Moon Kil Woong

Sharks Circling the Galleon Galleon

LOL knowing Galleon for what it is, it is probably shorting its own positions as it pares it's positions. Talk about great inside information lol. Now they just need a bit more bad news to really clean up.

Semi Shortage: Why I'm Waiting It Out

Hmmm semi's have been burning their Capex cash and killing expansions and upgrades. This is not a sign of health. But at least they were smart and raised cash when the going was good. The bad fact about this is none of them are going under so the ones remaining can feast on their carcasses like the previous downturns.

As for AMAT, it is still too overpriced due to it's solar play which is such a tiny fraction of it's business it's laughable. If solar will bail them out, then that means the semi equipment market has ceased to exist.

Tech Bellwethers: Earnings Scorecard

Tech's results were clearly better than expected save maybe Intel. I think Intel is trying to TKO AMD again in the low end of the spectrum, so that's industry specific.

I still am of the mind Tech will suffer later 2009 because semis are showing weakness which will work its way down the line in a few months. Less semis mean less computer and server sales inevitably. It's best to look at leading indicators and the channel rather than analysts, especially when they are in bed with the companies helping to manage expectations.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

We need AMD to balance Intel from becoming a bigger monopoly than it already is. However, their execution the past 5 years hasn't been spectacular.

I think the transcript says it all, rather than technology driven the past few years it seems driven more and more by accountants than technologists. A very bad precedent. We need to hear less about cost cutting and saving money and more on how it can keep up if not develop some leading edged features so buysers can justify using their chips in at least a few models every year to keep them alive.

Preview from Europe: Another Bear Market Bounce, Or Bottoming?

It's good to see someone focusing on demographic trends and its correlation with economics. Too often we are fooled into thinking GDP expansion means increasing prosperity and standards of living when it isn't (it's is often just an offset to population expansion). Likewise, we should look into the aging of the baby boomers and this contraction.

It will inevitably have a correlation with the glut of houses. I am still astounded by the housing boom right up to the baby boom retirement age. Could you not have a worse time for housing expansion. There are now less working age couples going forward not more adding to the housing woes.

Likewise, the baby boomer culture of excessive spending seems to be drawing to a close as well. Maybe economists of the future will tie it to the de-leveraging we see today. Thus, the market blowoff may not just be singularly very very bad economic management by Greenspan and Bush Jr.'s administration. Small consolation for one of the least popular Presidents in history.

Four Dying Silicon Valley Companies

You have mentioned the proverbial problemed tech companies. All of these company's problems are well known. Mainly Yahoo which was trying to play the hard sell. Interesting enough, despite doom-sayers, many companies are about as tenacious as government bureaucracies. That means they will not turn the lights out until the last penny is spent.

That gives all of these companies many more years to de-zombify themselves. Of the four I'd place my money with AMD. #1) tech companies want an alternative to Intel if nothing more, to keep them in check so they don't bilk the entire computer market the way Miscrosoft is. #2) they have been rising from the ashes multiple times #3) you have to commend them in the early 2000s for taking the leadership with dual core processing even if it was a short time period before Intel got on the ball.

As for Palm, it has a base of loyal users but needs to work on the OS. They are becoming like Motorola was before Nokia and everyone ate their lunch in the cell phone market except they aren't the market leader. Look Motorola still survives. They are liable to roll over their debt several times before any death knell.

If you want to look for zombies and dying companies with more debt than assets I'd advise you8 to look at the banking section. The only catch is, they get to hide their losses by booking them in off balance sheet accounting due to Base 1 accounting rules. This was dreamt up to protect the public after the dot com bubble so they could keep lending without adequate capital and having to recognize those nasty losses. What a laugh.

Regulators, Fed, and Treasury, please stop helping us by gouging out our eyeballs and handicapping the entire market and economy. So far we can't get accurate inflation numbers because you fudge them, can't see the solvency of banks because of base 1 rules, can't see TARP allocations because with the Bush Jr. administration you can't see anything, and can't see a recovery because none is being organized.

And when I speak of handicapping the economy, I'm referring to all the zombie companies we are being forced to fund as they pay their inept executives and hemorrhage employees in the thousands every month. If this is not a prolonged drag on the economy I don't know what is. I dare to say, the free market is no longer free nor can you call it a market. Maybe we should call it a captured government torture chamber.