Structural Change In The Mobile Processor Marketplace: Intel Wins; ARM, AMD Lose [View article]
Arnold, I do not have any petards and I use a hydraulic jack to hoist my car. ANYWAY, my comment was before the new CEO's internal memo was "leaked", wink-wink, to the press.
My point follows: Intel had to suffer Otellini leaving, six months of rudderless corporate governance, a new tripartite BoDs, CEO, President reorganization, just so you could make your snide comment. I THINK this indicates bad C level management along the lines of HP's BoD hiring/firing Fiorina, Hurd, Apotheker, and Whitman only to have shareholders vote to fire the chairman and other board members.
My caution follows: Intel is dangerously behind and isolated. Intel licenses x86-64 from AMD who first monetized x86-64. Intel commercialized finFET after universities and government and AMD gave early support. Intel requires world class power distribution, timing distribution, and on chip buses in order for the Intel PR leak of the week to have any chance of shipping competitive chips down the road. This also requires world class design, logic verification, layout optimization, process characterization, design rules being integrated into software tools and emulations.
Apple Getting Crushed In Most Important Battle [View article]
Radar, I read Playboy for the pictures and SA for the comments. Keep up the great comments. Hope all SA readers dig to find the salient parts.
Radar's comment goes to the roots of Apple's DNA: Apple Inc. is a premium company with a premium eco-system. Apple consistently provides an outstanding user experience. Apple is all about experiences.
If you do not care get Android or WP8. Get rooted, get crapware, get ads, get on the annual replacement cycle. Cheap phones do not work well because you are lucky if you get what you pay for.
Market Timing Can't Be Done? Well, That's What Market-Makers Do Every Day [View article]
Peter, glad you have expert knowledge of arbitrage. So, we both know about HFT strategies.
Do you know about MCMCs in HFT? Do you know how the HFT software works?
A professor who consults on HFT and dark markets discussed the computer algorithms in general terms. Sending feelers to sense support levels, detecting imbalances, opening and closing options to hedge, in milliseconds.
Is there one SA reader who invests like this? If so I want to know more.
Market Timing Can't Be Done? Well, That's What Market-Makers Do Every Day [View article]
pollyserial, I wonder whether I am wasting my time but when I see all these divergent perspectives on investing, I am naturally curious. Then, there are all the sharks roaming these waters. Watching the intense selling is enlightening. I see a lot of similarities between professional gamblers and SA writers.
I go months sometimes paying little attention to the stock market. Then, something changes or new information surfaces. Last Summer, the coming changes in US taxes were new and required changes in my investments. This Spring, the changes in QE3 and possibly QEx are in play (i.e., will they prematurely end QE3 and what does the Fed do with toxic assets and tapering rate). Right now, my cash position has changed and Buffet is talking the same talk as 2009, buy on the dips. I have some lists of buys in ETFs, biotech, energy, etc. I am a lazy investor, I watch, I create a thesis with trigger points, I decide how I will finish a position before I make my first move, I look for worst case possible outcomes, research M*, I do or find DCFs, free cash flows.
The buy and hold strategy requires evaluating DCF and fair value and management changes. Buy low and sell high. Buy and hold means don't chase money or follow the herd. Buy and hold means keeping one's emotions out, knowing why your money is there. All good investments come to an end, like AT&T's famous run until 1984, so selling is a logical and successful conclusion.
The antithesis is day trading, jump in and out. Day traders are modeled by random walks, and the casino must win simply because their much bigger bankroll outlasts the individual investor. Day traders sooner or later go bust and get a real job. Also, the casino takes its cut of every trade. If you doubt me, go check with M*, Vanguard, or Fidelity.
Buy and hold wins 80-90 percent of its total winnings on about 1 percent of the market days, by being invested on those 1 percent of the days. Staying out of the market on those 1 percent of the days results in significant capital erosion over the other 99 percent. The simple truth is nothing legal beats buy and hold.
Still, SA might be a waste of time. I am in the way of the sharks. I have known people try to time markets or a specific stock, to no good result. I have looked for signal in the stock markets. Everyone's reactions cancels out any legal advantage. Is everyone legal, not for me to say.
Intel: Busting Myths At 22 Nanometers [View article]
Ashraf, naive SA readers are in danger of going off the rails with Intel. This is unfair and might lead to significant capital erosion.
SA readers, this link is a quick and easy insider perspective on why honest people are disagreeing on SA concerning Intel's marketing: http://bit.ly/11iJ3Ue
SA readers, this link is a real world, first person perspective on how the semiconductor industry and government have developed "finFET non-planar channels" or equivalently "trigate non-planar transistors" over 15 years: http://bit.ly/11iL8iU
finFET is the more generic term and focuses on the raised channel that in cross section looks like a rectangle or trapezoid.
Intel PR gives the false impression that trigate transistors are Intel's unique technology, but trigate refers to the shape of the draped gate in a finFET. Obfuscation is intentional by Intel PR.
The second link shows that Intel's current transistors are far from the end of the line. The slide deck highlights gate first versus last, high K metal gate materials, future gate under and over, future materials. The slides show the measured/modeled advantages of non-planar geometry as a function of shrinking dimensions.
There is NO MOAT for magic transistors. Intel has a brief first mover advantage they historically squander by bad C level decisions and internal squabbling and shafting customers. Intel did NOT significantly fund finFET early research but AMD did.
Market Timing Can't Be Done? Well, That's What Market-Makers Do Every Day [View article]
Peter, have you heard about "arbitrage"? Your article conflates all different types of investment/business models. I recommend you take classes and read research articles on arbitrage, MCMCs, AI software, dark markets, publicly traded stock exchanges. High frequency trading is arbitrage, taking a small percent of every trade. Peter, please try selling your article to the Wall Street pros.
Naive SA readers: no one can legally time the public stock exchanges with predictable, repeatable success. Anyone who says differently should raise serious questions in your mind...walk away quickly.
Intel: Busting Myths At 22 Nanometers [View article]
Ashraf, I would not FRAME it as a "problem". Mitchell's opinion CLASHES with your opinion, and I weigh both your opinions equally. The asymmetry lies between article and comment.
Intel recently provided their publicly available ATOM CPU Line "tray price list". It includes Clover Trail and Bay Trail as "Z" part numbers.
If there were a problem which there isn't, Intel has NO MAGIC.
Yesterday, I read about HP's newly announced laptops with AMD CPUs. There is NO MAGIC transistor.
Intel: Busting Myths At 22 Nanometers [View article]
mitchell, both Ashraf and you are entitled to voice your opinion. SA is a platform for vetting information. The Internet is a great sounding board. That being said, there is a huge difference between verifiable fact and personal opinion, and there is a huge difference between historical performance and future predictions.
Ashraf's article sets up a "straw dog" by positing there are "bad, unnamed people" lying about Intel's fabrication processes. This is called "misdirection" in magic and cons.
Further, Ashraf claims to have unique expertise beyond the readers.
Finally, Ashraf makes a staccato sequence of future predictions without providing a foundation.
Notice how "finFET transistor" equates with "magic transistor" equates with "magic beans". Ashraf's hidden thesis clearly equates Intel's fabrication process with magic that destroys all Intel's enemies in one epic series of battles. Sounds like "Lord of the Rings/finFETs".
Is Market Timing A Good Investment Strategy? [View article]
Luther, they lie. They are boasting and lying to you. Fishermen also do this. The biggest fish is the one that got away.
Also, every time there is a lottery, some one wins. These are just delusional people throwing their money after easy winnings.
In all of human history, superior technology has been claimed to be magic (e.g., WWII Cargo Cults) and successful market timers have been inside traders.
Is Market Timing A Good Investment Strategy? [View article]
AuCoaster, the actual, honest research shows investors behave completely different than your analysis. Naively, the majority of investors chase money via various actions. E.g., invest this year in last year's/quarter's top funds, jump into an asset class right after a major upswing, buy the most popular stocks ala Cramer.
M* has professional, trained economists, including behavioral economists, and some Ivy League professors research behavioral economics. In your short three paragraphs, you illustrate many of the delusional traits of investors all in a single investor. Day traders, market timers, hedge fund traders are very effective at deluding themselves. I just completed a periodic review of my investments, and 2 out 3 years I trailed the S&P but that 1 out of 3 I smoked the S&P in 2009. Luck cannot be part of an investment strategy.
Trim your riskier investments in order to increase your cash for buying on the future dips.
Danger Zone For This Week: Amazon.com [View article]
Amazon increased revenue a lot YoY.
Walmart, Target, Sears, and other brick and mortar stores all experienced flat or declining revenue YoY.
So, investors do you want to own a decent free cash flow of a clearly losing business model OR delay gratification for twice or five times as much in the next 5-10 years? The Youtube video of Walmart employees smashing mobile electronics on the floor and then stocking items frames the investor decision.
Amazon is so much more than their competition. My diligence shows Walmart floundering due to C level management decisions, and the other B&M retailers are going into difficult times they cannot comprehend. Competition has already claimed many retailers over the last 15 years or so. The old moat of extreme scale no longer suffices in the Information Age.
Generic moats all favor Amazon: 1) being the low cost producer/source: Amazon 2) leveraging the economies of scale: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Sears 3) exploiting network effects: Amazon, Target 4) possessing intangible assets: Amazon (e.g., AWS, recommender system) 5) maintaining high switching costs: Amazon (e.g., Prime, media, Kindle)
Sneha, this is one of your best articles and they are all good.
Naive SA readers need a balanced, inclusive perspective. Intel sells good chips and ARM licenses good circuit IP. Readers should take the time to first read each of your points and second step back to see how all these pieces could create virtuous cycles.
Keep digging because there is always more. My take away is the battle lines drawn by your sentence: "Except for Intel, every major processor company licenses ARM designs." Dig into Xscale.
Apple Unlikely To Move To Intel Chips For iPhone, iPad [View article]
Ashraf, l carefully read and enjoyed your article. So, I figure you already know this but naive SA readers do not:
All Apple Inc. OSs run on the same Darwin/Mach/UNIX kernel. There might be some optimizations specific to each device, or not. There are powerful compiler optimizations specific to each CPU.
The iOS UI runs on top of Darwin and the Mac OSX UI also runs on Darwin. A developer or enthusiast might run both UIs on one sufficiently large computer.
The only barrier to evolution for Apple Inc. is the legacy compiled application code (e.g., Intel Core CPU versus Apple A series CPU). Apple has a very successful history of migrating off CPU architectures and also UIs to more modern ones. This is in Apple's DNA.
Structural Change In The Mobile Processor Marketplace: Intel Wins; ARM, AMD Lose [View article]
My point follows: Intel had to suffer Otellini leaving, six months of rudderless corporate governance, a new tripartite BoDs, CEO, President reorganization, just so you could make your snide comment. I THINK this indicates bad C level management along the lines of HP's BoD hiring/firing Fiorina, Hurd, Apotheker, and Whitman only to have shareholders vote to fire the chairman and other board members.
My caution follows: Intel is dangerously behind and isolated. Intel licenses x86-64 from AMD who first monetized x86-64. Intel commercialized finFET after universities and government and AMD gave early support. Intel requires world class power distribution, timing distribution, and on chip buses in order for the Intel PR leak of the week to have any chance of shipping competitive chips down the road. This also requires world class design, logic verification, layout optimization, process characterization, design rules being integrated into software tools and emulations.
Apple Getting Crushed In Most Important Battle [View article]
Radar's comment goes to the roots of Apple's DNA: Apple Inc. is a premium company with a premium eco-system. Apple consistently provides an outstanding user experience. Apple is all about experiences.
If you do not care get Android or WP8. Get rooted, get crapware, get ads, get on the annual replacement cycle. Cheap phones do not work well because you are lucky if you get what you pay for.
Market Timing Can't Be Done? Well, That's What Market-Makers Do Every Day [View article]
Do you know about MCMCs in HFT? Do you know how the HFT software works?
A professor who consults on HFT and dark markets discussed the computer algorithms in general terms. Sending feelers to sense support levels, detecting imbalances, opening and closing options to hedge, in milliseconds.
Is there one SA reader who invests like this? If so I want to know more.
Market Timing Can't Be Done? Well, That's What Market-Makers Do Every Day [View article]
I go months sometimes paying little attention to the stock market. Then, something changes or new information surfaces. Last Summer, the coming changes in US taxes were new and required changes in my investments. This Spring, the changes in QE3 and possibly QEx are in play (i.e., will they prematurely end QE3 and what does the Fed do with toxic assets and tapering rate). Right now, my cash position has changed and Buffet is talking the same talk as 2009, buy on the dips. I have some lists of buys in ETFs, biotech, energy, etc. I am a lazy investor, I watch, I create a thesis with trigger points, I decide how I will finish a position before I make my first move, I look for worst case possible outcomes, research M*, I do or find DCFs, free cash flows.
The buy and hold strategy requires evaluating DCF and fair value and management changes. Buy low and sell high. Buy and hold means don't chase money or follow the herd. Buy and hold means keeping one's emotions out, knowing why your money is there. All good investments come to an end, like AT&T's famous run until 1984, so selling is a logical and successful conclusion.
The antithesis is day trading, jump in and out. Day traders are modeled by random walks, and the casino must win simply because their much bigger bankroll outlasts the individual investor. Day traders sooner or later go bust and get a real job. Also, the casino takes its cut of every trade. If you doubt me, go check with M*, Vanguard, or Fidelity.
Buy and hold wins 80-90 percent of its total winnings on about 1 percent of the market days, by being invested on those 1 percent of the days. Staying out of the market on those 1 percent of the days results in significant capital erosion over the other 99 percent. The simple truth is nothing legal beats buy and hold.
Still, SA might be a waste of time. I am in the way of the sharks. I have known people try to time markets or a specific stock, to no good result. I have looked for signal in the stock markets. Everyone's reactions cancels out any legal advantage. Is everyone legal, not for me to say.
Intel: Busting Myths At 22 Nanometers [View article]
SA readers, follow the money for Intel. Intel sells which products and which services? Go to Trefis to see Intel's cash flows.
I am done wasting my time.
Intel: Busting Myths At 22 Nanometers [View article]
SA readers, this link is a quick and easy insider perspective on why honest people are disagreeing on SA concerning Intel's marketing: http://bit.ly/11iJ3Ue
SA readers, this link is a real world, first person perspective on how the semiconductor industry and government have developed "finFET non-planar channels" or equivalently "trigate non-planar transistors" over 15 years: http://bit.ly/11iL8iU
finFET is the more generic term and focuses on the raised channel that in cross section looks like a rectangle or trapezoid.
Intel PR gives the false impression that trigate transistors are Intel's unique technology, but trigate refers to the shape of the draped gate in a finFET. Obfuscation is intentional by Intel PR.
The second link shows that Intel's current transistors are far from the end of the line. The slide deck highlights gate first versus last, high K metal gate materials, future gate under and over, future materials. The slides show the measured/modeled advantages of non-planar geometry as a function of shrinking dimensions.
There is NO MOAT for magic transistors. Intel has a brief first mover advantage they historically squander by bad C level decisions and internal squabbling and shafting customers. Intel did NOT significantly fund finFET early research but AMD did.
Market Timing Can't Be Done? Well, That's What Market-Makers Do Every Day [View article]
Naive SA readers: no one can legally time the public stock exchanges with predictable, repeatable success. Anyone who says differently should raise serious questions in your mind...walk away quickly.
Naive SA readers: read Boggle and Buffett and M*.
Intel: Busting Myths At 22 Nanometers [View article]
Intel recently provided their publicly available ATOM CPU Line "tray price list". It includes Clover Trail and Bay Trail as "Z" part numbers.
If there were a problem which there isn't, Intel has NO MAGIC.
Yesterday, I read about HP's newly announced laptops with AMD CPUs. There is NO MAGIC transistor.
Intel: Busting Myths At 22 Nanometers [View article]
Ashraf's article sets up a "straw dog" by positing there are "bad, unnamed people" lying about Intel's fabrication processes. This is called "misdirection" in magic and cons.
Further, Ashraf claims to have unique expertise beyond the readers.
Finally, Ashraf makes a staccato sequence of future predictions without providing a foundation.
Notice how "finFET transistor" equates with "magic transistor" equates with "magic beans". Ashraf's hidden thesis clearly equates Intel's fabrication process with magic that destroys all Intel's enemies in one epic series of battles. Sounds like "Lord of the Rings/finFETs".
Is Market Timing A Good Investment Strategy? [View article]
Also, every time there is a lottery, some one wins. These are just delusional people throwing their money after easy winnings.
In all of human history, superior technology has been claimed to be magic (e.g., WWII Cargo Cults) and successful market timers have been inside traders.
Is Market Timing A Good Investment Strategy? [View article]
M* has professional, trained economists, including behavioral economists, and some Ivy League professors research behavioral economics. In your short three paragraphs, you illustrate many of the delusional traits of investors all in a single investor. Day traders, market timers, hedge fund traders are very effective at deluding themselves. I just completed a periodic review of my investments, and 2 out 3 years I trailed the S&P but that 1 out of 3 I smoked the S&P in 2009. Luck cannot be part of an investment strategy.
Trim your riskier investments in order to increase your cash for buying on the future dips.
Real market timing requires insider knowledge.
Danger Zone For This Week: Amazon.com [View article]
Walmart, Target, Sears, and other brick and mortar stores all experienced flat or declining revenue YoY.
So, investors do you want to own a decent free cash flow of a clearly losing business model OR delay gratification for twice or five times as much in the next 5-10 years? The Youtube video of Walmart employees smashing mobile electronics on the floor and then stocking items frames the investor decision.
Amazon is so much more than their competition. My diligence shows Walmart floundering due to C level management decisions, and the other B&M retailers are going into difficult times they cannot comprehend. Competition has already claimed many retailers over the last 15 years or so. The old moat of extreme scale no longer suffices in the Information Age.
Generic moats all favor Amazon:
1) being the low cost producer/source: Amazon
2) leveraging the economies of scale: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Sears
3) exploiting network effects: Amazon, Target
4) possessing intangible assets: Amazon (e.g., AWS, recommender system)
5) maintaining high switching costs: Amazon (e.g., Prime, media, Kindle)
When And Why You Should Short ARM [View article]
Naive SA readers need a balanced, inclusive perspective. Intel sells good chips and ARM licenses good circuit IP. Readers should take the time to first read each of your points and second step back to see how all these pieces could create virtuous cycles.
Keep digging because there is always more. My take away is the battle lines drawn by your sentence: "Except for Intel, every major processor company licenses ARM designs." Dig into Xscale.
Apple Unlikely To Move To Intel Chips For iPhone, iPad [View article]
All Apple Inc. OSs run on the same Darwin/Mach/UNIX kernel. There might be some optimizations specific to each device, or not. There are powerful compiler optimizations specific to each CPU.
The iOS UI runs on top of Darwin and the Mac OSX UI also runs on Darwin. A developer or enthusiast might run both UIs on one sufficiently large computer.
The only barrier to evolution for Apple Inc. is the legacy compiled application code (e.g., Intel Core CPU versus Apple A series CPU). Apple has a very successful history of migrating off CPU architectures and also UIs to more modern ones. This is in Apple's DNA.
What's Your Exit Strategy? [View article]
I wonder how many SA readers are following these tactics.