Asif

http://www.sinletter.com
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84 Comments

    • Mon Sep 11th 23:45 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Long Case for Teva Pharmaceutical
      Hi Saul (unless the comment was another CrossProfit analyst),

      The huge amount of Goodwill does worry me. Since I am not an accountant, I am not sure if TEVA as an ADR gets to amortize its Goodwill according to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or write it off according to US GAAP.

      I am not sure how you arrived at a forward PE of 12/13 based on the fundamentals. As I mentioned in the article, the three catalysts I see for increased earnings in 2007 are

      i) the large number of applications filed with the FDA and in Europe
      ii) Teva's proprietary drug Azilect for Parkinson's disease, which has launched very recently in the U.S even though it was launched in Israel in 2005.
      iii) the Ivax acquisition, which has just started contributing to Teva's earnings

      The generic drug industry is still quite fragmented and Teva seems to be in a good position to benefit from further consolidation in the industry.

      As Warren Buffett once said about the Efficient Market Hypothesis, <i>"I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were always efficient."</i... My take is that the market has mispriced Teva (much like it did two other SINLetter picks Seagate and ATI Technologies). If I am wrong it will hurt as I bought Teva after I sent out my investment newsletter to subscribers.

      Asif
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 7th 11:36 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The "Dogs of the Dow" Theory: An Impressive 21% Return YTD
      It looks like the WSJ numbers includes returns from dividends.

      I just wanted to add that we have now built a page that automatically computes the performance of the Dogs of the Dow and compares it with the rest of the indices.
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 7th 02:11 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      iPod Wars: Microsoft and Toshiba Team Up Against Apple
      Thanks for the reminder Thomas. I do recollect now that Real was founded by a former MSFT exec. While I cannot speak for the Real Media player or their gaming arcade software (I have not used either in a long time), their Rhapsody service is very cool.

      I used it for over a year before I decided to give Yahoo Music Unlimited a try in the hope that they might have artists like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin in their catalogue. I absolutely hated Yahoo Music and switched right back to Rhapsody even though it costs me almost 50% more.
      View article »
    • Tue Aug 29th 18:40 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      iPod Wars: Microsoft and Toshiba Team Up Against Apple
      Carl, check out the Sandisk Sansa e250. It has the potential to give the iPods a serious run for their money. Err, did I just say that? All Apple enthusiasts please ignore the last statement.

      I already own a Sandisk Sansa as I wanted something that would work with Rhapsody To Go and noticed the e250 (there are 4GB and 6GB versions as well) when I went to pick up a Sansa M240 for someone. This is one of the few MP3 players from a company other than Apple that actually has the "cool" factor and costs less. As Rhapsody continues to gain traction (last I checked they had 2.25 million subscribers), I expect the Sandisk Sansas to do well.

      I still don't understand why Microsoft decided to get into the highly competitive music download segment instead of acquiring a company like Real Networks.
      View article »
    • Tue Aug 29th 14:58 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Tata Motors Sets Up a Vehicle Financing Arm
      This is likely to be very positive for the company as vehicle financing is still gaining acceptance in India as an alternative to just buying the car outright like people did a few years ago.

      A big part of earnings at GM and Ford over the last few years were from their financing divisions. The main risk is interest rates rising a lot in India over the next few years.
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 27th 23:54 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      S&P Research: S&P 500 + Dividends + Buybacks = Impressive Annual Yield
      I wonder if the 5.34% yield takes into account share dilution on account of stock options and stock based acquisitions. Regarding dividend ETFs, I recently wrote an article for ETFtrends.com called Time For a Dog ETF? that talks about an ETF based on stock buybacks and the dogs of the dow theory.
      View article »
    • Wed Aug 16th 14:28 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Barron's Online Now Carrying Seeking Alpha Headlines
      To add to this, Google Finance is now displaying SeekingAlpha posts under the "news" section. I am not sure how long this has been happening but I just noticed it today when I saw one of my posts up there.

      finance.google.com/fin...
      View article »
    • Mon Aug 14th 16:44 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Microsoft's New Windows Live Writer is a Waste of Time
      I had no idea you could hand code HTML and dabble in CSS. You have earned my respect. I used to avoid WYSIWYG editors like M$ Frontpage precisely for the reasons you mentioned above. Terrible generated code.

      I will give the Performancing extension of Firefox a try.
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 6th 15:00 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Nomura's Individual Investor Survey for August: Caution Prevails
      The following sentence makes no sense,

      <i>"...indi... investors remain mostly optimistic with 80.7% out of 1,000 respondents expecting the Nikkei 225 to rise over the next three months. Overall, Nomura seems to think the results show Japanese investors remain rather cautious... "</i>

      until you get to this breakdown,

      <i>"Nomura gauges responses in 1,000 point N225 increments and of those expecting a rise, 37.8% responded for +1,000, 33.3% for +2,000, 6.9% for +3,000 and 2.7% for &gt;+3,000."&...

      I wonder if all this caution is a contrarian buy indicator. However like Enzio suggests, there may be gloom ahead and I am content watching from the sidelines as far as the Japanese market is concerned.
      View article »
    • Tue Aug 1st 14:19 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Short Case for TheStreet.com
      David, while writing the next edition of my newsletter this weeked I was trying to look up some numbers on Suntech Power. I found the conference call transcript on SeekingAlpha very useful but I also read a couple of articles from the TheStreet.com and the Motley Fool even though they were weeks old.

      If investors are trying to look up information about thinly covered stocks (Suntech does not fall under this category), there is a good chance that they will read articles about the stock even if it is a couple of months old. I agree that the volume of such investors may not a whole lot, but over time as TheStreet.com posts more content, it will add up.
      View article »
    • Mon Jul 31st 16:05 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Lightening Up on the India Fund
      The PowerShares India Tiger Portfolio ETF that will be launched soon will provide an alternative to closed-end funds like the India Fund (IFN) and India Investment Fund (IIF).

      etf.seekingalpha.com/a...
      View article »
    • Mon Jul 31st 15:38 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Short Case for TheStreet.com
      David, while I do not have any positions in TSCM, I have watched the stock closely over the last year. As you can see from this SeekingAlpha article, a large portion of traffic to websites is on account of archived content that visitors find through search engines. This is partially on account of search engines giving greater importance to older articles. I have noticed a very similar trend on SINLetter as well. Hence as the number of articles on TheStreet increases, their advertising revenue will most likely continue to grow.

      On the negative side, the increase in traffic that many websites have seen over the last two years is partially on account of the number of search "bots" and RSS (or Atom) feed reading robots that hit the website multiple times a day. Looking through my raw log files, I see some of these bots hit my website almost every 30 minutes. Hence while looking at metrics such as page views, I would heavily discount the number of page views being reported.
      View article »
    • Wed Jul 26th 14:51 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why I'm Long Marcus Corp.
      Jon,

      Marcus distributed a $7 per share "special" dividend on February 27th and this is reflected as a steep drop in this chart.

      Once you include this $7 distribution, the stock price as of today is closer to $28/share and hence the 23.9% return since it was mentioned in my Lets Go To The Movies blog entry on January 19th. Low average daily volume combined with almost non-existent analyst coverage is another reason for volatility in this stock.

      Asif
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 25th 14:29 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Netflix Misses Second Quarter Analyst Estimates
      While I don't mind the ads on their website or even the ads on the mailers, what does irritate me is the emails they sometimes send regarding upcoming movies (promotional ads for the studios?).

      Switching to HD-DVD or the Blue Ray format is going to be expensive for Netflix and I wonder if they will have special pricing for high definition. If not, we may see marging erosion in the short-term.
      View article »
    • Mon Jul 17th 03:58 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Circuit City Raises Dividend; Bad Store, Great Stock?
      For years now I have been a fan of Circuit City stores and the stock, right from when it was trading at about $4 in early 2003 and before the $8 per share unsolicited bid from that Mexican family.

      I have always found Circuit City to have better prices than Best Buy and quite clearly a much larger range of gadgets than Target or Walmart. The upcoming release of the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii combined with continued demand for flat panel HDTV TVs bodes well for Circuit City.

      Disclaimer: I do not hold any positions in Circuit City.
      View article »
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