Hedged In

A Worm in the Apple?

This article makes only one valid point: that a magazine cover MIGHT signal a top in sentiment. Otherwise, it brings little evidence for AAPL investors to be concerned.

But there is evidence elsewhere:
- Windows 7 is a far better product than Windows Vista, so there's more real competition in the laptop market.
- Google is now a serious competitor to Apple with its Android mobile OS.
- There's more competition in the smartphone market due to Android. Motorola, HTC, and soon Dell will all have Android handsets offered via US carriers.
- There's significant pricing pressure in the smartphone market - Apple would never be able to get the deal now that it got with AT&T, and RIMM, PALM, MOT and NOK will battle desperately for smartphone market share because their stocks depend on it.
- Apple's tablet seems to have been delayed to H2 2010.

None of these factors suggest that Apple isn't a great company. But great companies and great stocks are different things. The signs are that AAPL the stock might perform far less well in 2010 than 2009.

The New Merger Arbitrage ETF Is Likely to Fail

Excellent article.

WSJ.com Could Lose 25% of Its Traffic if Murdoch Blocks Google

For this to work, the WSJ has to have (1) a unique enough offering to make it worth paying for, and (2) a strong enough brand to attract customers. It has the brand, but Murdoch seems to be watering down the quality of the journalism.

One of Murdoch's key points was that visitors from Google don't become loyal paying customers, and have little value to advertisers. If he's right about that, it doesn't matter to him that 44% of its visitors come from Google.


On Nov 10 11:06 AM dieuwer wrote:

> Why pay if you can read the EXACT same "cut-copy-paste" news item
> on ANY other site?

Berkshire's 50-to-1 split of its Class B shares (BRK.B) will bring some much-awaited liquidity to the highly-coveted and highly-expensive stock. "This stock split, more so than anything else that’s happened lately, may be one of the single best investing opportunities of the decade," Phil Davis says.

Totally nuts. How can a stock split EVER be a buying opportunity? And you have to ask yourself: if Buffett is paying in stock when he has enough cash for the transaction, what does that tell you about his view of BRK.B's relative value?

4 ETFs Ideas for the Battle of the Smartphones

I think you're right that the key beneficiaries are the network operators and the semiconductor component suppliers. Margins for the smartphone providers themselves will fall, particularly AAPL and RIMM.

Personal Privacy

Thanks for the link. The map, particularly, was very interesting.

Grantham: Overvalued Markets Due for an Adjustment

Why didn't you link to the full article by Jeremy Grantham? It's here (in PDF):
www.gmo.com/websitecon...

A key selling point for gold, of course, is that it's a store of value that's hard to make disappear. Which is why some are troubled that the serial-numbered Friday physical bar listings from [[GLD]] - the largest U.S. gold-backed ETF - shrank from over a thousand pages to around 200 for a couple of weeks this month, before jumping back to 855 pages after growing online chatter.

Has anyone looked at SGOL? It's a gold ETF, but claims that it's audited, stored in Switzerland etc. seekingalpha.com/symbo...

U.S. Generational Shift is Key to Future Consumer Spending

Outstanding article.

Just how long was Galleon Group trading on inside information? Judging from the Madoff-like 20%-plus returns going back to 1992, maybe the entire time.

There's a thin line between great channel checks and inside information. It looks like they crossed that line, and built the firm on that. Lots of others don't.

Upscale vs. Downscale: Luxury Retailers Dramatically Outperforming Wal-Mart

Prescient article - congratulations. ROB continued to outperform, and for an obvious reason: it's more leveraged to an economic recovery. Or to put the same thing differently: WMT is more insulated from a recession.

Cetin caught on camera

Thanks Jesse!

Julian Robertson on Debt, Sudden Stops and More

Excellent interview -- Julian Robertson is a rock star.

But I'm left wondering: Why would China want to cause a collapse in the dollar, ie. a collapse in the foreign purchasing power of Americans? That would lead to a collapse of US imports from China.

Cetin caught on camera

What did he say? It wasn't so clear.

Today in Commodities: Holiday Volume

"U.S. inventories of distillate fuels, which include heating oil, are at their highest since January 1983, the U.S. Energy Department said Sept. 23. Stockpiles of 170.8 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 18 are 28 percent above the five-year average."

Source: bloomberg.com/apps/new...