The Australian Parliament is investigating why software and media downloads from Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and other foreign companies are often far more expensive in Australia than elsewhere. For example, a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional costs $349 in the U.S., but $883 down under. Likewise, Mac OS X Server goes for $499 in the U.S., and $728 in Australia. [View news story]
49 Red Flags--Heavy Insider Selling [View article]
I'm just not sure this says anything about the valuation, and is a negative indicator for the stock.
The prudent thing for anyone who becomes wealthy on paper when their company goes public is to diversify their assets. VC funds also need to sell, depending on their mandate. So insider selling after an IPO is not like insider selling years later, and is more an indicator of individuals' asset allocation needs than the stock's valuation.
In fact, you could even argue that a speedy sale by insiders is bullish for the stock, as it eliminates the overhang.
Note that I'm not expressing any view on LNKD's valuation; I also have no position in the stock.
Does the Fed exacerbate income inequality? "The relentless expansion of credit by the Fed creates artificial disparities based on political privilege and economic power," Mark Spitznagel writes. "This coercive redistribution has been a far more egregious source of disparity than the president's presumption of tax unfairness... or deregulation." Even Paul Krugman isn't buying it. [View news story]
Leaving aside the politics, artificially low interest rates probably have multiple effects, some of which benefit less wealthy people more and some of which benefit wealthier people more.
First, we need to separate out the impact of low rates on financial assets and the impact on the real economy.
1. Impact on the real economy If low rates benefit the real economy, eg. by increasing employment and fixed investment, then who benefits more? My guess is less wealthy families benefit more from this, but I'm not sure; interested to hear views on that.
2. Impact on financial assets While there are many retirees who rely on interest income or dividend income, and wouldn't consider themselves wealthy, statistically most financial assets and net cash balances are owned by the wealthy. Most Americans have little in the way of savings, but do have debt such as credit card debt or mortgage debt.
Low interest rates mean lower payments for all the families with debt (eg. via mortgage refinancings and lower credit card payments).
Low interest rates mean lower earned interest for the wealthy.
However, if low interest rates boost asset prices, that benefits the wealthy. One question is: what's the impact of persistently low rates? Perhaps the constant reduction in interest payments offsets a step increase in asset prices when rates are cut.
Overall, I'm not sure of the net effect of low rates on the wealthy, but it does seem to be the case that low rates help lower income families dependent on employment and making payments on debt.
The Why Behind The How: The Quality Of Comments On Seeking Alpha Articles [View instapost]
James and everyone else here,
Thanks for the great comments. We have internal debates about these issues, and the following point James made particularly resonated for me because it was a position I took for a while:
"My personal recommendation is that SA give authors "right of first refusal" on all comments. I believe authors should be the first line of moderation. The interests of author's and SA are aligned in this regard. Authors know that encouraging lively debate will drive PVs. Overly censoring comments will tend to drive down PVs."
I moved away from that position for two reasons:
(1) Some authors rarely check the comments on their articles, so they can't be relied on to moderate comments. So we'd have to have a mixture of author-moderation and editor-moderation. But having a mixture is logistically complex, for example leading to cases where SA moderators "step on the toes" of authors who do moderate the comments on their articles.
(2) Commenters care a lot about consistency and predictability. The most frequent complaint we get about comment moderation is that we're inconsistent -- "If you deleted my comment, why didn't you delete his?!!!" (This then leads to conspiracy theories that we delete comments of a particular political orientation, because many of the comments we have to delete are political slogan slinging that become abusive.) Allowing authors to delete comments would lead to massive inconsistency in the eyes of users, and I think that's a problem.
Instead, we're thinking about something similar which could avoid these problems: Allow authors to nominate the best comments on their articles, and highlight those comments. This would be similar to the way the New York Times has a separate tab for NYT Picks - but instead of comments being picked by SA editors, they'd be picked by the article author. If the author didn't pick any comments, the tab wouldn't show.
For the comments which the author picks, we wouldn't show replies - there would be a "replies" link below the comment which would skip you to the main tab to see the whole conversation.
What do you think? Thanks again to everyone for your input and help on these issues, David
Barton Biggs expects a 5-7% decline in the S&P, reports Betty Liu. Bloomberg's Hedge Brief charts Biggs' calls over the past few years and finds him mostly a good contrarian indicator, but also proving the adage about a stopped clock. [View news story]
Barton Biggs expects a 5-7% decline in the S&P, reports Betty Liu. Bloomberg's Hedge Brief charts Biggs' calls over the past few years and finds him mostly a good contrarian indicator, but also proving the adage about a stopped clock. [View news story]
A better measure might be how his hedge fund (which I think is largely macro oriented) has done. Does anyone have any data on that?
Top Social Media Stock Picks By The World's Largest Fund Managers [View article]
Thanks for the clarification. I guess the question is whether fund managers with billions under management, measured against their benchmark, can be described as "bullish" if they are underweight, even if they are adding. Maybe they're just becoming less bearish...
The Australian Parliament is investigating why software and media downloads from Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and other foreign companies are often far more expensive in Australia than elsewhere. For example, a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional costs $349 in the U.S., but $883 down under. Likewise, Mac OS X Server goes for $499 in the U.S., and $728 in Australia. [View news story]
49 Red Flags--Heavy Insider Selling [View article]
The prudent thing for anyone who becomes wealthy on paper when their company goes public is to diversify their assets. VC funds also need to sell, depending on their mandate. So insider selling after an IPO is not like insider selling years later, and is more an indicator of individuals' asset allocation needs than the stock's valuation.
In fact, you could even argue that a speedy sale by insiders is bullish for the stock, as it eliminates the overhang.
Note that I'm not expressing any view on LNKD's valuation; I also have no position in the stock.
Time Again To Trade The Collapse Of The Yen [View article]
Does the Fed exacerbate income inequality? "The relentless expansion of credit by the Fed creates artificial disparities based on political privilege and economic power," Mark Spitznagel writes. "This coercive redistribution has been a far more egregious source of disparity than the president's presumption of tax unfairness... or deregulation." Even Paul Krugman isn't buying it. [View news story]
First, we need to separate out the impact of low rates on financial assets and the impact on the real economy.
1. Impact on the real economy
If low rates benefit the real economy, eg. by increasing employment and fixed investment, then who benefits more? My guess is less wealthy families benefit more from this, but I'm not sure; interested to hear views on that.
2. Impact on financial assets
While there are many retirees who rely on interest income or dividend income, and wouldn't consider themselves wealthy, statistically most financial assets and net cash balances are owned by the wealthy. Most Americans have little in the way of savings, but do have debt such as credit card debt or mortgage debt.
Low interest rates mean lower payments for all the families with debt (eg. via mortgage refinancings and lower credit card payments).
Low interest rates mean lower earned interest for the wealthy.
However, if low interest rates boost asset prices, that benefits the wealthy. One question is: what's the impact of persistently low rates? Perhaps the constant reduction in interest payments offsets a step increase in asset prices when rates are cut.
Overall, I'm not sure of the net effect of low rates on the wealthy, but it does seem to be the case that low rates help lower income families dependent on employment and making payments on debt.
Playing The Polysilicon Glut [View article]
Big picture insights like that seem obvious after the fact, but it's easy to miss them, and they have a huge impact on investment performance.
The Why Behind The How: The Quality Of Comments On Seeking Alpha Articles [View instapost]
Thanks for the great comments. We have internal debates about these issues, and the following point James made particularly resonated for me because it was a position I took for a while:
"My personal recommendation is that SA give authors "right of first refusal" on all comments. I believe authors should be the first line of moderation. The interests of author's and SA are aligned in this regard. Authors know that encouraging lively debate will drive PVs. Overly censoring comments will tend to drive down PVs."
I moved away from that position for two reasons:
(1) Some authors rarely check the comments on their articles, so they can't be relied on to moderate comments. So we'd have to have a mixture of author-moderation and editor-moderation. But having a mixture is logistically complex, for example leading to cases where SA moderators "step on the toes" of authors who do moderate the comments on their articles.
(2) Commenters care a lot about consistency and predictability. The most frequent complaint we get about comment moderation is that we're inconsistent -- "If you deleted my comment, why didn't you delete his?!!!" (This then leads to conspiracy theories that we delete comments of a particular political orientation, because many of the comments we have to delete are political slogan slinging that become abusive.) Allowing authors to delete comments would lead to massive inconsistency in the eyes of users, and I think that's a problem.
Instead, we're thinking about something similar which could avoid these problems: Allow authors to nominate the best comments on their articles, and highlight those comments. This would be similar to the way the New York Times has a separate tab for NYT Picks - but instead of comments being picked by SA editors, they'd be picked by the article author. If the author didn't pick any comments, the tab wouldn't show.
For the comments which the author picks, we wouldn't show replies - there would be a "replies" link below the comment which would skip you to the main tab to see the whole conversation.
What do you think?
Thanks again to everyone for your input and help on these issues,
David
Barton Biggs expects a 5-7% decline in the S&P, reports Betty Liu. Bloomberg's Hedge Brief charts Biggs' calls over the past few years and finds him mostly a good contrarian indicator, but also proving the adage about a stopped clock. [View news story]
Barton Biggs expects a 5-7% decline in the S&P, reports Betty Liu. Bloomberg's Hedge Brief charts Biggs' calls over the past few years and finds him mostly a good contrarian indicator, but also proving the adage about a stopped clock. [View news story]
AmazonDeal Does It Again [View article]
AmazonDeal Does It Again [View article]
Top Social Media Stock Picks By The World's Largest Fund Managers [View article]
The Rise Of Robo Rebalancing [View article]
Top Social Media Stock Picks By The World's Largest Fund Managers [View article]
Isn't that a self-contradiction?
The Best SA Articles Of All Time, As Chosen By Their Authors [View article]
AmazonDeal Does It Again [View article]