shutupsitdown

Who'll Blink First: Sirius, Loral or the Banks?

who cares? xm and siri should have fought until one of them went chapter 11, then chapter 7, and the other one scooped up the spoils. it was a good technology, and a good product (i'm a 5-radio xm subscriber, and got my first in 2003), but there is simply no expanding market for this service. people worried about their jobs won't pay for radio for the next few years.

if you're holding onto a $0.25 stock in hopes that it will go to $0.42, that's just sad (unless you have 1,000,000 shares). this is all an academic argument. stocks under $2 are always a lot more likely to go to $0 than they are to return to the $2 level. and the only hope for this pointlessly combined company is that it will be able to stay on life support, lose more money, and *maybe* make most of its minimal debt payment on time, while cutting jobs, ruining the programming, and not offering a single new service feature for the next several years.

as a company, sirius was poorly run (xm, too, most likely). combining two losing entities will *rarely* (and by rarely i mean 0.0000001% of the time) result in a stronger combined entity. it's usually (and by usually i mean 99.9999999% of the time) just a bigger loser. as i said, their only hope was to let one or the other go under, and just take over the contracts at pennies on the dollar.

karmazin is not some brilliant businessman (where are you people getting this? from listening to howard's show for business advice?) it's a ridiculous notion. people thought the same thing about bernie ebbers -- he's so rich, he *must* be smart. well, he may be the smartest guy in federal prison today, so, good for him. karmazin is a putz. and he is largely to blame for the current condition of sat radio. it didn't get here by itself, you know.

if you're holding this stock (and i'm not, so i am *not* trying to manipulate anything; do what you want), my only suggestion would be to get your $25/share while it's still trading on a recognized market. reverse splits, prayed-for help from cash-strapped Morgan, just trying to will the stock up to $0.41/share, it's all very sad. people aren't buying new cars, they sure as hell aren't going to buy sirius. and with siri effing up the channels? this is such a classic death spiral (with the attendant spectators on the ground (or, floating a foot or two off the ground, actually) watching it and saying, 'he's hurtling toward earth on *purpose*! what a genius! he'll pull up any second now. he has to! please pull up, please!' and then the plume of smoke behind the trees, and they're still saying, 'maybe he landed safely!'), it will be written about in business school for years. and you'll have the no-value stock certificates and tax write-offs to prove it. i wish you all luck, i honestly do. but i have to tell you, you sound like the most desperate, naive, inexperienced happy jacks in the investing world today. now, please excuse me... i have to take my cool $100 gift card to the sharper image store at the mall to pick up a golf bag with a built-in segway. :)