Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) is cutting 27,000 workers. Meg Whitman's axe helped to move the stock up. Imagine how much higher a 54,000-employee pink slip might have propelled the stock. Even after the 27,000 are gone, HP will still have almost twice as many employees as it did in 2007.

There will be plenty of bodies under payroll. Over the last six years alone, HP has gone on a $43 billion shopping spree, depleting its balance sheet of needed cash, all the while ignoring investing in organic growth, acquiring EDS, 3COM, Palm, 3Par, and the expensive $11.7 billion Autonomy.

Money makes the world go round. So where in the world is HP's money anyway?

I hate to be a wet blanket. With all the hoopla over the human resources chopping block, I'd like to focus on one aspect of HP that everyone has ignored -- the company's cash. Simply, where is it?

If we conducted a poll for the biggest story in 2012, which would you select to highlight the year thus far? Would it be Facebook (FB) and all the hype it received pre-IPO, followed by an epic flop? How about Europe, and its continued economic blunders weighing on U.S. equities? Well, if you don't say Apple (AAPL) and its back-to-back stellar quarters, accompanied by its parabolic run, it certainly should make your top three. It is undeniable that Apple is the talk of the tech world. With a new iPhone coming out every year, a new iPad that recently just debuted, and having a tight fisted grip on consumers, success is expected for a while to come. Aside from owning Apple outright, who better to ride on the coattails of that success than Qualcomm (QCOM)?

Qualcomm is one of the chip suppliers for Apple and its wireless devices. Things such

The chart below shows new ratings, price targets, and buy/sell ranges vs. old ones:

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BMC Software: Maintain at Buy, Increase PT From $57 to $60

BMC Software continues to be one of our favorite application software companies due to its strong cloud computing service as well as value. Compared with most other growing cloud computing companies, BMC Software has a lot of value with 11 forward PE ratio and strong growth at 9%-10% right now. Cloud-related bookings rose 70% in the latest quarter, and that number will continue

David Einhorn is an esteemed fund manager known for his short-selling practices. He became famous for making big money by selling short Allied Capital due to the financial services company's questionable lending activities that seemed to defraud Small Business Administration. He later profitably sold short the Lehman Brothers' stock just before the bank's demise. Running a long-short value hedge fund called Greenlight Capital, with $8 billion in assets under management, Einhorn has achieved returns that significantly outperform the market.

Still, while Einhorn is popular for his short selling, he is long several companies whose intrinsic value promises to produce consistent investment returns over the long run. Here are four dividend stocks from Einhorn's portfolio for value-conscious income investors.

Click to enlarge all images.

Seagate Technology (STX) is one of the world's largest producers of hard drives. The company has $11.8 billion in market capitalization. It pays a dividend yielding 3.7%

Technology stocks have performed well during the past five years, especially in fast-growing emerging markets, where consumers have been forming lines around the block to snatch up iPads, smartphones and a host of other tantalizing devices.

The chart below tells the story. The technology sector has outperformed the MSCI World Index (MXWO) by 26 percent. The stage is set for this outperformance to continue, as demand accelerates this year throughout the global supply chain for computers, consumer gadgets, data storage, and information technology (IT) infrastructure.

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Source: Bloomberg

IT spending will pick up this year, as companies become confident enough to make long-deferred investments in infrastructure and "the cloud." Meanwhile, mobile devices and tablet computers are transitioning from niche products into the consumer mainstream.

Income-oriented investors looking for sustainable growth plays to add to their portfolios should consider technology stocks, which are not as risky and volatile as

A few years ago when I was buying shares of Ford (F) at prices below $2, my friends kept telling me I was crazy. They told me I was throwing good money after bad money. Then my investment in Ford returned me about 900% in 3 years. Now the same friends are saying the same thing to me as I add to my Nokia (NOK) shares at prices below $3 - not to mention when I increased my Bank of America (BAC) exposure when it fell below $5 last year. Many people say "you are just speculating," however, I wouldn't call buying shares of Nokia speculation, just like I wouldn't call buying shares of Ford as a speculation in 2009. Speculation is something different.

This is an example of speculating: XYZ is a drug company that never got FDA approval in its history. Currently it is working on a secret

Yahoo (YHOO) is getting strong reviews for its new Axis browser. The browser is designed around mobile, and delivered first on Apple's (AAPL) iOS.

It's not a Chrome-Explorer-Firefox replacement per se, however. For most browser applications it's an add-on, which mainly makes search easier by giving most results in thumbnails (rather than text links).

Economically, it seems to make no sense. Yahoo is taking away ad business from Google (GOOG), perhaps, but it's not bringing money into its own coffers. [OK, I get it. That was the reason so many companies sponsored the Mozilla Foundation and Firefox -- to take money from Microsoft (MSFT).]

But this is not the kind of move a struggling company should be making. A struggling company should be looking to make money for itself, not keep someone else from getting a taste.

Unless, that is, the struggling company in question is positioning itself to be

It's time to Party Like It's 1999. With the recent Facebook (FB) IPO, we went back to the future to worship the mighty dollar in the form of rampant speculation, whisper numbers and media hype. This time around, however, the feeding frenzy remained relatively contained between Menlo Park and Wall Street. Facebook went public amid a sagging stock market chock full of cynical investors who have already been demoralized by the dot-com, housing, and credit boom and busts of this Dead Money era. Now, after the fallout from its lackluster debut, Facebook must answer the call upon its ability to monetize. Ironically, many calls to and from headquarters will come from the very same Apple iPhone (AAPL), Nokia Lumia (NOK), and Google Android (GOOG) smartphones that will destroy this business.

Facebook Valuations

On May 18, 2012, Facebook went public on the Nasdaq stock market. In exchange for putting up cash,

The technology sector remained bearish throughout the day yesterday. At the close of the market, the tech sector was down 0.97% for the day. It was the worst-performing sector and dragged the Nasdaq back into negative growth. Most of the larger companies, such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL), were largely unchanged; however, some of the smaller companies suffered large blows to their share prices. NetApp (NTAP) fell by 12.29% off of poor Q4 financial data, while OmniVision Technologies (OVTI) fell more than 8%.

Top Gainers

• MGT Capital Investments (MGT) up 26.60%
• Vringo (VRNG) up 24.63%, but down 4.13% after hours
• Pandora Media (P) up 12.29%
• Asia Pacific Wire & Cable (APWC) up 11.38%
• Optical Cable Corporation (OCC) up 9.67%

Top Losers

• LDK Solar Co. (LDK) down 15.08%, but up 4.25% after hours
• NetApp down 12.29%
• JinkoSolar Holding Co. (JKS) down 8.35%, but up 5.00% after hours
• OmniVision Technologies down

If you have read my previous articles, you know that I usually invest in dividend growth stocks. Recently, a number of prominent dividend-related contributors and commenters have mentioned an interest in investing in Hasbro (HAS) as it reached a yield of 4%. I decided to begin my own research on the company. What follows is the data I found and my thoughts on the company's future.

Business Summary

"Hasbro, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of children's and family leisure time products and services worldwide." Its most famous brands are "TRANSFORMERS, PLAYSKOOL, NERF, LITTLEST PET SHOP, MY LITTLE PONY, G.I. JOE, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, CRANIUM, and WIZARDS OF THE COAST" (Taken from Yahoo Finance page). It also has a licensing deal with the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) to produce products like the Avengers action figures, etc.

Its main, publicly-traded, competitor is Mattel (MAT); then secondarily,

By Guan Wang

Dan Loeb founded the New York-based hedge fund Third Point in 1995. Currently, the fund has approximately $7.5 billion AUM. Loeb is a pioneer in activist investing, which, owing to the large size of many of his positions, makes it relatively easier for investors to imitate his investments.

Loeb is also an outspoken investor, known for writing public letters about other financial executives. For example, the misstatement in the academic record of Yahoo's Scott Thompson might not have been noticed by the public if Loeb had kept silent. With regard to Loeb's performance as a fund manager, the value investor made $150 million, $200 million, and $270 million respectively from 2005 to 2007.

In 2010, Third Point's flagship fund returned 41.7%. It was down 0.1% in 2011, but the average hedge fund lost 5% during that year. Loeb recently reported his 13F holdings as of March 31,

Since May 1, we've seen a slow-motion sell-off. Little by little, more and more points have been shaved off of major indices and have been shaking out the weak hands within them. Last fall, we could have seen 900 Dow Jones Industrial Average points gone in two days. We've seen about that many go over the past two weeks, with 12 down days out of a possible 13. Whether this is the beginning of something ugly, or just a correction in a long-running bull market, one thing is becoming apparent: Some stocks are getting cheap, and Microsoft (MSFT) is one of them.

While plunging into positions is clearly a bad idea, adding to core positions or creating small starter ones wouldn't be a half-bad idea. With the deeply oversold condition of the market, a bounce is in store. I have a feeling that many investors will get suckered here. Many

From an individual investor's perspective, I find it truly interesting to focus on stocks that are large holdings in Jeremy Grantham's portfolio. I analyzed them and found some reasons why Jeremy Grantham could have been attracted to these investments. I look for companies that I can understand, with favorable long-term prospects that are operated by competent people, and, importantly, are available at attractive prices. I used whalewisdom.com to check Jeremy Grantham's holdings.

Microsoft (MSFT)

What is amazing about Microsoft is that the stock has been seen as "dead money" and "value trap" over the past few years, but I think that the tides are changing and that could take MSFT to a more normalized valuation above $32. Basically, Microsoft has plenty of legs remaining in several of its products (Office 2010, Windows 7, Kinect, etc.), has one of the most promising product cycles (Windows 8, Windows 8 Server, Office 12,

May is turning out to be a banner month for Google (GOOG) as the Internet giant is enjoying good news on several fronts that are bound to have a positive effect on its financials. That includes a jury verdict finding it innocent of infringing on a competitor's patents and drawing more users to its Chrome browser than Microsoft's (MSFT) Internet Explorer. These feats are important in their own right, but the one that trumps them is Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility (MMI), enabling it to build its own handsets and install its ever-popular Android operating system on them.

Let's start with the jury verdict. It stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Oracle (ORCL). Outraged and convinced about what it perceived as theft, the software company took Google to court last year, and at one point it wanted billions of dollars in damages. The judge and Google scoffed at that, forcing

by Morgan Smith

After years of resisting the obvious trend towards ever-larger smartphone screens, Apple (AAPL) is apparently caving in to market demand and is preparing to launch an iPhone with a display that is at least 14% larger than those on its existing 3.5 inch-display models.

Doing so would hew the iPhone more closely to a trend made popular by smartphones produced by Samsung (SSNLF.PK), Sony (SNE), Motorola Mobility (MMI), LG and HTC that operate on either Google's (GOOG) Android or Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Phone mobile operating systems - and a reactive strategy from a company long-considered one of the America's most innovative.

Since 2007 when the iPhone launched, the smartphone landscape has witnessed a screen arms race that has seen smartphones' screen real estate expand from a svelte 3.5-inches to an almost-unwieldy 5.3-inches. Indeed, Samsung, which is now the world s largest Smartphone maker, shipped its latest flagship

A couple of weeks ago Forbes had given Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer the title as the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today. Based on the article, he outranked John Chambers of Cisco (CSCO), General Electric's (GE) Jeffery Immelt, Walmart's (WMT) Mike Duke and Sears' (SHLD) Edward Lampert. There is a common factor among these CEO's: multi-year underperformance of its stock price.

The Forbes article said that Mr. Ballmer has steered Microsoft away from the fastest growing and lucrative markets. The roll out of new products were constantly delayed and ended up with mediocre products that do not add any value. After dumping its music player, new Windows product and other mobile products, it seems that Microsoft is the same company that it was a decade before. In the cutthroat technology space, incumbent leaders should not be complacent. They should create new products that would generate

A few weeks ago, Google (GOOG) announced a stock split that took everyone by surprise. The split was designed to facilitate the continued control of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin over the most dominant search engine in the world. In effect, investors are being asked to demonstrate confidence in their long-term vision for the company and their ability to implement that vision effectively. Google has a corporate structure that gives the founders majority voting control, and this has been copied by the newer generation of Internet companies such as Facebook (FB) and Zynga (ZNGA).

The stock split, however, takes this one step further to ensure that the voting control is not going to be diluted, even in the long term. In effect, Google's board of directors has approved the creation of new "Class C" stock, which is non-voting. With a 2:1 split, investors will get one share of the

Things are about to become very interesting in the mobile communications space as Google (GOOG) this past weekend received China approval for its Motorola Mobility (MMI) acquisition - the deal closed Wednesday, May 21. The acquisition, valued at $12.5 billion, is likely causing some angst among handset manufacturers who know that this marriage is a viable threat to their bottom lines.

And for those interested in options, Google's June options could be worth considering. This is particularly the case for the $650 option, which has an open interest of almost 9,000. For this option, you could earn up to $1,670 of option premium income by June 16 by selling call options.

On Saturday, Google announced that it had received the necessary approval from China to move forward with the acquisition. The $12.5 billion price tag breaks down to be $40 per share in cash, a premium of 63% to the

AT&T (T) is one company that stays at the forefront of innovation. As it continues adapting and diversifying, and it shows no signs of letting up soon.

The implementation of shared data plans is a major change with wireless carriers that will begin soon. These will allow customers to divide their data allotment between their mobile devices, rather than having separate plans for every device. The two companies leading the exploration of this possibility are AT&T and Verizon (VZ). Both companies plan to introduce shared data plans by the end of the year, but Verizon has plans to launch this summer while AT&T has not yet committed to a specific time this year.

As it currently appears, Verizon will probably be the first to introduce shared data plans, and AT&T will be the second. However, this is new territory in the United States that may have positive or negative results.