Steven Towns

Interview: Luciano Siracusano, Director of Research for ETF Firm WisdomTree Asset Management

How do WisdomTree's dividend-paying ETFs compare to the other dividend paying ETFs, DVY and PEY?

Survey Shows There May Be Hope for Microsoft's Zune After All

There's a lot of emotion in shopping for electronics and other higher-priced goods. Not to mention all the emotion behind the marketing of these products. Anway, I am not the ideal consumer for electronics firms because I tend to buy something and get my fair use out of it (notice it was 5 years between music player purchases) and do a lot of homework before I make my purchases (not that others don't!). I walked in to Best Buy during Thanksgiving holiday and there was a promotion by Samsung offering 40% off the above players, which I would have bought anyway at retail price. I picked up two of them. They are great, exactly what I wanted, and support my three file types seamlessly: personally ripped MP3/WMA and subscription music.

Survey Shows There May Be Hope for Microsoft's Zune After All

I have to disagree with you on this Carl. I know there's a lot of Zune bashers out there for obvious reasons, but I was presenting the survey's findings from a market share expectations and growth perspective. Setting the guidelines of the survey aside, the respondents' responses showed that 80% of them are first-time buyers, and among those 69% indicated they'd likely (or very likely) be buyers (or gift givers). That bodes well for all market players because it is an expanding market. I do admit the 7% who said they'd choose Zune is not very promising for MSFT, but I'd still argue the potential exists for new buyers). For instance, I recently purchased my first MP3 player in about 5 years and I went with the Samsung YP-K5J. I'd never buy an iPod for myself -- don't want to be like the crowd and don't want to deal with the proprietary format. Also, in the summary above, I pulled in a report from USA Today that showed NPD's data lacked coverage of Wal-Mart, Amazon and the Apple Store. The latter two, I'm aware experienced heavy traffic and reportedly strong sales.

Sony Ericsson Sees Opportunity in Mobile TV

I want to add that it's better to think more globally when evaluating Sony Ericsson's mobile TV plans. For instance, in Japan and South Korea, cell phones are more a part of daily life than for most users in the U.S. and don't forget the millions who live near major cities relying mostly on mass-transit. I'd venture to say a similar situation exists in Europe near/around urban areas.

Sony Ericsson Sees Opportunity in Mobile TV

Carl, good points and appreciate your thoughts on this. I agree with you on the doubt about 30%. However, I think one way of interpreting the figure is to mean 30% of the users who have a mobile TV enabled/capable phone. Maybe that's how he should have expressed it.

MoSys: Pure Play on Nintendo Popularity

Michael, thank you for your quick response and detailed answers. I appreciate it and am sure Seeking Alpha readers do as well. I agree with you regarding optimism for Wii, especially in Japan. Separately, a good sign is the settled litigation as you mentioned. I'll need to review its SEC filings for any other litigations. The insider selling and short-interest are worrisome, but for those of us who haven't bought MOSY yet, means we may see a pullback creating a buying opportunity. I believe in Nintendo's strategy (to attract a broader audience to gaming) and see it regaining significant market share from Sony and basically reducing Microsoft to a non-competitor in Japan. It has a number of advantages including its strength in handhelds, popular games (particularly interesting are its classics as well as those "simple, fun" games attracting women and the elderly), price competitiveness, strong balance sheet and profitability --- thus, I like the potential play here with MOSY and will have to watch more closely. Congrats again on a great pick earlier in August.

Have a nice Thanksgiving holiday!

MoSys: Pure Play on Nintendo Popularity

Excellent call Michael! I'm wondering though, if you could point out where you get the $15m in REV last qtr from? I only see $4m, and $12m for all of last year. Also with the launch of the Wii and the Nintendo's earlier forecast of selling 4m units by year-end and 6m units by fiscal year end (Mar 07), do you think think this has been factored into the current share price and its runup? Considering just current quarter revenue at your mention of $0.60 royalty/unit, then we see $2.4m in Q4 rev. How about developments with its other customers, there's a nice flashing list of them on their website...? Also I notice a sizable short-term cash holding. Is this for investment purposes only, or is it part of their operating strategy? Do you have any target price for MOSY and do you anticipate any take-over bids given its balance sheet strength and future prospects? LASTLY, what's with the heavy insider-selling, primarily by one individual officer?

TIA for any details you can provide.

Home Depot's 'In-and-out' Flat Panel TV Strategy

Agreed. At least Nardelli admits it's "opportunistic." And if prices drop even further due to more intense competition, I say that's great as a consumer.

Apple iPod Elevates Game: Six Airlines to Add Connectivity

Right and that's pretty cool how you'll be able to watch video/tv on the seat-back monitor, which ought to boost sales on iTunes. I'd be tempted to buy content, especially for longer flights. Now that iPod has "cornered" autos and airlines, I wonder if they are looking at rail (w/ Amtrak) and sea w/ cruise ships?

Mizuho Financial Group ADRs Begin Trading on NYSE Today

Not much action on Mizuho with volume reported at 71,700 as of about 2:30pm. It opened at $14.90, traded as high as $15.35, and currently is quoted at $14.90. The intra-day low is $14.80. Based on exchange rate fluctuation, it looks like the ADRs are trading at about 0.5% premium, likely a result of a small rally expected tonight, when the market opens in Japan.

Seeing Opportunity in Takefuji -- Japan's Most Hated Value Stock

Pascal, thanks for leaving a comment and stressing the importance of the threat of reimbursement costs. Indeed, this is a risk for investing in the consumer lender stocks. And the enforcement of repaying "past" excess interest payments received is worrisome. It looks like UBS warned today of the possibility of further downward revisions during the remainder of the second-half of the fiscal year.

I still see an opportunity here and agree, as you put it, "there is a great value opportunity for daring investors."

I have increased my position in NIS Group (NYSE: NIS) following its downward revised forecasts and what I believe a bottoming of the stock at current levels. No doubt this is speculative given the uncertainty, but I like NIS's diversified financial services businesses, and lesser exposure to consumer lending, even though it will suffer from the reimbursement costs.

For disclosure purposes, at this time I still do not own a position in Takefuji, nor do I own any shares of other Japanese consumer lenders.

Sony's Ludicrous PS3 Marketing Misstep

How about this, Sony mulls recall of exploding fact sheet, from SiliconValley.com's Good Morning Silicon Valley...

Sony Mylo: Interesting, But Pricey and Flawed

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Thomas. One argument I saw, I believe in a Gizmodo post comment, was that the free T-Mobile HotSpot access, worth $30/m x 12/m = $360, alone would pay for the device. Not sure that is very compelling because of sluggish web browser site display and who'd want to talk on Skype at a coffee shop?

Can the BlackBerry Crack Japan?

Thank you Gen!!! I said as much back in June (see "Related links" above) when news of this first broke in mainstream media. It really makes you wonder. But then again, the interest level seems really high among some expats (the article mentions i-bankers) and of course those fresh of the plane at Narita.

By the way, I tried contacting DoCoMo offices in California to ask about a service they offer that allows Japanese capabilities on BlackBerries in the U.S. (see DoCoMo's Namikiteru website) but never received a reply. Interesting, and oddly enough, the language capabilities in the U.S. seem to be better than what is being offered in Japan (read only vs. read & write). So, it really seems like this targeted to expats with limited use for Japanese language and again, those visiting and on business.

Yen Carry Trade Not Over Yet

Pascal, thanks for providing us with a deeper look at the implications of the yen exchange rate and the carry trade. For the average non-Japanese investor I tend to agree with your statement that "for foreign investors capital gain appreciation in Japan is much more important than potential currency loss." In fact, I believe for longer-term Japan investors there is the dual benefit (assuming cap gains) of winning when the yen strengthens more permanently as the rate gap narrows with say the US$ and euro. I expect this narrowing to begin from as early as spring '07, standing by my prediction that a second rate hike will not happen this calendar year.

For those interested see Pascal's latest Japan Investment newsletter.