Bitpay Integrates Bitcoin Payment With Amazon.com [View article]
Bitcoin isn't appropriate for retailers; it can take up to an hour for a transaction to broadcast through the network and be verified, letting a customer leave the store with a unverified transaction represents far more risk than the risk that a customer will do a chargeback.
Why A Budget iPhone Is A Great Idea: 4 Reasons [View article]
Funny thing, no, the sad thing is that should apple announce a cheaper iPhone, the cries from Wall Street will be "oh no, their margins are going to plummet !" Never mind the huge additional market that such a move could create, both in the us and other developed markets, but more so in china, India and other developing markets,... These people hold margins sacrosanct,even above actually expanding their traditional markets and growing sales.
A cheaper re-think of the iPhone for all the people for which an iPhone represents an outsized amount of outlay compared to their income - I say go for it.
Why A Budget iPhone Is A Great Idea: 4 Reasons [View article]
Funny thing, no, the sad thing is that should apple announce a cheaper iPhone, the cries from Wall Street will be "oh no, their margins are going to plummet !" Never mind the huge additional market that such a move could create, both in the us and other developed markets, but more so in china, India and other developing markets,... These people hold margins sacrosanct,even above actually expanding their traditional markets and growing sales.
A cheaper re-think of the iPhone for all the people for which an iPhone represents an outsized amount of outlay compared to their income - I say go for it.
You do realize that companies were parking tons of cash offshore before Obama, right? And that corporate America blew their hopes for another tax holiday before Obama too, when they lobbied for a tax holiday to repatriate profits, promising to use that for hiring and then spending it on dividends instead? Though clearly the level of the debt is not a worry to you at all, since you're clearly opposed reducing our deficits and therefore debt growth. Insightful...
You do realize that companies were parking tons of cash offshore before Obama, right? And that corporate America blew their hopes for another tax holiday before Obama too, when they lobbied for a tax holiday to repatriate profits, promising to use that for hiring and then spending it on dividends instead? Though clearly the level of the debt is not a worry to you at all, since you're clearly opposed reducing our deficits and therefore debt growth. Insightful...
Rates could rise 5% and we still should have zero interest in the unrealized losses in apples portfolio - mark to market is useless when the company has an unquestioned ability to hold those investments to maturity. There is no event I can imagine that would force them sell them at a adverse price.
Amazon (AMZN +1.8%) is working on two smartphones - one of which has a 3D screen - and a music-streaming device, the WSJ reports. The 3D phone is said to feature eye-tracking tech that makes images "seem to float above the screen like a hologram," and might also allow users to "navigate through content using just their eyes." Sources cautioned there's no guarantee the devices, as well as an Amazon set-top (previous), will ever be sold. LG and others have experimented with 3D phones, but the devices failed to catch on. The Smart Scroll and Smart Pause features in Samsung's Galaxy S4 enable navigation via face movements. [View news story]
How To Identify Market Distortions Caused By The Fed [View article]
No, that's based on any amount of cash. If you're a net buyer of stocks (As I am - I'm in my accumulation years) you want cheap stocks so you can buy more. When you're a net seller of stocks, that's the time you want High prices. It works with any amount of cash, and really, if anything, its most appropriate for people with limited capital, since they're the ones who should be doing the most accumulating. It's a good lesson for all of us.
3D Printing - Opening Pandora's Box [View article]
"Shorting this stock would be like shorting MSFT in 1990."
Supposing that this is the Microsoft. Recall, there were also Digital Research (CP/M and DR-DOS) and Novell. Later than that and with no potential for taking over the world, were the folks making BeOS - Apple fans should count their lucky starts that forums such as SecondMarket didn't exist back then, because Be Inc was the absolute darling of the Apple universe for the couple years leading up to Apple's purchase of NeXT instead.
But point being, especially in an industry so young, it's incredibly unclear who the winners will be. You can call any company in it a potential Microsoft, but for every potential Microsoft, there are going to be dozens of potential Digital Research's.
Computers, I think, are different than 3D printers in their reach and potential. Computers are tools - even in the beginning at their most basic, one could buy a computer and use it as a wordprocessor - barely any additional knowledge beyond knowing how to type was required. But 3d printers need a lot more specialized knowledge, and for that reason, I'm not sold on the mass market appeal of them. Sure, there will definetly be markets and uses for them that don't exist now, but if they "only" transform the manufacturing and design industries, but even in doing so, that would be a massive failure to live up to the hype that proponents have for the technology. Just like direct to press and plateless printing have transformed the printing industry, but outside that industry, only the fortune 500 really sees fit to bring their printing operations in house as a result of the technology. And plateless printing is another area where, I'm sure, had the echo chambers of message boards that exist on the internet today been in full force a decade or two ago, that would have been viewed by so many as the ultimate transformative, democratizing technology as well, despite it's ultimate market being only with the people that had presses in the first place.
In that case, maybe you're not looking at the next Microsoft at all. I can't think of a
Throughout history, we've always been in uncharted territory. To call a market top in the making, but that that top could be anywhere from around the corner to several years out is, well, rather vague.
For the past several years, ever since the crash really, I've read so many people predicting market tops and saying that each new level of the stock market is unsustainably high - but i've also noted that along the way, and despite laments that the only reason the market is where it is is because the Fed has made fixed income investing so unappealing, the P/E for the market is nowhere near any sort of danger zone. The S&P 500 trades at 18 times earnings - that's at the higher end of the spectrum, but far from nosebleed levels. And any improvement to Earnings will lower that number.
Is It Time To Short The Home Builders? [View article]
I don't think lower rates will do anything to stimulate home purchases. Buyers already see the lowest rates that they've ever seen and aren't pulling the trigger, possibly in anticipation that rates could go lower (at which point, they'll continue to wait to see if they go even lower). That doesn't mean there's no market for housing or for mortgages, just that potential buyers don't see the need to rush; were the Fed to slow down their purchases, to announce higher target mortgage rates in the future, that would probably be the best way to get people off the sidelines. That would create a sense of urgency that doesn't exist right now, and that sense of urgency won't be created by knocking a few more basis points off of already historically low mortgage rates.
3D Printing - Opening Pandora's Box [View article]
I'm no fan of 3D printers, at least as devices will ultimately have mainstream appeal. But I don't see where legislation can stop them from being able to print up whatever shapes people desire, including the pieces to make a firearm (whether an all-plastic firearm will be usuable for more than a shot or two being a whole other story), nor can I see how a 3d printer manufacturer could be held liable for someone successfully creating a firearm. For that to happen, they would need to have employed about the least competent lawyer ever.
They're selling a device with a million and one potential legitimate uses, which has no way to be monitored once it gets purchased and installed at home, and even if there was a monitoring capability, there'd still be no real way for the "watchers" to discern whether the part that is being printed is for use in a firearm or any other device.
Copyright infringment, too. Being that 99% of the market has no idea how to operate CAD file, these people are going to be printing 3rd party objects. They'll either come from legitimate sources or be infringing on other peoples copyrights and/or patents. But there is simply no way for the manufacturer to know or have any control over what their customers are printing. And with the manufacturer being able to point to a billion other printable objects (checkers, replacement chess pieces, key chains, etc), i don't see how it would ultimately be arguable that they should be able to monitor and approve designs printed by customers.
Now, if you were talking about 3d printing service bureau's, where customers send their files in and the company prints them out and ships them back, that would be a different story. But to be sued over a home creation? Not going to happen.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of reasons to avoid investing in 3D printers and lots of reasons to disbelieve the hype of their potential, but lawsuits centered on manufacturers because their customers printed objects that they shouldn't have printed, I don't think that's the reason at all.
A Look At My Investing Mistakes With Dividend Stocks [View article]
I agree, i think investing is much "easier" when you limit yourself to a small spectrum of companies; if you have too many, they all just become ticker symbols. I think right now I have probably about 18 or 20 positions throughout my portfolio, 1 is a mutual fund (i let the managers of that fund worry about its holdings), 4 are closed end funds, and the rest are individual companies. At this point, I could probably add another 4 or 5 companies to my portfolio and still be able to stay on top of them, and a few months after that, I could probably (if i wanted to) invest in a few more, but I'm honestly wary of being too diversified - Buffett used an analogy in one of his lectures that went something like this: "i know lots of people who got rich off of their first or second idea, but not so many who did so off their fifteenth or twentieth."
I think lots of people build up portfolios with way too many positions in it, thinking that that'll provide protection through diversification. But diversification just for the sake of it, it isn't very helpful. As diversified as you could have been in 2008, if you owned one financial or 5, you saw some ugliness in your portfolio. Just as you can own 10 oil companies, but if oil falls to $30/bbl, that diversification isn't going to help you very much.
A Look At My Investing Mistakes With Dividend Stocks [View article]
some time ago, I moved opportunistically into JPM, right around the London Whale fiasco. The losses to their market cap far exceeded the likely losses from the trades gone wrong, and despite a few debby downers here on Seeking Alpha, I thought that was about the closest thing to a sure thing i could find in the market. Now, it's been stuck in its range for quite a while, and really, I'm just biding time before I exit. I think it's just a few more weeks before the gain turns from short term to long term, absent any news that makes me think it's got some more upside I'll likely use that event to close out. So yes, it was a "trade", but with a 366 day time horizon. There's just nothing about JPM that makes me want to stay invested in them, it was just leaping into what I thought was the market overreacting.
Point being that while I subscribe mainly to the buy and hold philosophy, I have more ideas than I have money, and I just don't have enough capital to sit on something that seems destined to go sideways, when there are so many other companies out there that strike me as having real growth potential.
Buffett and Munger (BRK.B) on Europe: Buffett would happily buy a big business there "tomorrow" because "Europe is not going away" and in his opinion they will fix the flaws in their monetary system. "They have to find a structure that will work and eventually they will," Buffett says. Munger: "Letting Greece into the EU was like using rat poison for whipping cream: an exceptionally stupid idea." (WSJ) [View news story]
It's not his specialty, but it's something he does from time to time (that chinese company springs to mind, what was it? batteries or electric cars?). I would be that Europe is going to start coughing up some incredible bargains soon, just as our own stock market did in 2009.
Bitpay Integrates Bitcoin Payment With Amazon.com [View article]
Why A Budget iPhone Is A Great Idea: 4 Reasons [View article]
A cheaper re-think of the iPhone for all the people for which an iPhone represents an outsized amount of outlay compared to their income - I say go for it.
Why A Budget iPhone Is A Great Idea: 4 Reasons [View article]
A cheaper re-think of the iPhone for all the people for which an iPhone represents an outsized amount of outlay compared to their income - I say go for it.
The Apple You Don't Know [View article]
The Apple You Don't Know [View article]
The Apple You Don't Know [View article]
Amazon (AMZN +1.8%) is working on two smartphones - one of which has a 3D screen - and a music-streaming device, the WSJ reports. The 3D phone is said to feature eye-tracking tech that makes images "seem to float above the screen like a hologram," and might also allow users to "navigate through content using just their eyes." Sources cautioned there's no guarantee the devices, as well as an Amazon set-top (previous), will ever be sold. LG and others have experimented with 3D phones, but the devices failed to catch on. The Smart Scroll and Smart Pause features in Samsung's Galaxy S4 enable navigation via face movements. [View news story]
How To Identify Market Distortions Caused By The Fed [View article]
3D Printing - Opening Pandora's Box [View article]
Supposing that this is the Microsoft. Recall, there were also Digital Research (CP/M and DR-DOS) and Novell. Later than that and with no potential for taking over the world, were the folks making BeOS - Apple fans should count their lucky starts that forums such as SecondMarket didn't exist back then, because Be Inc was the absolute darling of the Apple universe for the couple years leading up to Apple's purchase of NeXT instead.
But point being, especially in an industry so young, it's incredibly unclear who the winners will be. You can call any company in it a potential Microsoft, but for every potential Microsoft, there are going to be dozens of potential Digital Research's.
Computers, I think, are different than 3D printers in their reach and potential. Computers are tools - even in the beginning at their most basic, one could buy a computer and use it as a wordprocessor - barely any additional knowledge beyond knowing how to type was required. But 3d printers need a lot more specialized knowledge, and for that reason, I'm not sold on the mass market appeal of them. Sure, there will definetly be markets and uses for them that don't exist now, but if they "only" transform the manufacturing and design industries, but even in doing so, that would be a massive failure to live up to the hype that proponents have for the technology. Just like direct to press and plateless printing have transformed the printing industry, but outside that industry, only the fortune 500 really sees fit to bring their printing operations in house as a result of the technology. And plateless printing is another area where, I'm sure, had the echo chambers of message boards that exist on the internet today been in full force a decade or two ago, that would have been viewed by so many as the ultimate transformative, democratizing technology as well, despite it's ultimate market being only with the people that had presses in the first place.
In that case, maybe you're not looking at the next Microsoft at all. I can't think of a
New S&P 500 Price Target: 2001 [View article]
For the past several years, ever since the crash really, I've read so many people predicting market tops and saying that each new level of the stock market is unsustainably high - but i've also noted that along the way, and despite laments that the only reason the market is where it is is because the Fed has made fixed income investing so unappealing, the P/E for the market is nowhere near any sort of danger zone. The S&P 500 trades at 18 times earnings - that's at the higher end of the spectrum, but far from nosebleed levels. And any improvement to Earnings will lower that number.
Is It Time To Short The Home Builders? [View article]
3D Printing - Opening Pandora's Box [View article]
They're selling a device with a million and one potential legitimate uses, which has no way to be monitored once it gets purchased and installed at home, and even if there was a monitoring capability, there'd still be no real way for the "watchers" to discern whether the part that is being printed is for use in a firearm or any other device.
Copyright infringment, too. Being that 99% of the market has no idea how to operate CAD file, these people are going to be printing 3rd party objects. They'll either come from legitimate sources or be infringing on other peoples copyrights and/or patents. But there is simply no way for the manufacturer to know or have any control over what their customers are printing. And with the manufacturer being able to point to a billion other printable objects (checkers, replacement chess pieces, key chains, etc), i don't see how it would ultimately be arguable that they should be able to monitor and approve designs printed by customers.
Now, if you were talking about 3d printing service bureau's, where customers send their files in and the company prints them out and ships them back, that would be a different story. But to be sued over a home creation? Not going to happen.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of reasons to avoid investing in 3D printers and lots of reasons to disbelieve the hype of their potential, but lawsuits centered on manufacturers because their customers printed objects that they shouldn't have printed, I don't think that's the reason at all.
A Look At My Investing Mistakes With Dividend Stocks [View article]
I think lots of people build up portfolios with way too many positions in it, thinking that that'll provide protection through diversification. But diversification just for the sake of it, it isn't very helpful. As diversified as you could have been in 2008, if you owned one financial or 5, you saw some ugliness in your portfolio. Just as you can own 10 oil companies, but if oil falls to $30/bbl, that diversification isn't going to help you very much.
A Look At My Investing Mistakes With Dividend Stocks [View article]
Point being that while I subscribe mainly to the buy and hold philosophy, I have more ideas than I have money, and I just don't have enough capital to sit on something that seems destined to go sideways, when there are so many other companies out there that strike me as having real growth potential.
Buffett and Munger (BRK.B) on Europe: Buffett would happily buy a big business there "tomorrow" because "Europe is not going away" and in his opinion they will fix the flaws in their monetary system. "They have to find a structure that will work and eventually they will," Buffett says. Munger: "Letting Greece into the EU was like using rat poison for whipping cream: an exceptionally stupid idea." (WSJ) [View news story]