Google (GOOG) roundup: 1) YouTube's video upload rate has passed 100 hours per minute. That's up from 72 hours last year, and 48 the year before. The milestone comes as YouTube expands live streaming support, and announces plans to unify its design across devices/platforms. 2) In July, Dell (DELL) will begin selling Project Ophelia, a $100 USB flash drive-shaped device that allows any monitor with an HDMI port to be turned into an Android PC. Dell is also working on "a keyboard-like technology for users to type when Ophelia is docked to a screen." [View news story]
Ben, this "cool idea" is old - numerous similar ones are out there. They have as much computing power as a low end tablet but are useful and work well. Only reason someone would buy the Dell is if they were unaware that others were out there which are less expensive.
Google (GOOG) roundup: 1) YouTube's video upload rate has passed 100 hours per minute. That's up from 72 hours last year, and 48 the year before. The milestone comes as YouTube expands live streaming support, and announces plans to unify its design across devices/platforms. 2) In July, Dell (DELL) will begin selling Project Ophelia, a $100 USB flash drive-shaped device that allows any monitor with an HDMI port to be turned into an Android PC. Dell is also working on "a keyboard-like technology for users to type when Ophelia is docked to a screen." [View news story]
Dell is a bit late to this party as these Android devices have been available for some time from a variety of vendors and generally range in price today from $30 to $75 at most. They work with generic wireless/bluetooth keypad/trackball/trackpad devices. It's a loser for Dell and just confirms that they are going down in flames.
Smaller Companies With Potential For Big Returns [View article]
Re NAUH: We've been buying for the past 9 months or so whenever the stock has been under $3.75 - which is continual these days.
The company is solid, unlike its larger peers in the sector, their enrollment has been increasing where the others are decreasing rapidly. This past week, the company took advantage of a market gone stupid as the shares were unjustly taken down to the very low $3's. When that happened, the company repurchased 550,000 shares at a price of $3.15 in a private transaction. All of the shares were immediately retired and removed from the outstanding shares (now 25,045,464 shares outstanding), so shareholders share value was immediately increased by about 2%, which will also increase EPS and decrease PE going forward.
The $3.15/share purchase price was just above the all-time low the stock hit a couple days earlier (a small number of shares traded at $3.00).
This company is solid, it grows in a controlled manner, expands only when it makes sense, is shareholder friendly, and as a result of management owning a big chunk and regularly purchasing shares has shareholder value as a top priority. Everything about the way this company operates is better than the larger peers in the sector which have been having problems for some time now. Unfortunately, NAUH's share price wants to follow the way the others move. At least for those who understand and know the company it offers a fabulous opportunity to continue picking up shares at an extremely low price with a solid dividend pushing up against 5%. In the current low interest rate environment, it offers the best of both worlds - a great dividend right now, and great growth potential in the share price going forward. Heck, I may have just convinced myself that it's time to pick up some more shares!
10 Clean Energy Stocks For 2013: April Update [View article]
I've followed your actions and articles on MXWL closely for the past year and I don't agree with any of it. You talk about not letting short term profit cloud the last poster's judgement, yet I find that all your actions with MXWL over the past year have been nothing but short term.
You had MXWL management discussing everything you wanted open and honestly for the past year, even once the restatement issue came up. They gave you open and honest answers, and then you effectively said you didn't believe them. Now you've shorted the stock and just as you were pumping the stock with numerous glowing articles for weeks last summer, I seriously doubt that we can expect much objectivity from you going forward. I have to question the integrity of your writing both here and on the Forbes site as it appears that your holdings very distinctly compromise your ability to write unbiasedly.
So far your "trading" in MXWL has been incorrect from the long side, and now the short side. When the stock gets back to $10 and higher (yes, that's my opinion), you may want to review your actions and consider that if you were really in it for the long term, you would have made a lot of money. Instead, you are going to have to consider how much more money you're willing to lose sticking with your short position.
If I were MXWL management, I would refuse to have any contact with you going forward - so you may want to consider the value of the bridge you may have potentially burned in the process as well.
"I started buying at 10, kept increasing my position down to 6, sold some calls at 10, and then got out at 8. I was down for a long time, then up a lot, and broke even when I sold"
You were down for six months. Six months is not a long time (not even the IRS considers it long-term), though it is for someone only in it for the short-term.
The other which is along the same lines, yet totally unaddressed by the article is that the debt taken on earlier this year was specifically earmarked for buyback purposes. Because the interest rates on the debt were so low, some as low as 2% I believe, every share that Intel bought back makes money for them because the dividend rate (especially a few months ago) was more than double that of the debt. Further, the interest paid on the debt was deductible, while the dividends paid on the stock are not. So, when you take the debt, buyback, and dividend together it was win-win-win for Intel and still is.
Mr. Moreland, I've read your book a few years ago (among many others - yours is the best out there) and have great respect for you and the business you've developed around your service and years of work you've done. As we also provide value-added services/solutions for free, the Form 4 XML and other information from the SEC is invaluable as you know.
However, your algorithms for parsing and interpreting the information is not always thorough and sometimes you do still need to manually do research and not leave it all to automation. You and other outlets have put out numerous articles over the past couple months every time a purchase takes place at Calamos Investments (CLMS). However, because your algorithms are not properly interpreting the the XML in these cases and you are not confirming the information yourself before writing up these articles you are missing the most important information in the Explanation of Responses section.
All of the Form 4's are being filed under CEO John Calamos's name, however none are his purchases - they are all being purchased as part of the company buyback - as indicated in the Explanation of Responses. Your articles which highlight insider purchases are incorrectly indicating that John Calamos is buying the shares, and he is not. He went so far as to bring it up as a point in the company conference call two days ago ( http://seekingalpha.co... ).
I would suggest that you have a look at the Form 4s which Calamos is submitting, and possibly look to enhance your algorithms to account for it - or at least take the time to read through the Form 4 submissions before you write an article which is (incorrectly) highlighting the CEO making purchases.
From the transcript: "One other important point here, last quarter, we approved a share buyback to repurchase up to 3 million shares of our Class A common stock. The company repurchased approximately 312,000 shares totalling $3.4 million during the first quarter as part of the buyback. I want to point out that there is – has been some confusion in the market respect to the repurchases in the Form-4 filing that are required to be made with the SEC.
Given our ownership structure, the Form-4 are filed under my name personally. However, these share repurchase are made by Calamos Investments as part of the share buyback and are not transactions being made by me personally. As you know, Calamos Investments is a consolidated company making up of the Class A shareholders which are the public re-traded shares and then the rest of the company is privately owned by Calamos family partners.
That creates some of the confusion out there."
In any case, again, you've done great work over the years and our investments are always guided by the insider purchasing and the knowledge provided in your book. I am one of your biggest fans.
Maybe - but each of us knows in the back of our mind that if we were the one that went and sold our entire portfolio in May, sure enough that would be the year when it doesn't hold, there'd be a summer rally taking the indices up 20% and then come September/October we'd say "hell if I'm paying more money for that stuff now".
The "sell in May" story had been so beaten to death in April it was little surprise that Average Joe took it to heart on May 1 and gave the news outlets what they wanted. They'll probably get a good week's worth of stories out of it now.
However, we know that over the long term, market timing doesn't work. The greatest gains come on just a few days a year, and if you happen to be out of the market on those days, returns suffer dramatically. We know all this from other studies.
Having said that, there were numerous companies/shares that were put on sale yesterday. Should this May selling continue, there are likely to be even more/bigger values emerging. Another story and line of thinking I've seen over the past few weeks, was that there were still many investors on the sidelines waiting for a pullback to be able to get in at a cheaper level. My own theory - many of the funds and smart money have been hoping that Average Joe would "sell in May" so they could get more things at lower prices. To that end, they've been pushing the "sell in May" story during April.
At the end of the day, mutual funds, pension funds, and Wall Street still have to operate between May and October - it is part of the year. Do mutual funds sell everything and sit in cash through the summer? Mutual fund investors don't do major redemptions during April and May with the thought that the market will underperform through the summer - do they? Pension funds? Goldman and the big boys? Does everyone go home in May and shutdown the business between Memorial Day and Labor Day?
Lastly, if we "sell in May and go away", what happens when we get the "summer rally"? Doh!
So, most of these one line catch phrases make for good editorials, but as far as real investing value - little to none.
Undervalued Growth Stocks Under $10 [View article]
NAUH - don't forget the dividend - 4.7% at your $3.40 share price. This was increased by 6% from 15 cents/share to 16 cents/share in late 2012. Further, the CEO regularly purchases shares, and the company has had a share buyback program in place.
Global Geophysical Services: Too Much Risk, No Free Cash Flow [View article]
Nothing wrong with taking short term profits, or simply taking money off the table after the quick spike. However:
1. Debt was reduced in the quarter, and on the conference call you heard CEO state that they will continue to focus on paying down the debt. To reduce the debt by 5% in one quarter is quite a strong showing. At that rate, the company could be completely debt free in 5 years.
2. Backlog almost doubled in the quarter.
3. CEO indicated that there is lots of work taking place and bookings being made outside of the US.
While short-term there is likely to be some volatility in the shares until volume comes back down to a normal level, longer-term, I think there is still lots of money to be made in the shares.
This is a new CEO, they just began implementing his plans. This quarter was just the beginning.
5 Dividend Stocks Recently Purchased By Insiders [View article]
Re: CLMS - John Calamos is not purchasing the shares. They are part of the company buyback. Please go and review the SEC Form 4 and read the Explanation of Responses section. They are being filed with Mr. Calamos's name, but are company purchases.
"Shares purchased by Calamos Investments LLC primarily to manage dilution resulting from, and potentially to fulfill the requirements of, Calamos Asset Management's equity compensation plan."
"Shares purchased by Calamos Investments LLC pursuant to the Issuer's shares repurchase program."
Google (GOOG) roundup: 1) YouTube's video upload rate has passed 100 hours per minute. That's up from 72 hours last year, and 48 the year before. The milestone comes as YouTube expands live streaming support, and announces plans to unify its design across devices/platforms. 2) In July, Dell (DELL) will begin selling Project Ophelia, a $100 USB flash drive-shaped device that allows any monitor with an HDMI port to be turned into an Android PC. Dell is also working on "a keyboard-like technology for users to type when Ophelia is docked to a screen." [View news story]
http://amzn.to/117LZgk
Google (GOOG) roundup: 1) YouTube's video upload rate has passed 100 hours per minute. That's up from 72 hours last year, and 48 the year before. The milestone comes as YouTube expands live streaming support, and announces plans to unify its design across devices/platforms. 2) In July, Dell (DELL) will begin selling Project Ophelia, a $100 USB flash drive-shaped device that allows any monitor with an HDMI port to be turned into an Android PC. Dell is also working on "a keyboard-like technology for users to type when Ophelia is docked to a screen." [View news story]
Smaller Companies With Potential For Big Returns [View article]
The company is solid, unlike its larger peers in the sector, their enrollment has been increasing where the others are decreasing rapidly. This past week, the company took advantage of a market gone stupid as the shares were unjustly taken down to the very low $3's. When that happened, the company repurchased 550,000 shares at a price of $3.15 in a private transaction. All of the shares were immediately retired and removed from the outstanding shares (now 25,045,464 shares outstanding), so shareholders share value was immediately increased by about 2%, which will also increase EPS and decrease PE going forward.
The $3.15/share purchase price was just above the all-time low the stock hit a couple days earlier (a small number of shares traded at $3.00).
This company is solid, it grows in a controlled manner, expands only when it makes sense, is shareholder friendly, and as a result of management owning a big chunk and regularly purchasing shares has shareholder value as a top priority. Everything about the way this company operates is better than the larger peers in the sector which have been having problems for some time now. Unfortunately, NAUH's share price wants to follow the way the others move. At least for those who understand and know the company it offers a fabulous opportunity to continue picking up shares at an extremely low price with a solid dividend pushing up against 5%. In the current low interest rate environment, it offers the best of both worlds - a great dividend right now, and great growth potential in the share price going forward. Heck, I may have just convinced myself that it's time to pick up some more shares!
Reevaluating Nvidia Amidst Stock Stagnation [View article]
http://onforb.es/16wWvpP
Seth Klarman's Worst Performing Stock Picks Year-To-Date [View article]
10 Clean Energy Stocks For 2013: April Update [View article]
You had MXWL management discussing everything you wanted open and honestly for the past year, even once the restatement issue came up. They gave you open and honest answers, and then you effectively said you didn't believe them. Now you've shorted the stock and just as you were pumping the stock with numerous glowing articles for weeks last summer, I seriously doubt that we can expect much objectivity from you going forward. I have to question the integrity of your writing both here and on the Forbes site as it appears that your holdings very distinctly compromise your ability to write unbiasedly.
So far your "trading" in MXWL has been incorrect from the long side, and now the short side. When the stock gets back to $10 and higher (yes, that's my opinion), you may want to review your actions and consider that if you were really in it for the long term, you would have made a lot of money. Instead, you are going to have to consider how much more money you're willing to lose sticking with your short position.
If I were MXWL management, I would refuse to have any contact with you going forward - so you may want to consider the value of the bridge you may have potentially burned in the process as well.
"I started buying at 10, kept increasing my position down to 6, sold some calls at 10, and then got out at 8. I was down for a long time, then up a lot, and broke even when I sold"
You were down for six months. Six months is not a long time (not even the IRS considers it long-term), though it is for someone only in it for the short-term.
Intel: How Safe Is The Dividend? [View article]
The other which is along the same lines, yet totally unaddressed by the article is that the debt taken on earlier this year was specifically earmarked for buyback purposes. Because the interest rates on the debt were so low, some as low as 2% I believe, every share that Intel bought back makes money for them because the dividend rate (especially a few months ago) was more than double that of the debt. Further, the interest paid on the debt was deductible, while the dividends paid on the stock are not. So, when you take the debt, buyback, and dividend together it was win-win-win for Intel and still is.
Insiders Opting In [View article]
The absolute best investment you will ever make at the resale price..less than the price of a cup of coffee at McD's.
We also provide a free eGuide which is a condensed/quick start to get you going. Go to our profile page and the link is there.
Insiders Opting In [View article]
However, your algorithms for parsing and interpreting the information is not always thorough and sometimes you do still need to manually do research and not leave it all to automation. You and other outlets have put out numerous articles over the past couple months every time a purchase takes place at Calamos Investments (CLMS). However, because your algorithms are not properly interpreting the the XML in these cases and you are not confirming the information yourself before writing up these articles you are missing the most important information in the Explanation of Responses section.
All of the Form 4's are being filed under CEO John Calamos's name, however none are his purchases - they are all being purchased as part of the company buyback - as indicated in the Explanation of Responses. Your articles which highlight insider purchases are incorrectly indicating that John Calamos is buying the shares, and he is not. He went so far as to bring it up as a point in the company conference call two days ago ( http://seekingalpha.co... ).
I would suggest that you have a look at the Form 4s which Calamos is submitting, and possibly look to enhance your algorithms to account for it - or at least take the time to read through the Form 4 submissions before you write an article which is (incorrectly) highlighting the CEO making purchases.
From the transcript:
"One other important point here, last quarter, we approved a share buyback to repurchase up to 3 million shares of our Class A common stock. The company repurchased approximately 312,000 shares totalling $3.4 million during the first quarter as part of the buyback. I want to point out that there is – has been some confusion in the market respect to the repurchases in the Form-4 filing that are required to be made with the SEC.
Given our ownership structure, the Form-4 are filed under my name personally. However, these share repurchase are made by Calamos Investments as part of the share buyback and are not transactions being made by me personally. As you know, Calamos Investments is a consolidated company making up of the Class A shareholders which are the public re-traded shares and then the rest of the company is privately owned by Calamos family partners.
That creates some of the confusion out there."
In any case, again, you've done great work over the years and our investments are always guided by the insider purchasing and the knowledge provided in your book. I am one of your biggest fans.
Sell In May? A Brief Sanity Check [View article]
Sell In May? A Brief Sanity Check [View article]
However, we know that over the long term, market timing doesn't work. The greatest gains come on just a few days a year, and if you happen to be out of the market on those days, returns suffer dramatically. We know all this from other studies.
Having said that, there were numerous companies/shares that were put on sale yesterday. Should this May selling continue, there are likely to be even more/bigger values emerging. Another story and line of thinking I've seen over the past few weeks, was that there were still many investors on the sidelines waiting for a pullback to be able to get in at a cheaper level. My own theory - many of the funds and smart money have been hoping that Average Joe would "sell in May" so they could get more things at lower prices. To that end, they've been pushing the "sell in May" story during April.
At the end of the day, mutual funds, pension funds, and Wall Street still have to operate between May and October - it is part of the year. Do mutual funds sell everything and sit in cash through the summer? Mutual fund investors don't do major redemptions during April and May with the thought that the market will underperform through the summer - do they? Pension funds? Goldman and the big boys? Does everyone go home in May and shutdown the business between Memorial Day and Labor Day?
Lastly, if we "sell in May and go away", what happens when we get the "summer rally"? Doh!
So, most of these one line catch phrases make for good editorials, but as far as real investing value - little to none.
Undervalued Growth Stocks Under $10 [View article]
Image Sensing Systems Management Discusses Q1 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript [View article]
Global Geophysical Services: Too Much Risk, No Free Cash Flow [View article]
1. Debt was reduced in the quarter, and on the conference call you heard CEO state that they will continue to focus on paying down the debt. To reduce the debt by 5% in one quarter is quite a strong showing. At that rate, the company could be completely debt free in 5 years.
2. Backlog almost doubled in the quarter.
3. CEO indicated that there is lots of work taking place and bookings being made outside of the US.
While short-term there is likely to be some volatility in the shares until volume comes back down to a normal level, longer-term, I think there is still lots of money to be made in the shares.
This is a new CEO, they just began implementing his plans. This quarter was just the beginning.
5 Dividend Stocks Recently Purchased By Insiders [View article]
"Shares purchased by Calamos Investments LLC primarily to manage dilution resulting from, and potentially to fulfill the requirements of, Calamos Asset Management's equity compensation plan."
"Shares purchased by Calamos Investments LLC pursuant to the Issuer's shares repurchase program."