More on Pandora's FQ1: The company expects FQ2 revenue of $99M-$101M and EPS of -$0.03 to -$0.05 vs. a consensus of $99.9M and -$0.03. However, it's guiding for FY13 revenue of $420M-$427M and EPS of -$0.07 to -$0.11, above a consensus of $415.9M and -$0.17. Listener hours +14% Q/Q and +92% Y/Y to 3.09B. Active users +10% Q/Q and +53% Y/Y to 51.9M. 5.95% share of U.S. radio listening, up from 5.55% in FQ4, 3.11% in year-ago period. P +8.8% AH. (PR) [View news story]
The fundamentals for Pandora are very good.
Presumably, they can get better with advertising.
The biggest risk for this stock is whether changes in pricing strategy will alienate their listeners because the current yearly price of a subscription is a bargain.
"Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior," rants William Deresiewicz in the NYT. "Shafting your workers, hurting your customers...Leaving the public to pick up the tab. These aren’t anomalies; this is how the system works," Deresiewicz writes, adding that capitalist values are antithetical to democratic one. [View news story]
Don't be ignorant.
Theft from one's own employees isn't the capitalist paradigm that the author says it is but if you don't think it happens in places that still stay afloat, you're naive.
I've talked to casino bosses that admit to skimming from bussers and waitresses for the good sections and experienced bosses lying to their employees about raises/bonuses.
The entrepreneurs cannot typically get away with these behaviors but hired management can.
"Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior," rants William Deresiewicz in the NYT. "Shafting your workers, hurting your customers...Leaving the public to pick up the tab. These aren’t anomalies; this is how the system works," Deresiewicz writes, adding that capitalist values are antithetical to democratic one. [View news story]
The piece as a whole is pretty stupid but there are a few important points.
1. Entrepreneurs build empires brick by brick and work in line with their workers. Workers in startups want to build the company. 2. When entrepreneurs leave, there is an inherent risk that the new management does not align completely with former leadership. 3. Financial companies are more incentivized to extract nonproductive value (extract money from a zero-sum exchange) [legal theft] from their own employees and customers. Especially if they can do so in an opaque way.
Mark Thoma says ~200K people will lose unemployment benefits in California and other states today. Under the terms of last year's agreement in Congress, benefits would be cut off if jobless rates fell below certain thresholds; despite a weak job market, rates have been falling. "Will a cut in benefits motivate workers who have become dependent on the program to go out and find jobs?” [View news story]
Yes, they hire hedge funds to grow their CalPERS fund so people with no fiduciary responsibility for the performance of the fund get free reign AND a public backstop.
The cost savings from two large distribution centers Amazon (AMZN -1.4%) plans to build in California could help offset the impact of inevitably having to collect sales tax in the future. Robert Baird's Colin Sebastian tells clients that the firm's competitive edge is so firmly entrenched, the sales tax issue won't have a meaningful impact on its growth trajectory. [View news story]
California has been collecting sales tax on online CA to CA sales for some time.
There was a recent acquisition by Amazon of a robotics company that made shipper robots. This may be an opportunity for amazon to try them out in warehouses custom designed for them.
More on Western Digital/Seagate: BofA is downgrading WDC to Neutral, arguing management's comments suggest softer-than-expected demand, which is proof the hard drive industry "can't have it both ways for much longer – pricing/margins at high levels, and expected strong demand." On that count, it doesn't help that solid-state drive prices are diving thanks to competition and cheaper flash memory. Nonetheless, Needham is staying bullish on both WDC and STX. [View news story]
This looks like a tasty dip.
1. To my knowledge, HDDs have longer-term stability and are easier to erase (think DOD-level erasing). 2. WDC is investing in alternative HD technologies
Wow. Blankfein: "The biggest threat to Goldman Sachs was the poor performance and bad risk management practices of our competitors." (earlier) [View news story]
Competitor is what they call their customers when GS ends up on the wrong side of the trade.
CalSTRS - the country's largest teacher's pension fund ($152B) - confirms its underfunding increased by 15% to $64.5B, leaving it covering just 69% of projected liabilities. Contributing to the shortfall were the recognition of 2008-09 losses as well as a reduction in the assumed rate of return to 7.5% from 7.75%, still greater than the 7.25% proposed by an actuary for CalPERS. (PR) [View news story]
I think that some of these public pension funds are sheep for money managers. Extraordinary wealth with underqualified oversight.
The best stimulus the government could do would be something energy-related, says economist David Rosenberg. For example, a natural gas infrastructure build-out "would put legions of Americans to work and eventually lead to much lower energy prices for consumers," which, in turn, would lead to a greater disposable income. (Video). [View news story]
There are as many opportunities for graft in the private sector as the public sector. How many CEOs have wrecked their own companies and walked away with overflowing wallets?
The best stimulus the government could do would be something energy-related, says economist David Rosenberg. For example, a natural gas infrastructure build-out "would put legions of Americans to work and eventually lead to much lower energy prices for consumers," which, in turn, would lead to a greater disposable income. (Video). [View news story]
Because the required outlay would be so large that no new players (new to the energy industry) could enter the market and no established company would want to front the cost because the downside risk would be enormous. If profit from the enterprise was too slow, the exec that made the call would be on the unemployment lines.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
From Wikipedia: Oligopoly is a common market form. As a quantitative description of oligopoly, the four-firm concentration ratio is often utilized. This measure expresses the market share of the four largest firms in an industry as a percentage. For example, as of fourth quarter 2008, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Nextel, and T-Mobile together control 89% of the US cellular phone market.
I don't have on hand the market concentration of the top 4 (or 6) players but I would be surprised if it didn't, in many circles, breach the level that would be defined as an oligopoly.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
1. 7500 banks handling the money for >350 million people is significantly below what you would expect in a perfectly competitive marketplace. 2. Different banks serve different types of customers. Because investment banks and commerical banks have been collectively classified as "banks", even the 7500 number is artificially high. If you exclude the agricultural banks because of their high specificity then you're down to 6000 banks. 3. Community banks have very little flexibility in price setting. Where there is a community bank, there is either a Chase or Citibank nearby.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
This is a good thing. The first step in ending TBTF is stopping banking from becoming an oligopoly.
This is the first step towards useful regulation and trust-busting that needs to happen to stop the T-Mobile/AT&T deal and what should have stopped the NBC/Comcast deal.
I love the free market and I love the advances that have been made because of competitive marketplaces. But oligopolies are bad for the market. They create huge incentives for anti-competitive behavior and, ultimately, slow down the pace of innovation.
Wells Fargo (WFC) will begin testing this fall in 5 states a $3 monthly fee for use of a debit card. The move is in response to new regulations out of D.C. that lowers the cap on merchant fees on debit card swipes, and follows a similar test run from Chase (JPM). [View news story]
Banks do provide a service. The security of your money.
I do not walk around with a significant portion of my net worth on my person and there is a convenience of credit and debit cards that are worth paying for.
Though I do not agree with the fractional banking system that we currently employ, banks do serve important transactional functions.
More on Pandora's FQ1: The company expects FQ2 revenue of $99M-$101M and EPS of -$0.03 to -$0.05 vs. a consensus of $99.9M and -$0.03. However, it's guiding for FY13 revenue of $420M-$427M and EPS of -$0.07 to -$0.11, above a consensus of $415.9M and -$0.17. Listener hours +14% Q/Q and +92% Y/Y to 3.09B. Active users +10% Q/Q and +53% Y/Y to 51.9M. 5.95% share of U.S. radio listening, up from 5.55% in FQ4, 3.11% in year-ago period. P +8.8% AH. (PR) [View news story]
Presumably, they can get better with advertising.
The biggest risk for this stock is whether changes in pricing strategy will alienate their listeners because the current yearly price of a subscription is a bargain.
"Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior," rants William Deresiewicz in the NYT. "Shafting your workers, hurting your customers...Leaving the public to pick up the tab. These aren’t anomalies; this is how the system works," Deresiewicz writes, adding that capitalist values are antithetical to democratic one. [View news story]
Theft from one's own employees isn't the capitalist paradigm that the author says it is but if you don't think it happens in places that still stay afloat, you're naive.
I've talked to casino bosses that admit to skimming from bussers and waitresses for the good sections and experienced bosses lying to their employees about raises/bonuses.
The entrepreneurs cannot typically get away with these behaviors but hired management can.
"Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior," rants William Deresiewicz in the NYT. "Shafting your workers, hurting your customers...Leaving the public to pick up the tab. These aren’t anomalies; this is how the system works," Deresiewicz writes, adding that capitalist values are antithetical to democratic one. [View news story]
1. Entrepreneurs build empires brick by brick and work in line with their workers. Workers in startups want to build the company.
2. When entrepreneurs leave, there is an inherent risk that the new management does not align completely with former leadership.
3. Financial companies are more incentivized to extract nonproductive value (extract money from a zero-sum exchange) [legal theft] from their own employees and customers. Especially if they can do so in an opaque way.
Mark Thoma says ~200K people will lose unemployment benefits in California and other states today. Under the terms of last year's agreement in Congress, benefits would be cut off if jobless rates fell below certain thresholds; despite a weak job market, rates have been falling. "Will a cut in benefits motivate workers who have become dependent on the program to go out and find jobs?” [View news story]
The cost savings from two large distribution centers Amazon (AMZN -1.4%) plans to build in California could help offset the impact of inevitably having to collect sales tax in the future. Robert Baird's Colin Sebastian tells clients that the firm's competitive edge is so firmly entrenched, the sales tax issue won't have a meaningful impact on its growth trajectory. [View news story]
There was a recent acquisition by Amazon of a robotics company that made shipper robots. This may be an opportunity for amazon to try them out in warehouses custom designed for them.
More on Western Digital/Seagate: BofA is downgrading WDC to Neutral, arguing management's comments suggest softer-than-expected demand, which is proof the hard drive industry "can't have it both ways for much longer – pricing/margins at high levels, and expected strong demand." On that count, it doesn't help that solid-state drive prices are diving thanks to competition and cheaper flash memory. Nonetheless, Needham is staying bullish on both WDC and STX. [View news story]
1. To my knowledge, HDDs have longer-term stability and are easier to erase (think DOD-level erasing).
2. WDC is investing in alternative HD technologies
Wow. Blankfein: "The biggest threat to Goldman Sachs was the poor performance and bad risk management practices of our competitors." (earlier) [View news story]
CalSTRS - the country's largest teacher's pension fund ($152B) - confirms its underfunding increased by 15% to $64.5B, leaving it covering just 69% of projected liabilities. Contributing to the shortfall were the recognition of 2008-09 losses as well as a reduction in the assumed rate of return to 7.5% from 7.75%, still greater than the 7.25% proposed by an actuary for CalPERS. (PR) [View news story]
The best stimulus the government could do would be something energy-related, says economist David Rosenberg. For example, a natural gas infrastructure build-out "would put legions of Americans to work and eventually lead to much lower energy prices for consumers," which, in turn, would lead to a greater disposable income. (Video). [View news story]
The best stimulus the government could do would be something energy-related, says economist David Rosenberg. For example, a natural gas infrastructure build-out "would put legions of Americans to work and eventually lead to much lower energy prices for consumers," which, in turn, would lead to a greater disposable income. (Video). [View news story]
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
Oligopoly is a common market form. As a quantitative description of oligopoly, the four-firm concentration ratio is often utilized. This measure expresses the market share of the four largest firms in an industry as a percentage. For example, as of fourth quarter 2008, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Nextel, and T-Mobile together control 89% of the US cellular phone market.
I don't have on hand the market concentration of the top 4 (or 6) players but I would be surprised if it didn't, in many circles, breach the level that would be defined as an oligopoly.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
2. Different banks serve different types of customers. Because investment banks and commerical banks have been collectively classified as "banks", even the 7500 number is artificially high. If you exclude the agricultural banks because of their high specificity then you're down to 6000 banks.
3. Community banks have very little flexibility in price setting. Where there is a community bank, there is either a Chase or Citibank nearby.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
www.fdic.gov/bank/stat...
Banks insured by the FDIC
#Consumer lenders: 75
#International banks: 4
#Credit card lenders: 21
Other >1BB: 64
Do these numbers fall under oligopoly status by your definition?
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is asking the Fed to extend its examination of Capital One's (COF) purchase of ING Direct so Congress can hold hearings on the matter. “This proposed purchase would create the fifth-largest bank in the United States,” says Frank. “For this reason alone, care should be taken to thoroughly examine the impact of this purchase." COF -0.1% AH. [View news story]
This is the first step towards useful regulation and trust-busting that needs to happen to stop the T-Mobile/AT&T deal and what should have stopped the NBC/Comcast deal.
I love the free market and I love the advances that have been made because of competitive marketplaces. But oligopolies are bad for the market. They create huge incentives for anti-competitive behavior and, ultimately, slow down the pace of innovation.
Wells Fargo (WFC) will begin testing this fall in 5 states a $3 monthly fee for use of a debit card. The move is in response to new regulations out of D.C. that lowers the cap on merchant fees on debit card swipes, and follows a similar test run from Chase (JPM). [View news story]
I do not walk around with a significant portion of my net worth on my person and there is a convenience of credit and debit cards that are worth paying for.
Though I do not agree with the fractional banking system that we currently employ, banks do serve important transactional functions.