The Stock Market and Investing

kyfdx

Who knows the name of the building in that picture? (no prize..lol)

ljflx

Charlie,

Catkills up thru the Adirondacks are also stunning. Actually you should do that trip in reverse. The Northway from Albany to Montreal is also one of the most beautiful highways in the US.

http://www.adirondacknorthway.net/

jlbl

Can it help giving the hint that it stands at the corner of N State St. with the left River bank, and that there is a marina under the restaurants/shops under the round parking lot under the apartments?

Regards,
Jose

cdnpinhead

Very nice, Jose. Thanks for providing the link and posting these.

Sounds like you're feeling better -- excellent!

kyfdx

Hmm.. might help... lol

tagman

Heads up to Apple fans...
At this moment, AAPL share price starting to look attractive again.

TM

gagrice

I got to look at both the 11 inch and 13 Inch Mac Air at Best Buy in Indiana. I must say they are pretty impressive. I was not at all impressed by the iPad when my buddy bought one. I could overcome my distaste for all things Apple with the MacAir.

I bought the first Mac in 1984. Not at all happy with it. Next year I bought an Atari 1040 ST. I took it to work and developed our database for all of our telephone plant records using dBMan, a dBase clone. We used that old Atari for all our records until the early 1990s when we ported over to a Gateway windows machine. The Mac was a toy compared to Amiga and Atari back in the early days. Hard to read monochrome screen that was only 9 inches. And waaaay over priced by comparison to others. I think they are getting closer to mainstream pricing now.

PS
My first was a TRS-80.

imidazol97

>My first was a TRS-80.

Which one? Model I, II, or III?

gagrice

I just remember having two 8 inch floppy drives and always running out of room for storage. And the disks were expensive. I also bought an expensive HP laptop in the early 1980s. It had a little 3.5 floppy drive and small printer. In the carrying case it weighed about 25 lbs. It cost over $4000 and was cheap compared to the GRID Compass I could not afford. I remember lugging it all over the country through the airports. It is mindboggling the changes in electronics. Now that I can afford about any electronics I want, I am not as interested.

cyclone4

Heads up to Apple fans...
At this moment, AAPL share price starting to look attractive again.

I hear you brother! I could not resist. I bought an additional 25 shares this morning at about $304. Obviously, the stock sold off today due to the announcement/forecast after the close yesterday that the earnings will not be quite as good in the first quarter of 2011 as they were in the first quarter of 2010. To that, I say so what! Instead of being super incredible they may be only incredible. And, Apple may be trying to simmer the future expectations a little so that they can come up with a super bullish 1st quarter report.

I am going to live and die with AAPL . I have never had THIS MUCH invested on a stock before. "In AAPLE I trust"!

ljflx

Any of you guys getting concerned that we've had some great earnings reports and the market is having a hard time getting past 11,200.

ljflx

We are witnessing an HISTORIC storm today into tomorrow in the upper Midwest.

Would have been nice if Notre Dame realized that. What a tragedy and what irresponsibility. I wish they could get the coach for manslaughter on this. The poor kid wanted to come down and felt endangered and they told him he had to stay up there. I hope the school gets a $100mln lawsuit over this and some kind of criminal charge.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/notredame/2010/10/tragedy_at_notre_dame_football.html

PF_Flyer

I haven't seen anywhere reporting that the kid was told to stay up by anyone. Yes, there's going to be some legal accountability for somebody, but I'm sorry... if you're 20 years old and that scared, you YELL at somebody until they get you down, you don't "Tweet" and wait 40 minutes for things to get worse. I'm not intimately familiar with the piece of equipment, but I'd be surprised if it's not controlled from the place where the camera operator is, and if it's not, and someone on the ground operates the lift, then there HAD to be someone at the base of the thing that you COULD yell at. I'm certain the regulations would be that you couldn't leave something like that unattended. A tragic accident to be sure.

kyfdx

if you're 20 years old

Sorry.... he is still a boy at 20..

Ever experience the atmosphere at a football practice? At NOTRE DAME? You might as well expect an offensive lineman to quit running sprints when he feels light headed, to protect his health.

It is a tragedy.. and, someone is probably accountable.. But, it's a college football practice, not an industrial construction site.. The root cause is probably the lack of training on a dangerous piece of equipment that the college only uses for video and hanging banners..

Very sad..

gagrice

if you're 20 years old
Sorry.... he is still a boy at 20..

We send young men to the front lines at 18 years of age to fight. I was 18 when I went to work at the phone company. The boss wanted me be an outside plant man. He had me strap on hooks and climb a telephone pole. I got up about 6 foot and told him that it was not what I wanted to do. If they did not have a less dangerous job inside I would look elsewhere. I was sent to inside plant within 6 months. Years later I had to stand up to bosses that wanted me to climb towers at 40 below zero to align Microwave dishes. Same response. We are ultimately responsible for ourselves. For sure by age 20.

It was a sad accident. His decision to text over looking out for his own welfare has to be taken into account.

cyclone4

Would have been nice if Notre Dame realized that. What a tragedy and what irresponsibility. I wish they could get the coach for manslaughter on this. The poor kid wanted to come down and felt endangered and they told him he had to stay up there. I hope the school gets a $100mln lawsuit over this and some kind of criminal charge.

Oh my God! I did not know this horrible accident took place. What a tragedy! Where did you read that they actually told him that he had to stay up there? IF so, they are in real deep gaga.

cyclone4

Any of you guys getting concerned that we've had some great earnings reports and the market is having a hard time getting past 11,200.

There is always some concern in this market due to various manipulators. However, in my opinion, it is just a matter of time (likely sooner than later) when we have an upside breakout. I know we hammered this issue a few weeks ago, but I have a strong belief that consumer spending will be gradually on the upswing over the next several months and year. It is in the American blood . This combined with a continuation of good earnings reports will probably bring the Dow above the 12,000 barrier some time next year. How's that for a "Tag-like" prediction?

imidazol97

That is unforgiveable on the part of the coach leaving the person up there trying to film.

I did 8 mm film long ago for a football team. Some of the schools where games were played had really shoddy and dangerous high perches for the people doing the filming. In this case it was a scissors lift used.

The responsibility for the team and the ancillary personnel is on the coach. I found some coaches to be very demanding and egotistical. Some were gracious human beings, and this was high school ball. I can understand how a 20-year old boy would be afraid to just go down to ground and tell the coach he wasn't going to get video from him that day. The reaction toward the boy would have been devastating from some coaches, in my feelings on the subject.

PF_Flyer

I guess what's really sad to me is that at 20 years old, someone thinks their best option when things go wrong is to post on Facebook. There's a real shortage of "real world" experience building up out there. Fewer and fewer people seem to know how to actually DO or DEAL with anything.

No doubt about a lack of training, but somebody raised the lift, and I'll bet that somewhere on that lift is a warning about not operating the lift in winds above a certain speed.

The other thing that's sad is that everyone is going to want to pin the blame on someone and get lots of lawyers involved telling us how the lift company is really at fault because "Don't operate in winds above 25 MPH" is too vague a warning :mad:

ljflx

Oh my God! I did not know this horrible accident took place. What a tragedy! Where did you read that they actually told him that he had to stay up there? IF so, they are in real deep gaga.

Charlie,

Reported on ESPN TV and radio for about 8-10 hours after the accident. That stream has now gone cold so ND is trying to control everything.

houdini1

A more experienced and mature person would certainly have not stayed up there. The kid must have been terrified of the coach so he hung in there and tried to do his job. What a tragedy. I wonder how the coach feels today?

ljflx

I woud bet you that all the folks around him were terrrified of the coaching staff too. It would take a vey strong willed person to ovvercome not just the coach, but all the other folks who likely acted in fear of the coach as well. There are very few 20 year olds that have that strong a will and he may have well feared that coming down would slow or end his desired career. Anyone laying this on the kid is being shortsighted. Just based on his tweets the kid knew he shouuld come down but he trusted the judgment of others and lost his life as a result.

PF_Flyer

It may not be on the coach, at least directly. If ND is like a lot of other universities, the video work could be under the umbrella of the communications dept, or some general sports support dept/staff. Not trying to get anyone off the hook here, but as as been pointed out, we don't know anywhere near all the facts of the situation

gagrice

Notre Dame's Kelly must go

There are some mistakes coaches can’t survive. Brian Kelly made one Wednesday.

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/notre-dame-must-fire-brian-kelly-- over-student-death-102910

tagman

Well, I went on record and posted one week ago that I believed it was time for a correction. I am sorry to say that I was most likely right on the money... and it's upon us.

Today I finally heard the c-word mentioned on the financial news. They should have read my post last week, and they wouldn't be so late to mention it... LOL.

Anyway, I expect to see the market take a dive for several days. I may get "out" for just a few days, or ride it out... haven't decided yet.

Buckle up.

TM

kyfdx

I doubt the coach knew about it, thought about it, or it ever crossed his mind...

That doesn't mean he isn't ultimately responsible.. I just doubt he ever worries about the day-to-day details of the video crew..

I was a student trainer for a small college football team... very small, but very successful.. As a trainer, you never approached the head coach with any item, concern, etc... Any concerns had to be addressed to the head trainer, or an assistant coach.. I'd imagine at Notre Dame, you could multiply that by 100.

I'd guess that Brian Kelly makes $3MM to $5MM per year to coach football at Notre Dame... I'd also guess that someone with supervisory responsibility farther down the food chain will take the fall for this (correctly even, maybe).. Also, this is a religious institution, which may not be quite as beholden to political correctness, in how they handle the matter.

gagrice

I agree with you on this issue. I think that was an opinion piece that was calling for the coach to be fired. If that young man said at anytime to anyone in authority he wanted down from that dangerous perch, and was denied, that person should be held accountable for the death. Even prosecuted for manslaughter. I doubt the coach was that person.

ljflx

Just go back and read that Fox story about how other coaches were concerned about the peripherals, including videographers of scrimages. I'm not on the same page here. Every coach knows full well he wants to analyze the scrimmage videos for game day so I doubt he forgets they are there and endangered by bad weather.The ESPN stories on that first day talked about the kid complaining to the video management crew about the weather being too dangerous to be up there. That's where the news originated that he wanted to come down. That crew reports to the AD but the AD while having the coach report to him will really do anything and everything to please the coach. Be it the coach, his staff or the AD this one is on ND 100% as they should have had knowedge of weather reports and cancelled videography that day. This was the strongest land cyclone in history, was widely reported on the news and weather channels and affected weather severely for thousands of miles. - and they were in a very windy part of it south of center. The fact that they allowed filming tells you how demanding the coach is and where their priorities lie..

ljflx

Tag,

I made the post about earnings failing to propel us above 11,200 so I see where you are coming from. But it's also election time and you could have two other forces working here too:

1. Buy on the rumor, sell on the news.

2. Uncertaiinty about the overwhelmingness of a Rep victory so fear to keep buying.until it happens.

I'm not sure which way to go here. I can see No.1 happening and you have a small drop after the elections. I can see the market jumping 200-300 points on a Rep victory and I can see it falling 200+points if the Dems retain enough control. The scariest thing about the latter is the tax increase and wreckless spending of Obama. I still doubt that most of this country has little knowledge of how dangerous a tax icrease for the the top 2% tier is. I read this story - an excellent one - in todays Times. It notes a lot of things about the US comparability to the Japanese ecomomic situation. It specifically notes about the one thing that kept the Japanese at bay was that the US was always ahead of the technology curve and kept on re-inventing each new technology step. Well much of that came from small businesses being quick to the punch and Obama's 2% "Rich" crowd tax is aimed right at the cogs of the group we need to prop up the economy and keep those waves coming - all of which took place in a decreasing or stable tax environment. We also all know well what happened to the Japanese economy when a small tax increase was put on it just as it was starting to come back.

Excerpt:

Aimed at reducing deficits, the tax increase instead quickly snuffed out the fragile recovery, pushing Japan to the brink of a financial meltdown and thrusting the nation deeper into the economic morass from which it has yet to emerge even today.

“Our sins are large,” Mr. Kato, now president of Kaetsu University in Tokyo, said ruefully. “I hope the rest of the world can learn from this mistake.”

In sentece two replace rest of the world with Obama and Pelosi. In all honesty though neither one, but especially Pelosi have the ability to lunderstand past history in economics. I doubt either one even remotely understands economics 101.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/world/asia/30japan.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

tagman

Thanks Len...

Well... I thought about it... and I decided I am staying the course... staying in the market... no matter how the elections turn out. I've said before that I never fight the Fed. I still believe Uncle Ben will come through no matter who wins the elections. Correction or not, there WILL be a big rally before long, and I don't want to miss it.

I am still bullish on this market.

TM

tagman

Plenty of political opinions posted recently.

Some close elections today. So...

Go VOTE.

TM

dieselone

on my way:)!!!

slorenzen

We vote by mail only, here in Oregon.

I kinda miss going to a polling place...

I voted.

houdini1

We voted about 2 weeks ago at a regular poling place. I tried to throw every bum out that I could !!

ljflx

I am really happy that Nancy Pelosi's ever changing cosmologically altered face will soon disappear from my nice new 3D TV..

gagrice

Now we can see if she keeps her word and retires. She is relegated to coach flying commercial. No more 747 loaded down with friends and family cavorting all over the planet at our expense.

Hopefully speaker Boehner shows some conservative values in his tenure at the podium.

ljflx

Basically the Dems got crushed because they thought they had an unchecked and unending far left liberal future that Americans would somehow be in love with. They failed to tacke the economy and jobs, which were items 1-10 in importance to Americans. There was no number 2 until the erconomy and jobs were dealt with. Yet Obama made something they couldn't care less about - healthcare reform - be the most urgent thing he saw to get done. Then to make matters worse they talked about increasing taxes to pay for unrelenting spending, which could only make the economy and job situation even worse. I honestly think this may be the first time the average American really understood how a double dip could happen. And of course Dems fulfilled the long-held criticism of tax and spend Democrats in a way that one would have thought could only be possible in a fictional movie (written by Reps) as this time they very unwisely raised it to a far higher power in the worst of economic times.The fact that Obama would create two new programs to spend a new $125bln when he still had $250bln in unspent stimulus from the original $800bln is all the proof in the world you needed of that. Hopefully they learned a lesson that only radicals want the far left and increases of deficit spending at any and all costs. Liberal radicals are basically children run amok. And hopefully Reps realize that their version of radicals only seek the far right and are every bit as dangerous for different reasons.

Anyway this is a very good column on where Dems should go (written by a retiring Dem) and a good strategy for Obama. But can he really carry out what he doesn't want to do? Personally I d'ont think he can. He's too stubborn and arrogant IMO. But hopefully he now realizes that whatever "Yes we can" was, the public wanted no part of it once they started seeing the direction "Yes we can" was going. It's time to put "Yes we can" in a time capsule.

Two great excerpts from the article below and the second point has been stated by Tag, Gary, Houdini, myself and others many times:

It is clear that Democrats over-interpreted our mandate. Talk of a “political realignment” and a “new progressive era” proved wishful thinking. Exit polls in 2008 showed that 22 percent of voters identified themselves as liberals, 32 percent as conservatives and 44 percent as moderates. An electorate that is 76 percent moderate to conservative was not crying out for a move to the left.

A good place to start would be tax reform. Get rates down to make American businesses globally competitive. Reward savings and investment. Simplify the code to reduce compliance costs and broaden the base. In 1986, this approach attracted bipartisan support and fostered growth

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/opinion/03bayh.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=what's%20next%20for%20democrats&st=cse

2001gs430

Q3 earning is due tonight. The last major price run up was after Q2's result...

tagman

Thanks GS. I still own shares of QLIK, and will hold them for a very long time.

BTW, I added a lot more stocks to my portfolio this morning while the market was down.

TM

2001gs430

NP TM.
Q3 was good for the company. I hope the shares will make another run up in the coming days...

ljflx

I just read their earnings report and again have not looked at this company at all so there may be a lot at play here that I know nothing about. So if you read this understand that this is just a devils advocate thought baed on ignorance of the company. With that said a 1.5mln gain in Op Income on a $14 mln revenue gain is only an 11% incremental margin, really low for me. Are they hiring like crazy or do they have a lot of new public reporting expenses from the IPO and in the case of the former wouldn't most of the new hires be a capitalized development cost and not effect OI anywayI? I would have looked for at least 75% of the new maintenance revenue to fall to the bottom line so I'd have expected growth of say $3mln on that alone and then at least a 25% incremental margin on the other $10.2mln. Is there a high cost to acquire a new customer? Software always scares me because pricing is often missed strategically. If it's priced like accounting software with only 15% maintenance revenue after year 1, it becomes harder and harder to cover your expense base longer term. Anyway I'm just looking at it from a 100K aerial view. But an 11% incremental margins would bother me in a service business.

2001gs430

Len, I believe most people owning this stock (including me) believed that it is the best in its segment. It will hopefully put other BI vendors out of business if they could not match QV capabilities. At that point it would either have a much bigger market share and revenue, or get taken out by one of the big tech firm at a nice premium, just like other BI software firms before it. I believe the latter scenario is most likely to happen.
You're right about the figures, but in the tech sector I often see people focus on growth rate and where the company stands in the sector.

ljflx

GS - or it needs to take over somebody and eliminate dual costs. That would end up making it a more attractive acquisition in the long run once it gets over the bumps a takeover brings. The financial ratios would then look very nice, growth would be solid and the company would hold a nice multiple longer term. But at a multiple over 100X it'll be hard to get taken over in this economy after just going public. Multiple is always very high because of thin trading. Longer term is this a bidding war stock?

tagman

Len,

I agree that QLIK's numbers aren't currently awesome enough to justify the current share price. I have one single reason for buying the stock (when it was cheaper, of course)... and that is their product. I can easily see their software finding it's way into more and more companies in the years ahead, with little competition.

Down the road I could see them purchased by a larger company.

It is somewhat speculative, no doubt... and that generally doesn't seem to be your style.

TM

tagman

I have repeatedly given you guys my recommendation for Ford.

I hope you have purchased some.

If not... it's not too late, but the stock has really advanced nicely, so you might want to wait for the next dip. There's still significant upside, as I expect the stock should hit at least $18-$20/share or even better next year.

Also, my recommendation for CMG has proved to be nothing short of awesome!! Plenty more upside ahead.

Hope you gents are doing well. At least we know AAPL is doing OK again.

BTW, my Dow prediction is looking better and better all the time. Who would have ever thought that the good TagMan would be the most bullish guy on this forum. :surprise:

TM

gagrice

And I almost sold my Ford stock at $11. Could hit $16 today. It is by far the best performer in my IRA. The Dow could very well settle above 11,400 today.

cyclone4

BTW, my Dow prediction is looking better and better all the time. Who would have ever thought that the good TagMan would be the most bullish guy on this forum.

Tag, I tend to dispute your statement that "you have been the most bullish guy on this forum" . I am not sure that I gave any specific numbers, but I have repeatedly stated, that I see no double dip, etc. and that the stock market would grind its way higher through next year and likely beyond. I have been saying this while the doom and gloom boys were continuously predicting all sorts of horrible scenarios. Whatever happened to the huge correction in October for example? I have been adding more stocks to my portfolio as well. But above all, I have been really loading up on AAPL.

BTW, I have been out of the loop the past few days and that is why you have not heard from me. Yesterday for example, I drove to Chicago (business meeting) and back on the same day. I feel like a zombie today. That was more than 750 miles of driving. Some of it was in a very stressful environment. It took me about 50 minutes to go that last 15 miles into downtown yesterday (late morning). I was on pins and needles. I would not live there if you paid me a $million.

tagman

Charlie... there's no doubt you have been bullish through thick and thin. I have played the timing game successfully many times in the past, but lately I've been "in", and in BIG. I also gave the most optimistic prediction of everyone here.

That said, you have been fairly steady as she goes, and you get plenty of credit for being a bullish voice on this forum, without any doubt. I'm not out to steal any of your thunder, that's for sure.

Anyway, your post is acknowledged and noted.

Welcome back!!

TM

ljflx

Charlie,

Here's how Tag does it.

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-50345512/stock-photo-a-business-man-looking-into- -the-future-in-a-crystal-ball.html

tagman

Charlie,

Here's how Tag does it.

Len,

Thanks, dude... you made my day... that is absolutely terrific.

:shades:



LOL... TM