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Netflix Gets some Insider Love -Insider Buying week 01-28-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. Last week, I started the blog saying, “at some point making money begins to matter. I’ve long scoffed at relative value analysis as a way to cultivate bad habits.  It’s addictive and should be banned. Comparing companies by silly metrics as a multiple of sales versus a multiple of earnings seems insane yet the madness of crowd behavior is a well-documented phenomenon.  It’s called bubbles and we’ve been in one for quite some time.  I love bubble investing- just point me to … Read more

What’s Eating $Uber? -Massive Lock-Up Expiration, Lack of Earnings, Ill-defined Business Model?

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Something unusual will happen Wednesday Oct 6. Uber will have the biggest lock-up expiration in history.  RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that 1.7 billion shares will become eligible for sale, roughly 90% of the total. I’ve heard amounts half of that. Either way its a monstrous amount. If you don’t know what a lock-up is, read this primer from front running broker, Light Speed. Uber reported earnings or more accurately lack of earnings Monday after the close. Nearly every firm on Wall Street recommended buying the stock 30% higher so I supposed they will recommend it with fained … Read more

Thoughts on the Apple pain trade

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I don’t see the point in taking a needless loss.  They should have made a larger size screen phone and I assume they will.  When Google starts making a computer you really want to own then I’ll get worried but right now I don’t see how anyone can compete well with the whole Apple ecosystem.  but then again there are a lot of people that don’t care that much  about that but the counter to that is that the market itself is growing, Apple will innovate and at the multiple it’s trading at there is not much expectation for any … Read more

Apple will sue Google next

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“Our lawsuit is saying, ‘Google you f***ing ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off,’” Jobs said, according to Isaacson. “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product.” The verdict reached today will set the stage for Apple taking down Google in the biggest shoot down in tech history.  It’s Google they’ve been after from the beginning and you can be sure the management of Apple is doing this and … Read more

Thoughts on Apple vs. Samsung trial

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I doubt if the two companies will settle and my guess is that it goes to the jury next week.  If someone blinks, it will be Samsung.  After all the trial is in Apple’s backyard and you know the last thing Steve Jobs would have said to Tim Cook was never settle this trial.  I think copycat suits in technology are a hard thing to win.  After all the mother of all copy cat suits was the first time Apple sued Microsoft for stealing the look and feel of the GUI.  They lost that one.  My guess is though the … Read more

Facebook IPO Seen Deepening Investor Distrust of Stocks – Bloomberg

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Facebook IPO Seen Deepening Investor Distrust Of Stocks By Elizabeth Ody and Margaret Collins – May 25, 2012 10:01 PM MT Facebook Inc. (FB)’s initial public offering, plagued by trading errors and a 16 percent drop in the share price, will push more individual investors out of a stock market they already distrust after the financial crisis. “This is clearly the latest in a long string of events that is eviscerating the confidence investors have in the market,” said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago attorney who represents retail investors. “The perception is Wall Street jiggered this IPO so the underwriters made … Read more

The New Share Class Warfare

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After hours and after earnings last night, Google (GOOG) announced a 2:1 share split.  However the split has an ulterior motive other than reducing the cost per share, as Google’s co-founders are also looking to revamp the corporate structure as a result.  With the split, a new share class will be formed other than the already existing Class A and Class B shares.  This new class will trade under a different symbol but will retain all the rights of the previous two share types, including the ability to collect any future dividends.  Here’s the catch though: ownership of these Class C … Read more

Google Probed By Regulators Due To Privacy Issues

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Google just can’t seem to stay out of the spotlight in the arena of online privacy.  Ever since they decided to “simplify” their online agreement, (see here, and here, and here) they have been scrutinized from every angle possible.  Sure, the policies they had in place were convoluted and ineffective.  Sure, they needed to play catch up on the data mining front to compete with the likes of Facebook.  However, they managed to do so with the grace and precision of a hand grenade.  This time around, the FTC is investigating to determine if Google intentionally tried to set a … Read more

We are looking for an ad agency, marketing group or individual with core competency in demographic, geographic, and retargeting online advertising.

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It’s astonishing how display ads have gotten so sophisticated.  Did you know that when you look at a web site the ads that you see are  probably only seen by you and the few hundred or thousand people most like you in the world?   In fact they are designed to profile you, discover your aspirations, and type you, track you, follow you along the Web  and drive you into someone’s sales funnel.   I bet you never felt so wanted in your life. In fact  most of the gray matter IP, high-profile venture capital dollars are going into this … Read more

‘s Privacy Policy: Strike One

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Not nine days after Google releases their new-and-improved privacy policy, we have some first hand results of its intrusiveness.   Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student from Stanford University, discloses some rather disappointing findings.  In his comprehensive article (found here) he identifies four ad-based companies that place trackable cookies in Safari’s browser, and code in two of the four show an intentional circumnavigation of Safari’s privacy feature.  I’ll give you a hint: one starts with a G and ends in oogle.  Now almost every browser has some type of privacy feature in place: “Every popular web browser, save Opera Mini and … Read more

Use Google? YouTube? Have a Gmail account? Worried? Maybe You Should Be: Part 3

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It’s here.  Google’s new simplified privacy policy popped up today when I opened my Reader account, (if you don’t follow, here’s Part 1 and Part 2) and after 30 minutes or so I came to a single profound, concrete conclusion: it’s long. Now I have to give Google credit, it’s the most user friendly privacy document I’ve seen to date; complete with unsophisticated illustrations that firmly reinforce it’s benign nature. A caricature of how Google uses the information it gathers to improve the user experience. Simplicity aside, what does this mean for the user?  Well, as previously stated it’s a matter of perspective.  Interestingly … Read more

Use Google? YouTube? Have a Gmail account? Worried? Maybe You Should Be: Part 2

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OK, the previous post on this topic generated a LOT of emails.  With excessive use of the caps lock.  All the shouting aside, the responses formed two very distinct camps: those who welcomed the changes with open arms, and those angered to the point that their accounts will be deactivated within the next month.  This apartheid is primarily due to difference in perspective rather than an actual misrepresentation of facts.  Let’s break down the two mindsets so we can understand both sides of the equation. Now it is clear that purely from a functionality standpoint (ignore the politics for just a moment), the … Read more

Use Google? YouTube? Have a Gmail account? Worried? Maybe You Should Be: Part 1

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I admit, I constantly use all three in almost every aspect of my life.  But it looks like my Hotmail account, Yahoo Finance, and Vimeo are about to see a lot more of my traffic, and here’s why.  I received an email from Google just earlier today about their ‘new privacy policy’.  It seemed harmless enough, even like a step in the right direction of reducing these longwinded legal documents into something the average user can understand: We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to … Read more

Google vs. Apple

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As I sit here typing out this post on my MacBook, occasionally running a question by Siri on my iPhone just for the heck of it, I can’t help but notice I’ve been blindsided by the Apple lifestyle… and I don’t seem to mind a bit.  An iPod sits in my car, next to the two iPod shuffles that I take on the mountain when I ride, and I’m long Apple stock.  My old HTC Incredible smartphone sits in a box, long forgotten.  And I’m certainly not the only one to completely buy into the way of life that Steve … Read more

The Week Ahead: Apple-HTC Smartphone Suit Moves Toward Ruling in U.S. – WSJ.com

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Judgment Day Looms for Apple, HTC   By IAN SHERR Apple Inc.’s claims that some smartphones running Google Inc.’s Android software copy its inventions are approaching their first big judgment day in the U.S. The International Trade Commission in Washington on Wednesday is expected to rule on whether some phones made by HTC Corp. violate Apple’s patents. The ruling could lead to a ban on handsets sold by the Taiwanese company, which uses the Android operating system and is the No. 3 smartphone provider in the U.S. market, according to research firm Nielsen. via The Week Ahead: Apple-HTC Smartphone Suit … Read more

DJ UPDATE: US Judge Rejects Apple Request To Ban Samsung Galaxy Sales

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I don’t think this will impact our pairs trade much but it certainly blows apart the thesis.  The bottom line is that Apple’s chart looks more bullish than Google’s this week.  There may be a short reaction Monday but there is still going to be a trial.  I like asymetric trades where if you are right there is potential big upside or in this case downside with Google.  And if you are wrong, there may be no major reaction at all.  Samsung already has 30% market share with its partner, Google and its doing little to hurt Apple as they … Read more

”s stock

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Balkanization, or Balkanisation, is a geopolitical term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other.. You need to look no further than a stock chart of Google or this unbelievably depressing Chart of the Day from the SAI Business Insider. Facebook’s Unbelievable Effect On The Rest Of The Web. Or for that matter the meteoric rise in price of LinkedIn’s IPO.  When I first started an Internet company in 1994, the web held the promise of making the world … Read more

Weekend Reading Links

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The weekend is always a great time to catch up on some of the week’s reading you missed… Markets have gotten conditioned to central bankers flooding the market with money every time something goes wrong. [The Psy-Fi Blog] A profile of Jonathan Ive the “design genius” behind the rise of Apple. [I Heart Wall Street] Market bubbles and investor psychology.  [Vanguard Group] Buffett’s worst investment ever (and its not what you think) and7 other unusual things I learned about Warren Buffett. [The Altucher Confidential] Why are some cities happier than others?  [The Atlantic] Sirius is Clearning up its balance sheet. [Sirius Buzz] The frequency … Read more