to Offer WinMobile Phones

This is very significant from Ebay's point of view. One of the big drawbacks of Skype is the fact that it cannot be run directly on Symbian OS (it can be done rather clumsily through a client such as Fring). Many people would like to have Skype integrated into their cell handset rather than have a separate handset for Skype. Whilst this is by no means the last obstacle to cheap/free mobile calls it is a significant step.