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• Stocks that won and lost in Nasdaq short interest

  Posted Apr 14 2008, 06:07 AM by Douglas McIntyre
  Filed under: Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo, E*Trade, Intel, Sirius, XM Satellite Radio, JetBlue, Dell, Take-Two Interactive, Electronic Arts
  Rating:

  Most companies on Nasdaq did fairly well with the shorts in the two-week period which ended on March 31. The two tremendous exceptions were Level 3, where short interest moved up 20.3 million shares to 243.9 million, and Sirius, where shares sold short jumped 40.4 million to 137.8 million.

  In a tough stock market and credit environment, it is not hard to see why investors would place bets against both companies. Each stock trades near its 52-week low. Level 3 recently pushed out its president. Although it is in an attractive business, bandwidth infrastructure, it is a patch-work of M&A work with a large amount of debt and almost no cash-flow. In other words, a liquidation candidate in a deep recession.

  Sirius is also hurt by a high debt-load -- over $1.2 billion -- and negative operating income. If the company's merger with XM Satellite does not go through, it may not be able to survive as a standalone company either.   Read More...

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• AMD needs the Intel European Union case to save its skin

  Posted Mar 12 2008, 01:14 PM by Douglas McIntyre
  Filed under: Microsoft, Intel, AMD

  Intel management and lawyers are in Europe talking with EU officials about whether the big chip company violated anti-trust laws in the region.

  According to The Wall Street Journal "The E.U. filed preliminary charges against Intel in July, alleging the company offered rebates to customers only if they didn't use AMD products." Officials want to know whether Intel came by its 80% market share in the PC and server markets by playing fair or by using dirty tricks to keep customers away from AMD.

  The case is much more important to AMD than it is to Intel. As E.U. dealings with Microsoft have shown, a large company can survive sanctions from the body, even penalties, and continue to do business successfully. AMD, on the other hand, is losing share. If it can get the locals to go along with its way of thinking, that Intel executives are thugs and mobsters, the smaller chip company might get a little wiggle room to sell more of its products.   Read More...

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• Is Hewlett-Packard the exception or the rule?

  Posted Feb 20 2008, 08:48 AM by Douglas McIntyre
  Filed under: Microsoft, HP, Intel, AMD, Dell, IBM, Sun
  Rating:

  Hewlett-Packard turned in one of the best performances of the earnings season. Net income rose 38%. Revenue rose 13% to $28.5 billion. The computer company raised guidance and its shares moved up 5%.

  HP is probably the best tech bellwether in the U.S. It not only sells PCs and printers, it has a large software and server operation. It has tremendous businesses outside the U.S., especially in Asia.

  Shipments from the company's PC operations were up 27% in the quarter. That has to be good news for chip companies AMD and Intel. Because HP is No.1 in global PC market share, it is also likely a boost for sales of Microsoft's Vista.   Read More...

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• How a little laptop is changing an industry

  Posted Nov 26 2007, 10:32 AM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Microsoft, Intel, AMD
  Rating:

  The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article about Nicholas Negroponte, an MIT professor who is pioneering an ambitious project to produce a $100 laptop that poor countries can buy for their children. It's a noble effort that would educate children and families as well as connect them to the Internet.

  The article details the many challenges Negroponte is facing in his goal to get the laptop to 150 million children. So far, only about 2,000 children have received the computers. Why? Tech giants are worried the laptop will cut into future business opportunities in the developing world, so they're coming up with competing machines.   Read More...

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