Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
I agree that 3g coverage is probably not very good yet in India, but it can only get better. Remember that broadband coverage can still be quite spotty in the US, but one must assume that 5 or 10 years from now it will be better. Before World War II interstate highways did not exist, but they are still under construction, or being widened on certain stretches. 3g and 4g coverage will never be perfect, and even if they were, they would eventually be replaced by the next generation.
When a phone is "sold" for $1 in the US, that is not the real price of the phone. When you take out a contract the actual price of the phone is buried in the monthly payments you must make, and the process is not at all transparent. Here is a link that suggests that phone actually sells for about $375.
If you want full service, i.e. calling, messaging, Internet access, by the time you add in taxes you will be paying in excess of $100 per month (messaging alone is $20), maybe more, for your phone. Since there are other phone services available with unlimited calling messaging and Internet for as little as about $50 per month, I imagine that about half of what you are paying AT&T monthly is actually for the phone.
There is no clear cut definition of the difference between a smart phone and a feature phone, but if we assume something like a smartphone has Internet browsing capability and an operating system capable of running third party applications, Skype, plus a camera, and a music player, then you can get down to a fairly low price point, especially on a monthly plan where the cost of the device is amortized over a year or more.
Someone I know in the Dominican Republic who has a Nokia smart phone (not Windows) pays $23 per month for 18 months with 250 minutes per month and free in-carrier weekend calling included. The 250 minutes can be international calls as there is no extra for calls to the US or Haiti.
I know many plans in the US have unlimited calling minutes, but the cost of the service plans is commensurate. I paid Skype $30 for one year of unlimited calling to US telephone numbers (landlines and cell phones) and probably many countries provide less minutes in their plans, but then how much is enough for most people? I remember 30 years ago having to go to the telephone company office and pay $10 for a 3-minute international call once a month and thinking I was getting a good deal.
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
Marketing, marketing, marketing. It all depends on the culture of the different countries where the devices are sold.
For example, here in the Dominican Republic people LOVE to talk all day to their families on their cellphones. There are two cell phone companies, Claro and Orange. They offer various incentives, like you can pick two other numbers (on the same carrier) that you can make unlimited free calls to, or the other carrier offers 2012 free minutes calling at the weekends. Quite a number of people have cell phones with BOTH carriers to take advantage of offers and call their Claro friends on Claro, and their Orange friends on Orange.
So Nokia has to work out incentive plans with the various carriers in the various different markets that will make people want to buy Nokia Windows phones to get something they can't get elsewhere with another carrier or another brand of phone.
People are always changing their cell phones or re-entering the market for a new phone, so what is new is often attractive, especially if it offers some feature that was not available with the prior phone. Also there are trillions of teenagers entering the market all the time to get their first cell phone, who can probably be bribed with a free Enrique Iglesias video download, or such, and who is to say that Nokia/MSFT won't get some popular idol like Justin Bieber to be their spokesperson, like Charles Barkly for Weight Watchers, to do TV commercials.
And the phones and plans will almost certainly be cheaper than iPhones.
Can You Hold Your Own Against An Index Fund? [View article]
It should be possible to beat an index fund, because it has fund expenses, so if your trading results are exactly equal to those of an index fund, then you should be able to pay yourself the fund manager salary and administration expenses.
The fact that most individual investors don't beat the indexes does not deter me very much, because if the average investor was above average, then he/she would not be average.
Ultimately playing the market is a game of strategy and tactics. For your long range strategy you need to select well-managed companies that have a future in industries that have a future. Tactically, you need to execute trades in a non random way that will work to your advantage. For example selling OTM puts when the VIX is high appears to me to be a superior strategy to selling puts when the VIX is low. Selling premium beats buying premium. Combining buy-writes with put sales either pays nicely or else lowers your basis in a stock.
Most fund managers are bound to a certain strategy that is written down and must be adhered to. For example if they were running a dividend fund, then they had to sell BP when it stopped paying a dividend, although selling at fire sale prices may not have been advantageous to the fund. Individuals can be a lot more flexible, so many individuals, if they know what they are doing, should be able to beat low cost index funds, which are really just random picks, and mutual funds, which have to pay people to run the fund.
It is particularly important to be able to outperform the indexes in a down year, because the person who loses 50% in a year needs to make 100% the next year to get back to square one, but the person who loses 25% only has to gain 33 1/3% to recover. On the other hand, if the indexes are up 20% and you are up only 10%, that is not fatal.
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
Another good point is that there is a distinct possibility that in the long term Windows 8 could overhaul Android as an operating system for mobile devices. I used to have an Android touch pad computer, and I was underwhelmed.
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
Good article. I wonder why AAPL doesn't think about taking over RIMM. They could incorporate the Blackberry messaging system into a wi-fi enabled no contract iPod or iPad device that would be a huge hit with kids.
The Natural Gas Debate From A Macro Perspective [View article]
I don't know about the buses in New York, but here in the Dominican Republic most of the taxis run on propane, which is a bit cleaner than LNG. It is fast, clean, powerful, cheaper than gasoline, and the adapter only costs about $100 installed. Most vehicles have a switch so that they can swap between gasoline from the gas tank to propane in a cylinder in the trunk, but from the point of view of the passengers, you would never know. As Toyota Corollas are able to travel at breakneck speed carrying a payload of 7 adults, power does not seem to be a problem.
Why I'm Picking Up This 7% Yielder Now [View article]
Yes, I already have this one and it is a cash cow. Their main business is financing and refinancing older rental apartment buildings in the New York area that have had the same owners for many years, so they don't have exposure to overseas bonds or a lot of bad single home mortgages.
I agree with the article, except for missing the rather obvious point of the dividend being cut, which rather undermines the analytic credibility of the author.
Operation 'Perfect Hedge' - Criminalizing Greed; Or, Is Capitalism In Danger From People Trading With An Informational Advantage? [View article]
I would assume that the Florida pension fund was run by responsible adults and not by teenage hoodlums, but if it was clear to everyone by 1998 that Enron was a complete fraud, then why did the stock price immediately not drop to zero, since there would have been no bids at any price by responsible adults? No, the whole thing was a fraud and those who dumped vast amounts of stock just before it crashed and burned were in the know.
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
When a phone is "sold" for $1 in the US, that is not the real price of the phone. When you take out a contract the actual price of the phone is buried in the monthly payments you must make, and the process is not at all transparent. Here is a link that suggests that phone actually sells for about $375.
http://bit.ly/wsKZbA
If you want full service, i.e. calling, messaging, Internet access, by the time you add in taxes you will be paying in excess of $100 per month (messaging alone is $20), maybe more, for your phone. Since there are other phone services available with unlimited calling messaging and Internet for as little as about $50 per month, I imagine that about half of what you are paying AT&T monthly is actually for the phone.
http://bit.ly/xh5qvL
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
http://bit.ly/x2nbgK
India has over 100,000,000 Internet users and growing rapidly. 3g was launched in India about a year ago. I would think the major cities have 3g.
http://buswk.co/xxZ9tY
There is no clear cut definition of the difference between a smart phone and a feature phone, but if we assume something like a smartphone has Internet browsing capability and an operating system capable of running third party applications, Skype, plus a camera, and a music player, then you can get down to a fairly low price point, especially on a monthly plan where the cost of the device is amortized over a year or more.
Someone I know in the Dominican Republic who has a Nokia smart phone (not Windows) pays $23 per month for 18 months with 250 minutes per month and free in-carrier weekend calling included. The 250 minutes can be international calls as there is no extra for calls to the US or Haiti.
I know many plans in the US have unlimited calling minutes, but the cost of the service plans is commensurate. I paid Skype $30 for one year of unlimited calling to US telephone numbers (landlines and cell phones) and probably many countries provide less minutes in their plans, but then how much is enough for most people? I remember 30 years ago having to go to the telephone company office and pay $10 for a 3-minute international call once a month and thinking I was getting a good deal.
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
For example, here in the Dominican Republic people LOVE to talk all day to their families on their cellphones. There are two cell phone companies, Claro and Orange. They offer various incentives, like you can pick two other numbers (on the same carrier) that you can make unlimited free calls to, or the other carrier offers 2012 free minutes calling at the weekends. Quite a number of people have cell phones with BOTH carriers to take advantage of offers and call their Claro friends on Claro, and their Orange friends on Orange.
So Nokia has to work out incentive plans with the various carriers in the various different markets that will make people want to buy Nokia Windows phones to get something they can't get elsewhere with another carrier or another brand of phone.
People are always changing their cell phones or re-entering the market for a new phone, so what is new is often attractive, especially if it offers some feature that was not available with the prior phone. Also there are trillions of teenagers entering the market all the time to get their first cell phone, who can probably be bribed with a free Enrique Iglesias video download, or such, and who is to say that Nokia/MSFT won't get some popular idol like Justin Bieber to be their spokesperson, like Charles Barkly for Weight Watchers, to do TV commercials.
And the phones and plans will almost certainly be cheaper than iPhones.
Why not?
Can You Hold Your Own Against An Index Fund? [View article]
The fact that most individual investors don't beat the indexes does not deter me very much, because if the average investor was above average, then he/she would not be average.
Ultimately playing the market is a game of strategy and tactics. For your long range strategy you need to select well-managed companies that have a future in industries that have a future. Tactically, you need to execute trades in a non random way that will work to your advantage. For example selling OTM puts when the VIX is high appears to me to be a superior strategy to selling puts when the VIX is low. Selling premium beats buying premium. Combining buy-writes with put sales either pays nicely or else lowers your basis in a stock.
Most fund managers are bound to a certain strategy that is written down and must be adhered to. For example if they were running a dividend fund, then they had to sell BP when it stopped paying a dividend, although selling at fire sale prices may not have been advantageous to the fund. Individuals can be a lot more flexible, so many individuals, if they know what they are doing, should be able to beat low cost index funds, which are really just random picks, and mutual funds, which have to pay people to run the fund.
It is particularly important to be able to outperform the indexes in a down year, because the person who loses 50% in a year needs to make 100% the next year to get back to square one, but the person who loses 25% only has to gain 33 1/3% to recover. On the other hand, if the indexes are up 20% and you are up only 10%, that is not fatal.
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
Will Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Lead To Its Revival? [View article]
The Natural Gas Debate From A Macro Perspective [View article]
5 Stocks With Juicy Yields Of 10% And Up [View article]
Nokia Presents A Fool-Proof Trade [View article]
Found an interesting article about Nokia in India here:
http://bit.ly/wCd0qz
Why I'm Picking Up This 7% Yielder Now [View article]
Nokia Presents A Fool-Proof Trade [View article]
Xerox: An Options Strategy In Response To Selloff [View instapost]
Operation 'Perfect Hedge' - Criminalizing Greed; Or, Is Capitalism In Danger From People Trading With An Informational Advantage? [View article]
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