Posted March 8th, 2010 by Sidd | No Comments
10:07 am: Looks like Scottrade systems are down and refusing to let me login. Calling them results in some message about unusually high call volume and both local and national lines are busy. So everybody seems to be calling to complain.
Update 10:17: Scottrade really is down – http://twitter.com/Scottrade – “We apologize for the inconvenience. We are aware of the issue, at this time please call us to place trades. 800-619-7283 ^AT”. However calling is of no use because the national lines are down and there is no concept of hold at Scottrade. The system just hangs up on you and says call back later.
Posted January 27th, 2010 by Sidd | No Comments
As soon as the event started the stock started dropping but picked up steam as the event went on, especially after the pricing was announced. As a stockholder I am happy with this device. It is everything that was expected at a cheaper price than expected. The most expensive version is $829, well under $1000 and the cheapest starts at $499.
However I’m slightly disappointed that there were no announcements other than the iPad. No new iPhone. No news about ending iPhone exclusivity. The good part was that the iPad is unlocked so you can use it with any provider, not just AT&T and the web browsing deal with AT&T is good.
As a consumer, I would wait for the iPad 2.0 because this version has no webcam, no real connectivity except wireless (aka not so hot for presentations, connecting to TV etc.) and no integrated memory slot.
I’m not sure how serious a competitor this is to the kindle because I’m not sure how many people use the Kindle’s data connection to download books. If the data connection is not that often used, then the $499 version is a serious threat to the Kindle because it is full color, has a bookstore and much more than the Kindle or other book readers can possibly offer. However I’m not sure how the display does while reading (it is 1024*768 = blah) as compared to the eInk display on most book readers.
Overall I’m happy with the pricing and options and I think the stock is headed up. But not up as much as if Apple would end exclusivity with AT&T and bring in Verizon (or Sprint, or even T-Mobile if they want to stick with GSM) on board for the iPhone and the iPad.
Oh and the device uses Apples brand new 1GHz A4 processor, a result of their acquisition of PA Semi. From the demo it seems like this is a perfectly capable processor maybe more so than the other 1GHz processor out there – Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. Maybe the next iPhone will run on one of these? If they can make this processor maybe they can switch Macs to their own processors in the far future?
Posted January 25th, 2010 by Sidd | No Comments
Apple adopted new accounting standards so it took some back of the hand math to come up with expectations etc.
Computed Avg Expectation with new accounting: $2.45/share
Actual: $3.67/share
My eyes popped out of my head (almost) when I saw the number. Luckily I added a few more shares just before trading was halted at $204. Trading resumes at 4:55pm. I would expect atleast a $10 jump if not a jump to $250.
Apple reported 15.6 billion in revenue way over the 12 billion expected. So Apple beat in both revenue and earnings and by a wide margin.
Posted January 19th, 2010 by Sidd | No Comments
Apple Stock is up over 4% today after the company sent out official invites to an event on Jan 27. The invite only said “Come See Our Latest Creation”.
Speculation is that Apple plans to release a tablet PC, possibly called iSlate. However rumors are that Apple is also planning to sell eBooks on the device and is in talks with Harper Collins. Also rumors state that Apple’s terms will be better than the terms offered by Amazon on the Kindle.
Analysts already have predictions on the earnings potential of a so far not announced device at $1/share.
Apple is probably the only company that can create so much hype about an unknown future product. For all you know it could simply be an ebook reader. It is also expected that Apple will announce a new iPhone OS and a new version of iLife.
Should you buy Apple stock now? Maybe you should wait to see how revolutionary the new device is.
Disclaimer: AAPL stockholder here. But no Apple products.
Posted January 13th, 2010 by Sidd | 1 Comment
Google (GOOG) announced yesterday that they may shut down their Chinese operations completely and the feeling amongst analysts is that this is more likely than not to happen. The Chinese search engine market is dominated by Baidu (BIDU) with Google a distant second. The announcement has caused Google’s stock to drop and Baidu’s stock to rise significantly because if Google drops out of China, Baidu will have nearly 95% of the Chinese search market. Yahoo operations in China are completely run by Alibaba, which is 39% owned by Yahoo and is a very small player in the search market.
In the long run this might hamper Google’s growth over the long term because China is the largest market in the world with significant growth potential for Google. However in the short term the effect on Google is minimal – a loss of somewhere between 300-600 million in revenue.
With their current position Google has really established their “Do No Evil” policy. Their reason for leaving is a connection between successful hacking attempts to steal intellectual property, censorship and targeting of human rights activists by the hackers.
Most multinationals don’t want to ignore the Chinese market inspite of rampant theft of intellectual property, blatant cloning of popular items and tight government control on everything because China is where the growth is. Maybe others will follow suit but it is unlikely.
As an investor, buy Google (I own 2 measly shares), buy Baidu.
Posted January 11th, 2010 by Sidd | No Comments
I recently was in Bombay for a month. After 4 years Bombay is a totally different place. There is even more construction everywhere – the airport is being expanded, new flyovers, new metro under construction, new skyscrapers advertising everywhere, fancy highways and more giant malls than one can possibly imagine. 4 years ago there already seemed to be enough malls and no more space left for anything else but somehow the space existed. All good but this has caused Bombay to be significantly more polluted and congested. But pollution and congestion aside, you can see economic growth happening right in front of you. 4 years ago the airport was as bad a mess as a local train in Bombay and now it was a breeze getting through immigration.
It’s no wonder my investments in India were amongst the better performing in the last few years. I could see no signs of recession any more. There is still extreme poverty and it is even more visible when right next to a fancy glass mall and I don’t expect that to go away anytime soon. But more people can afford more things and I saw more fat people that I have ever seen in India – a definite sign of prosperity.
In fact I found a lot of things in India very expensive when compared to the US but that didn’t seem to stop people from buying things. No wonder so many multinationals want to be in the Indian market. Just major metros are giant markets and there is the whole rural market to grow into.
For those of you looking to Invest in India now you have at least four easy ways – IFN, IIF, INP and EPI.
Posted November 12th, 2009 by Sidd | No Comments
The new At&T lawsuit is not the first one it has filed against Verizon. In July At&T filed a lawsuit against Verizon for claiming their network to be “the best” and “the most reliable” 3G network. At the same time At&T themselves claimed “More Bars in More Places” (ha).
Now AT&T is suing Verizon for their “There’s a map for that ads”. They recently also added another Verizon ad to the lawsuit which shows a map of AT&Ts 3G coverage. In all of Verrizon’s ads the map is clearly labeled as “3G coverage”. I’m sure At&T is worried about what will happen when it’s iPhone exclusivity ends? Amongst all carriers all over the world, AT&T is the only one that actually blocked features like MMS and tethering on launch day. Just goes to show how bad the state of AT&Ts network is and there are major city locations where a 30% dropped call rate is normal for AT&T.
Even now instead of improving 3G coverage faster (my iPhone toting buddies in Cville just recently got 3G, while I’ve been enjoying 3G on Alltel – now Verizon – for quite a while now), AT&T decides to waste money suing, bringing more attention to it’s deficiencies. It’s a wonder AT&T was not sued for it’s claims in the past of “fewest dropped calls”, “more bars”, “fastest 3g” etc. but I guess other companies were busy expanding their networks instead of suing, while AT&T was busy counting money from iPhone users with dropped calls, large bills and no 3G while wasting money on lawyers.
I was happy with Alltel (and their awesome customer service) and so far have no complaints with Verizon but I’ve never had to deal with their customer service and I hope I never have to.
I own no stock in either company and if you were considering investing in one of the above, you can easily tell which is the better choice.
AT&T = running scared that iPhone exclusivity ends and people will quit in droves thanks to crappy network + no Android/WebOS phones to compete in the near future.
VZW = introducing better phones all the time (Android phones now, WebOS coming soon), not crippling devices anymore, nationwide 3G.
Posted November 11th, 2009 by Sidd | No Comments
Parchayi and me both have credit scores in the 800s, always pay all bills on time etc. and in spite of that we have been seeing notices from credit card companies every few months increasing rates and reducing benefits. It seems we are not alone and banks are just jerks who will do as they please before Obamas new Credit Card Act goes into effect in 2010. Have you noticed your rates go up too?
Also the credit card offers have completely dried up. In the last year I have also seen credit card companies canceling cards that I don’t use very often.
Amongst the cards that have slashed benefits is HSBC Cashback Platinum Mastercard. I had a card that had increasing benefits the more you use the card. It was 1% cash back upto 2500$ spending. Then 2% from $2500 – $5000. And 5% for all spending over $5000 in a year. Now it is just 1% no matter what. Also this was the card we used the most.
Amongst the cards that increased rates is Citibank Dividend Platinum Mastercard. They raised from 12.99 to 19.99% and that too after we started using the card more often since HSBC cut the cashback!
Amongst the cards that I had canceled is Washington Mutual Visa Platinum. The only reason I had the card was so I could get my credit score free each month. So I can’t complain about that one being cut. The bank got nothing from me.
Posted November 3rd, 2009 by Sidd | No Comments
This news is a couple of months old but it is worth reporting here because if you are an investor in movie studios, it might be time to quit. Universal, Warner and Fox are all showing serious signs of desperation by introducing delay windows for rental outlets like Redbox and Netflix before directly selling them movies to rent out. Warner even wants to stop wholesalers from selling discs to the rental outlets. That is screwing both the consumer and business partners at the same time!
Redbox is suing all three studios. Not everyone is that stupid though. Sony and Lionsgate both have signed distribution deals with Redbox.
Somehow I don’t understand the logic behind this. Studios claim that rentals are eating into DVD/Blu-Ray sales. Who are these people who will buy if they can’t rent for another few weeks? We renters already waited a long time between the theatrical release and the DVD. Do they think we can’t wait a few more weeks? What’s the point?
Also this will not stop Redbox or Netflix from renting the movies out. They will just be forced to buy them from retailers instead of distributors and wholesalers. Which sucks for them. So essentially the studios are just screwing the same people over that help them make revenues and are probably their biggest customers. I don’t know how they expect to continue like this.
As it is Hollywood has run out of ideas and we are getting more remakes, more sequels, more Broadway adaptations and fewer original ideas. Will pissing partners and fans off make more money for the studios?
Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Sidd | No Comments
The Nasdaq is up almost 50% this year while the Dow is up almost 20%. Tech stocks are reporting stellar earnings with Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google amongst others all beating estimates.
If the trend continues, 2009 will really be the year of the tech stock. And it isn’t even really that much of a bubble. Many tech stocks have non stellar P/Es. They are still higher than the S&P average but maybe justified considering the performance. INTC had a dismal last year which drove it’s trailing P/E to around 50. But now it seems to be back on track and has a forward P/E of only 13.5! Google has a forward P/E of about 24, Apple about 26. Amazon has the highest amongst the P/E ratios at 46 but as long as the recession continues, Amazon will probably continue to beat expectations as more shoppers turn to online shopping for more items.
Walmart.com, my new favorite destination for online shopping with free site to store shipping and prices that often beat Amazon, even after tax and the simplicity of returning to store, great customer service also can’t seem to affect the Amazon juggernaut much.
Windows 7 is selling like hot cakes and if Windows Mobile 7 is even a thousandth as successful as Windows 7, we should see Microsoft making some headway into the Mobile market. Really the best phones are either running Android or Windows Mobile and the current iPhone has nothing on them except the App Store. Expect both Android and WinMo to catch up quickly.
What can I say, if you can stomach the risk, wait for the excitement of the current quarter die out and get some tech stock for yourself during holiday season.
Disclaimer: Parchayi and me own AAPL, INTC and GOOG stock.
