In my old age, I’ve gotten to where I just hate talking on the phone. Texting, emailing, writing and face-to-face are my preferred media of communication. But work, analyzing stocks and researching companies, managing people from San Diego to NYC to Las Cruces require working the phones. And today that’s all I’ve done so far — work the phone.
I’m deep in research on a couple new ideas, including:
A new potential play on 3-D printing — making decisions on it today.
IBM short? I just don’t think IBM’s going to keep this multiple premium that it’s still got. HPQ, Apple, MSFT, INTC — most every other mega cap tech stock trades at half the enterprise value (market cap + net cash) to earnings multiple. And like HPQ, IBM’s got a bunch of debt on the balance sheet already ($22 billon!), although they do have nearly $26 billion in cash. IBM might be an ideal paired trade hedge to our mega cap tech longs. More to come on this analysis.
More MSFT puts? I’m thinking that the new Windows 8 reception is so cold that it’s actually helping to drive people to pay up for anything Apple-related. Need a non-Windows 8 PC? Go buy an Mac. And Google’s Android doesn’t have desktop technology (yet?) does it? Maybe a Chrome/Android PC is in the future, but it ain’t here for the iPad/iPhone xMas selling season. Which brings us to tablets. Want a tablet? You pay up for the simplicity of the iPad or the iPad Mini or you go cheap with an Android. Windows 8 tablets? Windows Surface? My homework continues to point that the Windows 8 roll-out is a disaster for the Windows 8 PC/tablet vendors. Windows 8 phones are enjoying serious growth as part of the overall smartphone market is (estimates are for 40% or so growth next year for the smartphone market as more of the human population around the globe upgrade) and it might DOUBLE it’s market share this quarter. Which would mean it still wouldn’t be accounting for even 1 out of every 20 smartphones sold. MSFT is a lot cheaper than IBM, so maybe a lot of this is priced in for the near-term at least.
No trades for me yet today, as I settle back into the saddle here. I’ve done my scaling into both longs and shorts according to the playbook I’ve outlined at these levels and patience is one of the most important keys to long-term market success. So be long patience.
One other note, I’m going to send in more cash, adding just a little more to my ammo for my next batch of trades and/or the next time I want to get aggressive.
