Wednesday, January 30, 2013

RIM changes the name to BlackBerry!

This is never a good sign. Apple did not change their name when they were doing poorly (this before the iProducts). They did not call themselves Mac!

RIM did not ask for my ideas and neither do they care, but here it is.

A very cheap and sturdy phone, no touch screen, only for messaging, and voice for whoever will have a voice plan.

It will be called A1 and it will sell like hot cakes in the developing countries and not only (in the developed world mothers will buy this phone for their kids).

I am no graphic designer, otherwise I would have shown here my design of A1, so a Z10 will do for the time being.


Friday, January 25, 2013

A Perfect Poker Analogy To Explain The Biggest Mistake Investors Make

So, it's very important for most people to know when not to make a bet, because if you're going to come to the poker table, you're going to have to beat me, and you're going to have to beat those who take money.
So, the nature of investing is that a very small percentage of the people take money, essentially, in that poker game, away from other people who don't know when prices go up whether that means it's a good investment or if it's a more expensive investment.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ray-dalios-poker-analogy-for-investing-2013-1#ixzz2IuEMve6w

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Apple -9.83% after market hours

464.25
-49.76 (-9.68%)
Real-time:   9:59AM EST, Thursday 24 Jan
 
Some of the titles
Apple Inc. (AAPL): First To The Tech Grave-Yard?
Could This Be the Demise of Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s Earnings?
Apple's iPhone disappointment fans doubt on growth
Apple Sales Gain Slowest Since ’09 as Competition Climbs

I should have sold the shares today Wednesday, as I already have a profit (yes I know I use too many times the word 'should').

I should have made the following analysis:
1. Good results, shares go up on Thursday, so what
2. Bad results, the shares go down
So in order to minimize the risk, selling would have been the best option, but my buy and hold 'strategy' does not let me do it even if I read somewhere that only billionaires like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates can afford nowadays to be long-term investors.

***
Just came back from the dentist. It takes so much time to properly clean your teeth: brush properly, floss, use a Sulca brush.

I was thinking Apple should make a product iMouth. It would be like a mouth guard with small electric rotating brushes that go between teeth and along the gum line, in short proper teeth cleaning, and you could watch TV at the same time.
It might be expensive, let's say $1,000 but wouldn't you pay this amount so that you saw your dentist only for the annual check-up? Yes, I thought so.
***


Here it is how Wall Street is reacting. I like especially this "Given the decline in the share price, we are lowering our 12-month price target to $888.00 from $1,111.0." How did they come up with these very nice looking numbers? 1,111 not 1,039 or 1,183 for example or why not 939 or 856 instead of 888. Did they really make any calculations?
 


BARCLAYS:

Capitulation Process Seems Well Underway: "It seems the reaction to this EPS report is universally negative – especially since AAPL gave subdued guidance and changed the way it does it (they really mean it). We believe a capitulation process is underway – and while painful – it is healthy since the loftiest expectations should be reined in quite a bit. This spring, Apple should be readying a bevy of new products and services – and when the builds for these products become known – shares may act a lot better. We have seen sentiment turn quickly before with other leaders like Facebook (in 2012) and Google (in 2011). While this recent sell-off and Apple’s execution of late has tested our patience, we will evaluate Apple from here based on whether these products and services create the kind of excitement we are used to. Maintain OW rating."

CLSA:
Two key (interrelated) questions related to Apple are 1) whether the company has lost its competitive edge and 2) what the right margin profile is longer term. We believe Apple maintains its premium brand image (e.g. iPhone ASP) but needs to adapt to marketplace demands and abandon misperceptions about “one-handed ease of use” (yes many like it, but many don’t) by broadening its iPhone lineup – the same way it abandoned its 7” tablet stance and delivered a best-in-class product. We believe margins with multiple phone form factors and a lower-end offering for emerging markets could be structurally lower, but this is very much discounted in the share price as discussed below. We lower F13/F14 EPS from $48.95/58.38 to $44.79/51.71 reflecting lower iPhone share, mini cannibalization, and lower gross margin. We cut our price target from $680 to $575 reflecting lower estimates and risk associated with its product transition. BUY maintained.

CREDIT SUISSE:
Three steps to a recovery: none coming imminently, patience required. First, a new product cycle (we expect a high-end iPhone refresh and lower end iPhone later in 2013). Second, increased carrier expansion: while this is clearly happening slower than we thought, we still believe it's likely over 12 months. Third, increased cash distribution: Apple ended the quarter with $137bn of net cash some ~30% of market cap and 31% onshore so the capacity to distribute exits. While all these catalysts are plausible, none are imminent in our view, meaning patience is required.

PIPER JAFFRAY:
We are buyers of AAPL on the pull back following the company's December quarter earnings report based on our belief that Street numbers will be adequately reset and investors will return to the stock once the potential of new products comes into focus over the next 3-6 months. While we are adjusting our price target to $767, we remain optimistic about shares of AAPL.

NOMURA:
The weak Q2 dynamics seem to support our view that Apple is moving into an ex-growth phase in which unit growth is likely to come increasingly at the expense of gross margin declines. The net effect is limited earnings growth, EPS that likely tops-out at $50, which is likely to attract a multiple little better than comparable ex-growth peers such as Microsoft and Cisco. An 8x ex-cash multiple on our EPS forecast of $50 plus $89 in excess cash drives our fair value of $490.

CITI:
We stand by our recent downgrade and continue to rate the shares Neutral. On lower estimates, our price target falls to $500 from $575.

DEUTSCHE BANK:
AAPL reported revs of $54.5B and EPS of $13.81 which beat EPS expectations (vs. Street at $54.5B/$13.33; DB at $53.4B/$12.55). Upside was led by iPhone (48M vs. DB at 45M) and iPad (22.9M vs. DB at 22.0M) which offset light Mac results (4.1M vs. DB at 5.4M). Despite the EPS beat, AAPL revised its guidance format and the combination of margin pressure and decelerating iPhone growth implicit in guidance raises growth concerns. We reset estimates and cut our price target to $575. Trading at $460 in the aftermarket (~7x PE ex cash) we view AAPL as undervalued; maintain Buy. 

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Poker and Investing

It is not a long story, but an un-interesting one so I will not say how I got to think of poker and investing. The idea is that I had 2 colleagues that were good at poker and good investors as well. They still have their day jobs and even if they don’t laugh all the way to the bank they at least smile while I cry.

And I am not good at poker, they cleaned me out when I was playing with them.

So is there any connection between investing and poker? Apparently there is.
When typing ‘poker and investin’ Google suggests: ‘poker and investing’ - 6,090,000 results and ‘poker and investing go hand-in-hand’ - 19,700,000 results, wow!

Warren Buffett: “If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.


Not shy about his bridge skills, Buffett is very self-effacing about his poker prowess. “You will find me about five minutes after the tournament starts on the sidelines–knocked out as usual in the first round,” he e-mailed me before the tournament. He later explained the difference between the two card games this way: “I just don’t care about poker as much.” Temperamentally this makes sense. Buffett’s favored holding period for his positions is “forever”; poker demands immediate exploiting or discarding. Traders make great poker players; investors, less so.

Also an article from Business Insider The 13 Poker Concepts That Every Investor Needs To Know

Yes, I know 13 seems a good number, not 7 or 10 or 15 or even 20 (overused these numbers) but 13 :).

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Tom Demark: Apple's Stock Has Bottomed And Should Rally 22% From Here


DeMark told CNBC that his firm turned bearish on Apple right at the top, and the price action in the stock since then is more or less what they would have expected:

On September 21, we turned bearish on Apple, and it was above $700...we made a prediction that the stock would go down to $494 – $494.97, to be precise. We've held to that forecast all the way down, despite those intermittent rallies.

From Business Insider

Actually it was me who made the stock decline, read here how I single handedly stopped Apple.

I don't see Apple performing to well in the future unless they come with a iPhone bigger than they have now, similar to Huawei's 6.1" wow, I would buy now.

This is the future, a smartphone and a tablet in one, a phablet as they call it.  
I want a PHLABET.


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

True North Apartment REIT, something is rotten here

I am an investor in TN.UN as I like to invest in REIT Apartments and there are not too many of them.

Jan. 7 news
True North Apartment Real Estate Investment Trust ("True North," or the "REIT") (TSX VENTURE:TN.UN) announced today that it has agreed to acquire (the "Acquisition") a portfolio of 17 properties (the "Acquisition Properties") and the installment note for an aggregate purchase price of $152.8 million. The Acquisition Properties are currently owned and operated by D.D. Acquisitions Partnership (the "Vendor"), an entity controlled by Daniel Drimmer, a trustee and significant unitholder of the REIT.

How come? The company I am an investor of buys something from another investor of the company.
WHY?
Something is fishy here.

No wonder that the stock lost at the end of Jan. 8 4.36% at a very high volume
Vol / Avg. 581,046.00/71,728.00

Sunday, January 6, 2013

V is from Victory and from Visa

This is the only stock of a big company that I own that has doubled. And I sold one third of the position. I bought Visa (V) at around $75 some 2 years ago and sold it for $150.

Sometime ago I read how British Airways was charging extra for the airfare paid using credit cards.
So I reasoned "If everyone is going to charge extra for using a credit card, people will start avoiding using them and here it goes another investment of mine." (Warren Buffett has American Express, I decided to go Visa).

I was very tempted to sell it but due to my procrastination I didn’t do anything and Visa went up from $75 to $125.

But another recent piece of information made me think again (I think a lot, I do little).

Rogers has applied for a banking licence to become a credit-card issuer. If granted, Rogers could eventually get transaction fees on payments if its own credit-card credentials are stored in a customer’s mobile wallet.
.... 
CIBC will pay Rogers an undisclosed sum to store credit card information for Visa and MasterCard on Rogers phones, which can then be used to make payments in stores by emitting a signal to a special receiver at checkouts. Rogers will charge CIBC for space on its SIM cards, which are the tiny chips inside wireless phones that give them their identity.

So who would need Visa and MasterCard and all the other credit cards as almost everyone has a smartphone?
Time to sell or as usual I won't do anything?

Again I did not do anything and the share closed on Friday Jan 4, 2013 at $156.77.
And another 'hot' story on Sunday January 6, 2013.

Your morning latte may be getting more expensive. No, the coffee shop isn't raising their prices, but they may start charging you an extra fee if you plan on paying with your credit card .
It's just the latest tactic allowed by retailers who don't appreciate $1 purchases paid for with Visa and MasterCard. Back in 2010, Congress gave businesses its blessing to impose $10 minimums for credit card transactions. Now, a class action lawsuit is going a step further and saying merchants can pass along 'swipe fees' to their customers.
Will retailers start charging for the privilege of paying with plastic? 

So I should have sold half of Visa not only one third as per my 'strategy' to sell half of any stock that doubles and do not care what happens with the other half.

The moral of the story:
"It is scary that a stock I had all the logical reasons to sell has doubled in value. This is a game I cannot win and my only hope now is not to lose."

Tuesday, January 1, 2013