tombo

Google Is Overpriced: Why Acquire On2 in an All Stock Deal?

Just so. When your company's stock is overvalued, the best thing you can do is use your overvalued stock to acquire undervalued companies, or else issue more overvalued shares on the market to get capital to expand internally.

When your stock is undervalued, you either use your extra cash to buy back your undervalued stock, or better yet, use your cash to acquire other companies that are even more undervalued than your own. You don't use your undervalued stock to acquire other companies.

Why Does Loral Continue to Shoot Up?

I can't provide any light on this, but I have definitely noticed the price rise since this is still on my watch list.

Speaking as one who used to work at the company, my guess is the ever-persistent takeover rumor. I had assumed their plan was to sell out to someone after they came out of bankruptcy, but that never happened so I sold my position a while back.

That said, I haven't heard any rumors from my friends who still work there about any takeover, and I generally don't have an optimistic outlook for their business in our current downturn. Satellites cost a lot of money to build, launch, and insure. They pay nothing back until they are in orbit. Not a great business model in a time of tight credit. Then again, they don't have a lot of competition these days in the large commercial satellite manufacturing biz. I'll be watching for some news.

Google's First Hubristic Leap: Competing With the Internet

Don't know why you think "This is terribly dangerous for Google". As you say it's competing with other sites out there like about.com, etc. It's not breaking any new ground, and it's not in any way competing with their search business.

This is just another one of dozens of content ideas cooked up by their engineers. Maybe it will pay off maybe it won't. It won't even be a blip on their earnings if it fails, and it probably won't add more than a fraction of a percent if it succeeds. A big yawn-fest if you ask me.

Instant Gratification with InterOil Corporation?

I agree that Wayne Andrews is a smart guy, but even smart guys make mistakes. And he seems a little too cozy with management on the conference calls. Lofting softball questions and congratulating management as they miss targets time after time. And I believe RJ has a banking relationship with IOC. His earnings estimates on their refinery are certainly rosy, and I believe time will prove him wrong yet again.

T. Boone Pickens has a decent position in this stock, and that carries more weight with me, since I KNOW he's no fool, and he's putting his money where his mouth is. But frankly, I don't care if Jesus Christ has put a $200 target on the stock. If he can't explain why it should be worth that much and make me believe it, I won't be investing.

If I wanted to play PNG oil and gas, I'd buy Oil Search which trades at just 3x Wayne's target for IOC. They actually have proven NG reserves (more than double the best case speculation number for IOC), they're producing oil right now, and their LNG project is going to get done.

Their LNG project will come online late 2013 best case. IOC's project will come online after that if it ever gets done. I realize that LNG prices are sky high right now, but I don't think they are sustainable, and 5 years is a long time.

Google vs. Viacom: Google's Strategy

"The issue for the judge–assuming this ongoing spat gets before a jury–will be to decide who creates YouTube’s content"

I doubt that. I think that everyone knows who creates the content in question. It's Viacom.
The question is what are Google's obligations under DCMA as far as preventing the content from getting on Youtube in the first place. Per the DCMA, you don't need to do anything to prevent someone from posting copyrighted material. You just need to take it down once you get informed of the problem.
What Viacom will argue is that with so many different users uploading their shows, Google must do more than just take them down after they find them. Otherwise Google is effectively making money off Viacom's content.

Instant Gratification with InterOil Corporation?

I don't know. Much of it is still true today. The refinery is still worth much less than advertised. Basically it's break even. They still need to get constant cash inflows from investors to keep drilling.

They still put out wildly optimistic press releases. Did you read over those press releases from the last 10 years? Seems like every well they drill is a "huge find" and then they cap it and move on. They still have no proven oil or gas reserves.

They only major "plus side" difference I see is they managed to swap out a good chunk of their bank debt in a hugely dilutive stock deal. Which means the short term credit crunch is over. I guess as long as they can keep finding suckers to invest, they can stay afloat. But even in the best case scenario, they are many years away from producing revenue off the Gas "find". What will Natural gas prices be then? How many old and new investors will be taking their cut before shareholders? Extremely overvalued IMO.

Instant Gratification with InterOil Corporation?

This article gives a good summary of the long case. Here's a link to the short case.

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