Satwaves'  Instablog

A commonly accepted measure of any company’s success includes its market penetration and/or growth rates.  Eventually, every product or service reaches a peak in both areas.  Stock markets offer investors an opportunity to take advantage of growing companies versus those who may have peaked and fizzled out.  In the end, all stocks become pyramid schemes in a sense which makes it imperative to know the difference, in order to know when to get out of any given stock.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at how this theory applies to Sirius XM Radio.  Early estimates for the Satellite Radio provider estimated its potential U.S. market at 300 million potential subscribers.  This number was attained by calculating: cars, trucks, boats, homes, and businesses.  In reality, no one ever expected to see 300 million subscribers, it was merely a benchmark that the company’s progress would be measured against.

On Friday, Orbitcast released an internal company memo from Sirius XM Radio’s (SIRI) CEO Mel Karmazin, which makes clear that Sirius XM has separated itself completely from it’s terrestrial radio competition. Based on first quarter 2009 revenue, Sirius XM has become the largest radio company in the world, with only Clear Channel posing a genuine competitive threat going forward. That is of course assuming that Clear Channel can somehow manage to avoid bankruptcy, as its lenders last week rejected a proposed debt swap leaving the company to look for other options as the clock winds down.

As the June 10th release date of “Stock Shock” draws near, the movie’s producer Sandra Mohr reports that the movie has taken on a life of its own. The movie is now being billed as “The Short Selling Of The American Dream,” and delves much deeper into the illegal naked short selling of stocks, citing examples from AIG and Citibank to General Motors.