Stockstradamus AKA Stocky’s Blog

Sometimes I read a news story that makes me laugh for the moment and sometimes there are those stories that the more you think about them later the more you laugh. For days on end.

I came across a DJ News Service story posted on a message board that has MSFT puffing out their chests and bragging how they, not AAPL or GOOG, will dominate the mobile/smart phone market.  

First of all, who knew MSFT was big into this market? Second of all, I guess that explains all the crappy UI’s on all those phones.

But let’s go to the story:

In short, some new and very powerful forces are attacking Microsoft´s leading position in the business of creating new generations of smarter cellphones, a business that Microsoft says is increasingly key to its future.

What is Microsoft going to do? In essence: Nothing different, according to Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft´s mobile products manager.

Do nothing different?? Sounds like a winner of a strategy there Scott.

Meanwhile, its new rivals in Google and Apple are starting from scratch in a complex business they don´t know much about, illustrated best by Apple´s recent stumbles introducing its iPhone.

Apple’s recent stumbles with the Iphone!!!????? You gotta be fucking kidding me. It was only the most succesfull release of a consumer electonics device in the history of mankind!!! What delusional fuckwads.

“We´ve emerged as a leader and are positioned for long-term success,” Rockfeld said.

Microsoft hasn´t changed much in how it sells its phone software, but it has been tinkering with how it adopts and implements its mobile strategy. As a consequence, in recent weeks, Microsoft´s mobile software unit has been reorganized, and two veterans of Microsoft´s Xbox videogame unit now play key roles.

XBOX360?!?!?!????? You mean the product that has yet to make a penny profit and who’s losses are above 6 BILLION dollars and still counting?????

Don’t stop there Scotty, why don’t you bring in some key veterans from The Zune. Or if they are too busy working on their resume’s you could pull some people from the Vista team. Unless they are too busy providing help for customers who are trying to roll back to Win XP after installing Vista. Geeze what dolts.

Microsoft is confident it not only can continue leading the market but also be the one responsible for driving its overall growth.

“What we´re doing is sticking to our strategy,” Rockfeld said. “We are built to scale and can grow as rapidly as the smart-phone market grows.”

MSFT shipped 11 million “smart phone units” in 2007. AAPL shipped 1 million Iphones in Q4 2007 and expecdts to ship 10 million Iphones in FY 2008. That comes to …. 11 million Iphones. Imagine that. The same number as MSFT shipped in 2007. While AAPL is just getting rolled out worldwide.

That MSFT strategy of not changing anything sure sounds good to me.

Could these MSFT Morons do any worse if they were trying to run the company into the ground??

Buy AAPL.

Is Stocky smarter than most of the people on Wall St? Maybe not. But am I smarter than Mark Long? (mark.long@dowjones.com)

Goddamn right I am.

Who is Mark Long? He is the guy who wrote this in a DJ wire report this morning:

Halliburton’s shares were hit Friday along with other energy-services firms after rival Schlumberger posted weaker-than-expected results and offered a bleak portrait of the months to come.

Weaker than expected results?????

• THEY BEAT ESTIMATES FOR BOTH THE TOP + BOTTOM LINE!!!!!!!!!

Bleak portrait of the months to come?????

• THEY SAID NO SUCH FUCKING THING!!!!!!!!!!!

As I detail in my previous post, the ONLY issue SLB had was pricing pressure for a small part of their North American business. But because of morons like Mark Long the stock got crushed - down 12% on Friday.

Today, it’s down another 4% to $95. This is fucking criminal. Douchebags like Mark Long don’t deserve to be running a Dairy Queen never mind reporting on multi-billion dollar corporations.

Not everyone on Wall St. is so stupid. Here is how some of the higher than room temperature IQ types have reacted to SLB’s quarter today:

• Friedman, Billing & Ramsey raised their price target to $124
• UBS Reiterates it’s BUY rating
• Wachovia on Monday reiterated its market perform rating for Schlumberger Ltd

When the action settles, just buy the stock. Existing oil production is in decline, SLB’s technology and services slow the decline. They will make tons of money for years to come.

Normally I don’t really think I’m that much smarter than most of the people active in the Stock Market but days like yesterday make me wonder.

The action in the oil services sector yesterday was SO FUCKING STUPID I’d rather bang my head against my desk than write about what happened.

The only consolation I get is knowing with 100% certainty that the long term story is more intact than ever. The short term story is intact too despite what the fucking morons did yesterday.

SLB - Schlumberger is the king of all energy services companies. I love listening to their earnings calls as they describe how they continue to kick ass. Yesterdays call was no different. They beat estimates handily. Profit up 35%, revenue up 20%. Great results and ahead of the estimates.

So why did the stock drop 12% yesterday??? Let’s take it from a WSJ article:

Third-quarter profit at Schlumberger, which is seen as a bellwether for the sector, was up 35% on strong international growth, but analysts saw only the depressing results from North America,  

Depressing results for North America??? SLB only gets 25% of it’s revenue from North America and the vast majority of the “depressing results” was due to weather related downtime from Rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Overall revenue was only down 3% in North America for reasons (weather) not related to ongoing demand or pricing pressure.

SO WHAT’S THE BIG FUCKING DEAL?!?!?!?

What went over the wires was a quote from the CEO from his answer to the first analysts question. Pricing has declined in recent quarters for work SLB does on North American land based Natural Gas rigs. This is a pretty small part of SLB’s business. They say it will likely continue to decline due to overall high supplies of Nat Gas (less pumping) and an abundance of equpment available to do the work. BFD. A nice cold spell this winter and Nat Gas supplies will be down and pumping will ramp up. Even if that does not happen, who cares. It’s not that big a part of SLB’s business.

When asked where the bottom of the price decline was, The CEO said he didn’t know. How could he know? What other answer could he be expected to give? He already said 2008’s declines would continue to be “single digits” but who could possible know beyond that?

So that’s the quote that all the stories jumped on:

“Where the bottom is I really don’t know,” Mr. Gould said. 

That single quote, referencing a tiny part of SLB’s business, on a day when they blew away earnings estimates, took SLB down 12% and crushed the whole sector.

OIH, the ETF that tracks the sector tanked 6% and my beloved FSESX Fidelity fund which counts SLB as almost 25% of the fund was down over 7%.

This sector has been on a huge run recently so some profit taking could be expected but for a gem of a stock like SLB to go down 12% in 1 day is fucking criminal.  

SLB’s counterparts report next week, including the universally hated HAL - Halliburton (Great company - weak stock) which only went down 3%. Which in itself is fucking stupid since HAL has much bigger exposure to North American Nat Gas work.

Expect a not so great quarter from HAL which will likely take the sector down further. 

Or as a friggin genius analyst said:

“If [Schlumberger] isn’t safe, who is?” asked Dan Pickering of Tudor Pickering Energy in a note to clients. “North America really hurt [Schlumberger]. Rest of the group is probably guilty until [they] prove themselves innocent.”

Except that North America DIDN’T REALLY HURT SLB!!!!! Other than that, your note to your clients is accurate you fucking dolt!!!!

Excuse me while I bang my head against my desk………………….

OK, I’m back. That felt better.

So, to end this really long post, buy some SLB, NOV + RIG next week, assuming the market does not continue it’s nose dive. The era of cheap oil is O V E R. SLB, NOV, RIG and companies like them will be pumping profits for years + years. 

Could be an internet first here. Who wants to live blog a game and sit through all those crappy commercials. Tivo blogging - way behind real time - is the way to go.

I had no intention of doing this but something made me jump out of my seat and fire up the laptop. No, not the back to back bombs by Manny and Lowell. It was the shot of John Henry’s reaction to Lowell’s HR.

Was that the wrinkly plagerist from the leafy suburbs, one Doris Kearns Goodwin with Henry???? Christ almighty. Didn’t we get enough of these get-a-lifers after the Sox won in 2004?

I’ve had enough of “The Sox as a religious experience”, thank you very much. Just the sight of her makes me want to gag. The only thing worse than seeing her would be another shot of Ben Affleck. Or maybe John Kerry could tell us all about “Manny Ortez” again.

Just go the Fuck Away!!!!

(Ready to un-pause the Tivo now. Some more “skip thru commercial time” built up)

This fund continues to rock. Most of the holding are mostly trading with the price of crude but there are days like yesterday when crude goes down but these stocks go up.

Rarely do you see the opposite action. Over time FSESX is putting some serious seperation between it’s own value and the price of oil. While pullbacks are guaranteed to occur this fund will rocket higher. Take a look at the returns from the top 10 holdings. All of these companies have bookings several years out.

With returns Year to Date of more than 50%, Stocky loves this fund more than life itself.  

Man, it’s hard not to laugh at all these dopes who hacked their shiny new Iphones and  got to watch them self destruct in front of their eyes after they applied the first software update from Apple.

The best part is that Apple warned everyone that this would happen if they hacked the phone to avoid AT&T and then applied the software update. But they all applied the update anyway.

That sound you hear is all the AT&T executives laughing and high fiving each other. All other potential Apple business partners take note: Our man Steve Jobs gots some serious street cred. Customers will do what they’re told or he’ll bring his pimp hand down hard on their sorry asses. 

You have to admire the fact that they did this and in typical Apple style the way they did it has a certain elegance. If you hacked your phone and then installed the updates you are definitely fucked. The phone don’t work. Unless you have an emergency that is. There are some reports that you can still dial 911 but nothing else with the shiny Ibrick.

Daddy Steve knows you did a bad thing and reluctantly delivered some “tough love” to you with that software update but he really loves you and wants to make sure you stay safe.

How funny is that?

Of course there is some serious bitching and moaning going on at macworld.com interspersed with sentiment like this:

If Apple warned us not to hit our iPhones with hammers, there would be like 1% of users who would hit them with hammers and then whine about how Apple should have made them hammer-proof. As a long time Mac user I feel justified in saying buh-bye, do not let the shiny glass door of the Apple Store hit you on the ass on the way out. Who needs you? Get a Vista PC and a Windows Mobile, that will give you something to complain about.

Get a Vista PC????? Man, that’s cold.

I picture these uber-geeks fretting over their predicament in their Mom’s basement wondering  how they’re going to keep their dungeons + dragons themed Myspace page updated without their Iphone.

Too bad loser. Cough up the dough and sign up with AT&T. As part owner of the company I want my share of your monthly phone bill.

Get your ass down to an AT&T store NOW!

END OF DAY UPDATE:

Great action today. Volume and price building in the last 2 hours to a close of $153.17. Right near the top of the price range. 

Hopefully we’ll get some followup and/or consolidation tomorrow.

This is a MONSTER stock!!!!!

End of Update

Stocky is not huge on Chartology, preferring fundamentals like earnings, business model and sector analysis.

But that doesn’t mean a review of the charts isn’t part of the analysis.

In the case of AAPL, the stock/company is a runaway train. It’s going much higher. That’s all there is to it.

However, what we have today(Sept 25, 2007) is a case where the technicians out there may pile into the stock along with the rest of us who are in it for the earnings and/or fundamentals.

AAPL is sitting at a nice “double top” chart pattern of $149-150. With yesterdays upgrade we’ve seen several bounces off the 52 week high. If we could get a push beyond $150 we could see this stock really run.

On a side note, you have to love Jobs’ approach to the hackers. From todays WSJ comes a story of AAPL poetntially disabling Iphones that are hacked in order to use non-Apple business partner carriers. 

Apple itself, though, has recently suggested it might make deliberate attempts to counteract the effects of the unlocking programs. When asked about the topic in a recent interview, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said he wasn’t worried about the impact of such programs. “It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Mr. Jobs said. “We have a lot of really good cats.”

Go get’em Stevie. Wouldn’t it be sweet to see some techno nerd’s Iphone blow up in his face after he hacked it to use another carrier. No more youporn.com in your pocket for you dude.

There is so much good to write about with Apple that Stocky almost does not know where to start.

I’ve come full circle on my views of Apple. I used to be like every other Windows bigot and look at Apple as a Macintoy. Used by artsy nerds and pony tailed do-gooders.

My eyes first started to open a few years ago when I walked into an Apple store to look at this new fangled thing called an Ipod. I was immediately put off by the store staff. You know the type. The pony tails, the piercings, the know it all attitude. Even as a total Apple convert I still have to supress the urge to slap the shit out of some of those Apple weenies in the stores. But I digress.

The other thing I noticed on that first trip to the Apple store was the line of people waiting to buy stuff. Man, people are really into this shit, I thought at the time.

Once I got the Ipod home and installed the Itunes software the product really got me. Not the Ipod even though it’s a great product but the Itunes software. To me that was the key. It was really well done, ran flawlessly and was easy to use. Mind you this was Apple software modified to run on a Windows platform. Yet it was head + shoulders above the crap that’s become the norm for Windows applications.  

That’s when I stopped looking down my nose at Apple and seriousy thought about where the company could go. I started paying attention to all the coverage of the company and have gotten to the point where when I hear Becky Quick on CNBC talk about the Friday “Jobs” report I wonder if she’s talking about Steve.

I eventually built a position in AAPL at a level higher than it should have been. Especially given that maddening pullback on huge volume to $49 a while back. If only I had the balls to pull the trigger on more shares at anywhere near that level. Oh well. It’s still the best stock in my portfolio and I have no intentions of selling anytime soon.

In fact, even at these levels($144) I think AAPL is still a screaming BUY. For me, AAPL still has tremendous untapped upside potential. I think ultimately, the “end” of the APPL story will be how they moved into the Enterprise and really delivered a well deserved beatdown to Microsoft.

A very good and under read publication is ComputerWorld. Lately they have been doing more and more coverage of AAPL. These 2 stories on APPL + the Enterprise really say a lot.

Story 1 talks about a company that is going full speed ahead with dumping Windows and going to the Macs. Note the sidebar on the Iphone. They are buying 50 Iphones to hand out to their sales people. 

July 16, 2007 (Computerworld) — It’s little things like the small silver Apple logo on CIO Dale Frantz’s crisp white shirt that signal the sea change in the works at Auto Warehousing Co.Over the next 60 days, AWC will begin systematically pulling the plug on all Windows-based PCs in its cavernous auto processing shop and power up Macs to execute virtually all of its revenue-generating operations. The move comes on the heels of a quiet wholesale replacement of Windows-based servers for data storage and Web operations, which are now running on Apple Inc.’s Xserve RAID machines.

All good stuff there.

With the ability to run Windows if you have to why not get a Mac? Stocky’s next PC/Laptop purchase will be a Mac. If a former windows bigot like me is making the switch many many others will too.

Story 2 Details Apples NON interest in cracking the enterprise market. Huh? Why not? This is the “untapped potential” part of the story. I believe that AAPL just has not gotten around to making a push in this market yet. Remember that they had to pull resorces from the Leapord O/S effort to support the Iphone rollout. The Leapord release has been delayed until October demonstrating that as good as Apple execution has been up till now, there are limits to what they can do.

I think that as the Iphone rolls out around the world and Leapord gets released, some time after that will be the time AAPL trains it’s guns on the enterprise. With only 5% of the PC market now, even small increases in market share will have massive impacts on the Top + Bottom lines of AAPL.

Even without the Enterprise push AAPL has started to kick ass in the Mac sales department. This is highlighted in a story from thestreet.com

People familiar with the company say Apple is selling computers at a blockbuster pace. The Cupertino, Calif., company is expected to sell 2.35 million iMacs and MacBooks this quarter, TheStreet.com has learned.

A sales number that high would beat analysts’ estimates by nearly 400,000 units. Pegging the average Mac sales price at a conservative $1,500, a beat of that magnitude stands to boost Apple’s top line by about $600 million. Analysts expect the company to post fiscal first-quarter revenue of $5.94 billion.

To say nothing of a rumored new product.

Looking ahead, people inside the company and those close to Apple’s plans say there will be a big announcement regarding a so-called subnotebook Mac. The ultra-thin device will have a 10-inch to 12-inch screen; sleek, rounded edges; and weigh less than 2 pounds.

The subnotebook’s introduction is planned for next quarter, and the product is expected to be available for the holiday sales season. In preparation for a big year-end sales push, Apple has told some employees to cancel vacation plans “between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” says one source familiar with the memo.

This could also be the long awaited (by Stocky anyway) Flash Hard drive laptop. Toss in some touch screen technology from the Iphone and you coul have another killer product.

With a revamped Ipod line, Iphones selling like crazy

September 20, 2007 (Reuters) — Apple Inc. has prepared plans to nearly double its iPhone production in the fourth quarter, financial news Web site TheStreet.com reported, citing people familiar with the company.

And a new O/S release in Oct spurring Mac sales, AAPL will have a MONSTER holiday quarter.

There are already rumblings about Apple being the new Microsoft and from a stock standpoint that is music to Stocky’s ears. However, I think as long as Jobs is running Apple it will never become anything close to the hated behemoth that is Microsoft.

I can say that based on Jobs’ own words. He was asked recently about what he planned to do with the massive amount of cash AAPL has on it’s balance sheet. The questioner wondered why AAPL didn’t put the cash to work creating new products.

Jobs answer was “Creating new products is more than just writing a check. If that’s all it took, Microsoft would have good products”.

Classic. 

There has been plenty of discusion of the advertisers disdain for DVR’s/Tivo. There have been a few attempts to “work with” the DVR to make sure viewers actually watch the commercial instead of fast forwarding. One notable scheme was the freeze frame “free KFC sandwich” spot.

At least I think it was KFC that did that.

Anyways, last night I saw another attempt on NBC’s The Biggest Loser.

At the beginning of each commercial break they quickly cut to a multiple choice fitness/diet based question. A sample question was:

How many Americans admit to eating fast food as a family meal at least once per week?

Kind of a head scratcher question. The announcer noted that the answer would appear “later”. I quickly tapped the Tivo 30 second skip button a few times to get to the beginning of the new segment only to NOT see the answer.

Hmmmm. So I hit the rewind button and watched a commercial or 2 in reverse before I saw a screen with the question and answer (51%) highlighted.

They inserted the answer into the middle of the block of commercials. Interesting. No doubt an attempt to get viewers (both DVR + Non-DVR) to pay attention through the commercial break.

So from then on I fast forwarded “slowly” through the commercials looking carefully for the answer screen instead of blindly skipping forward.

Not a guarantee that I would actually watch a commercial but I definitely looked at what was going by and may have stopped if it looked interesting, ie a hot babe.

If I was an Ad person I’d be extremely intersted in Tivo’s StopWatch stats from that show.

Did it help commercial viewership??? Pay Tivo for the StopWatch service and find out.

That’s the only way to tell and that’s why Tivo is developing a gold mine with this data/Service.

This award goes to some “expert” named Dan Rayburn. His post today on how Tivo is so far inferior to the Verizon DVR is filled with “inaccuracies”. It’s also on seeking alpha.

This is not suprising if you follow Tivo. Lots of morons spew nonsense when pontificating about Tivo. What is surprising is that this Dope actually owns a Tivo. Yet he still doesn’t have a friggin clue.

Bear in mind that this dolt has not even used the Verizon DVR yet. He’s just read about the features. But he already loves it.

I can’t come up with one strength TiVo has over the Verizon TV DVR

What a Douche. What are the “strengths” that the Verizon DVR has over Tivo??

The Verizon DVR can record in HD, can record two shows at once, can playback recorded shows in multiple rooms at once with only one DVR and can record up to 85 hours of standard definition.

With the exception of playback in multiple rooms with only 1 DVR Tivo CAN do all that. There’s also Amazon Unbox, Tivocasts, Podcasts, Yahoo Weather + Traffic (don’t laugh, the weather feature is very usefull) internet radio stations and a promised implementation of music via Rhapsody.

Good luck with that Verizon DVR. You are too stupid to be a Tivo Customer.

OK, another Stock Pick.

Tivo has to be one of the worst acting and most frustrating Stocks to own anywhere. It’s known to swing up wildy for no reason (other than MM manipulation) and float downward slowly (or not so slowly) after nearly every big up day.

A nice stock to play the swings you might say. Yes, that’s true but Stocky believes that Tivo’s swinging days are coming to an end.

Tivo has several significant upward catalysts ready to hit. They are:

• Comcast Rollout (Friggin finally)
• Comcast likely to make Tivo their standard DVR (if this happens look out shorts)
• Lower priced HD Tivo doing well (sales appear to be better than expected)
• Echostar case coming to an end (or at least the latest end until Dish appeals to the supreme court)
• DTV Relationship improving (look for a new DTV HD Tivo after Liberty deal closes)
• Increasing revenue from StopWatch second by second commercial ratings
• Mexico rollout
• Cox Cable rollout next year
• Huge (20%+) short position
• TivotoGo and Multi-room viewing for S3 + HD owners soon
• Tivo Branded Plugin Hard Drives to expand storage capacity by end of year
• Amazon Unbox Downloads gaining popularity
• Australia Distribution Deal

The huge number of shorts significantly reduces the downside risk. The only way those shorts make their money is by buying back the stock. So in the event of a disaster (like losing the Dish appeal) the plunge in stock price would be muted as the shorts create buying pressure on their way to cash out. It sounds like spin but it’s true. You just have to be willing to get out of the stock at the first notice of a disaster.

On the flip side, good news, like the more likely scenario of winning the Dish case is a delicious short squeeze.

While Stocky would still like Tivo at $6 without a Dish win; short term would be ugly. A Dish win also plays into more deals with others who don’t want to get sued. It’s not inconceivable to imagine that Tivo could be paid a dollar per month for every DVR in use in North America. At least every non-crappy DVR.

That’s a 2 - 3 year view though and the revenue gains from StopWatch is also relatively long term.

The Comcast relationship is also key to Tivo’s fortunes. Comcast recently agreed to fund development of the Tivo/Comcast software to run on their Scientific Atlanta set top boxes. That will give Comcast the ability to offer the Tivo DVR to all of their customers. Stocky will predict that Comcast will dump their crappy DVR and make Tivo their standard DVR. That may not happen for a while but it will.

As soon as the DTV/Liberty deal closes (by the end of this year) DTV wil have no reason to continue with Ruper Murdochs crappy NDS DVR. In fact, Tivo CEO Tom Rogers has already commented on the “Improved relations” between Tivo + DTV and Tivo announced that they will be providing updates to the millions of Tivo DTV boxes still in use. Why do that unless you plan to do a longer term deal with DTV?

In addition to Comcast + DTV, in the shorter term you have Amazon Unbox going gangbusters with the ability to order downloads from your couch and the long awaited implementation of TivotoGo and MRV for S3 + HD owners. There are thousands of Tivo Geeks that have been waiting for these features before plunking down the money for an additional Tivo. Tivo HD has been showing very strong in the Amazon top electronic products sold list since it was launched and it should do even better for the holiday season. Who is going to spend 2-3 grand on a new HD TV and not want to drop a mere $300 for a Tivo?

Another massive oppurtunity to sell into the existing Tivo customer base is the addition of a Tivo Branded external hard drive to increase storage capacity. The Tivo Uber-Geeks have been adding drives on their own for months and as usual Tivo has stumbled in the execution of this but in the end nearly every S3 + HD Tivo owner will purchase more storage via the Tivo drive. Tivo BETTER get some great margins out of this product.

So, let’s review. By the end of next year Tivo could have locked up DVR’s for DTV, Comcast + Cox. The 2 biggest cable providers and 1 of the 2 Sat providers. The other Sat provider, Dish is worthy of a future post of it’s own.

Add the stand alone Tivo customers (analog + HD) and you have a bunch of subscribers.

The better to use when selling StopWatch services.

It’s a good business plan finally coming together in spite of Tivo management. As I said at the beginning of this post, Tivo has been a frustrating stock to own.

One wonders why a company with the most and best data in history on the second by second viewing habits of highly desirable (affluent) Americans at their fingertips cannot execute a marketing campaign to save their life.

Christ Almighty what dopes.

However, in the end, Stocky believes the subscriber numbers will overcome all.

$20 is not out of the question.

OK, Stocky finally gets to a stock pick or 2.

The theme of our times is (or shortly will be) Peak Oil. We are not running out of oil but we are running out of cheap oil. Mainly due to increasing demand. If the world consumtion were to stay at 86 million barrells per day then we’d be fine for the next half century. However, barring a worldwide recession, demand will continue to increase. That means squeezing every last barrell out of mature fields and extracting “unconventional” and hard to reach oil.

FSESX is a sector fund that specializes in Oil Services companies. It’s true that Fidelity uses these sector funds as a training ground for new fund managers but you can’t argue with the success of this fund. (And some of their other sector funds)

Take a look at the performance of the top 10 holdings as of Sept 1, 2007

Is there still room to grow? Oh yes, these companies are booked solid for the next several years and while they do fluctuate based on the cost of crude, their earnings will continue to rock as long as Oil stays above $45-$50. And even then, their backlogs will carry them for many quarters.

The reality is that Oil is never going that low again for any significant period of time and eventually the street will have to recognize that these energy services companies are no longer a cyclical play. Their P/E’s should be on a par with other high quality growth stocks instead of the 17 or so this fund sits at now. (Actually SLB’s P/E is much higher than the rest which brings up the funds average. Bringing the other companies just up to SLB’s P/E will make for some huge gains.)

Much more room to run.

What is it about AAPL that brings the morons out of the woodwork? Neil Cavuto on Fox News delivered a pathetic end of show “commentary” that showed how little he understands about Wall St., product marketing and for that matter the pop culture of the Iphone. I happened to catch his performance on the air and was stunned at how much he got wrong in his folksy “commentary”. Maybe he should take a page out of the Katie Couric and Dan Rather playbook and have some low level staffer write these “from the heart” commentaries. (more…)

Being a CNBC addict, I’ve watched countless reports from Jim Goldman. He’s the “tech” reporter usually doing a standup outside some Silicon Valley company after they’ve reported earnings.

Besides looking like he just finished sucking on a helium gun before going on the air, Goldman has a self-important air of smarminess about him. Like he’s the expert on all things tech and we should consider ourselves lucky to hear his “insight”.

It was after reading his post about being “Flamed” on his blog that I knew I had to get off my ass and start my Blog. Mind you, reading Jim Goldmans blog is not something I’m proud of. What a waste of friggin time you’d say. (And you’d be right) But I stumbled on it after catching up on Diana Olick’s very good housing blog.

Anyways, back to Goldman. This post got my blood boiling. Here is the money quote:

In the media business, we have a term for the Mac (now iPod) faithful when we write or report some less-than-flattering comments and angles to the Apple story. We call it, “getting flamed.”  

 You gotta be friggin kidding me!! The CNBC Tech “Expert” thinks being “Flamed” is something he and his media insiders made up for and use themselves. What a fucking moron.

Flame wars have been going on in Usenet since shortly after Al Gore invented the Internet.

In fact, Goldman doesn’t even use the term properly. Getting boatloads of Email telling you what a clueless Dolt you are is not getting “Flamed”. Flaming is typically done in an open forum like Usenet or some message board.

An important aspect of Flaming is the public humiliation involved as all your Usenet/Message board buddies get to watch you getting stomped on by the Flamer. Good Times.