Daily Archives: December 16, 2006

IPhone: Never Give A Sucker An Even Break

Fortune Magazine, now in its 76th year, has floated the ballon that the iPhone from Apple (AAPL) could change the complexion of the cell phone industry.

Among the notions in "How An iPhone Could Rock Wireless" are that Apple could start its own cell phone company buy purchasing network capacity from a company like Cingular. That would, of course, make Cingular happy and it would not bother to try to give Apple a special whipping for taking its customers using its own network. Apple could also sell its phone through carriers like Verizon and Spint the same way that Nokia or Motorola do.

Cell phone companies buy phones from companies like Motorola and then practically give them away to get new customers. The loss on each phone can be a couple of hundred dollars. Fortune posits that the iPhone will be such a desireable item that Apple will be able to charge for it. Perhaps $300. This new model would allow cell phone companies to start to charge for their phones, especially MP3 models, because Apple will have blazed that trail.

Nuts.

Consumers are not dump enough to pay a lot of money for any cell phone. Not without a deal on their wireless service. Also, companies like Nokia already make phones that have music download capacity. Why should they make way for competition from Apple?

When Apple introduced the iPod, MP3 players were fairly rundimentary. There was also no huge "store" like iTunes where songs could be purchased for a small, uniform price. By contrast, there are a number of stellar cell products like the Motorola RAZR and there are several large cell providers in the US who already offer the consumer low-cost, highly reliable service for talking and for downloading music.

The iPhone enters the market with few of the advantages that the iPod had. Consumers are not suckers. They know a good deal when they see one, and the current cell phone companies have eaten up that space.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own shares in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: December 16, 2006 – 12:37 pm in Hardware

The Week of Cramer Picks (DEC 11 to DEC 15, 2006)

In Friday’s video on ThStreet.com Cramer noted AIG & MO:

Altria (MO) and AIG (AIG) are both buys here: AIG was noted as a cheap stock and it is his favorite stock that tends to act "like one giant bond" and it has gone from $65 to $72 and even though Hank Greenberg has been selling, it has the most going for it out of insurers and it is the cheapest in the group.  Altria (MO) is only up 13% this year and it is a buy according to Cramer, going higher.

He still likes and is buying Transocean (RIG) in oil drilling and services.

On Thursday’s MAD MONEY

He noted GSI Commerce (GSIC) as the good way to play the holidays and ecommerce as they are winning over Amazon.com.  Cramer also went over why you should buy J.Crew (JCG) on pullbacks.

On Thursday’s STOP TRADING segment he went over F5 (FFIV) as a tech stock he adores and he called it outright cheap compared to AKAM.

On Thursday’s video on thestreet.com Cramer was still positive in tech & oil:
Cramer likes these in tech: RIMM/AAPL/MRVL/STX/ERTS.  He still likes J&J (JNJ), but said Schering Plough (SGP) seems to be up too much for now.  Cramer was still positive on Chevron (CVX) & Exxon (XOM).

On Wednesday’s MAD MONEY Cramer interviewed Halliburton’s (HAL) CEO and stayed behind the company again.  He also said he likes Time Warner (TWX) over Comcast (CMCSA) because it has more of an upside compared to Comcast.  In raw value plays he said that AT&T (T) offered more value and upside compared to Verizon (VZ) from here.

On Wednesday’s STOP TRADING Cramer said that eBay (EBAY, Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) were all still going higher.   He had also defended those names on his new daily video on thestreet.com.

In his video CVramer also noted that General Electric (GE) is just starting to get interesting after the dividend hike.

ON Tuesday evening’s MAD MONEY CRamer noted 3 IPO: He was positive on Guidance Software (GUID) and on IPG Photonics (IPGP), but he salammed the Artes Medical (ARTE) IPO.

On STOP TRADING on Tuesday Cramer noted that PHARMA isn’t working, and he said he had to remember not to be tricked into thinking that Best Buy’s (BBY) woes were anything permanent.

On his video segment Tuesday Cramer said he liked Halliburton (HAL) and Coe Labs NV (CLB).  He noted the weakness in Pahrma then too except for Celgene (CELG) and Genentech (DNA).

On Monday’s MAD MONEY Cramer backed Daktronics (DAKT) and lamar (LAMR) as the way to win in the digital advertising on outdoor screens.

On Monday’s STOP TRADING segment Cramer was positive on Wells Fargo (WFC) because he felt they knew what they were doing in sub-prime loans.  He also noted AT&T (T) and Cisco (CSCO) positively.  He was also positive on Allegiant (ALGT) after its IPO as he thought it was overlooked.

Jon C. Ogg
December 16, 2006

Posted on: December 16, 2006 – 12:29 pm in Cramer

Vista’s First Flaw (MSFT)(ORCL)(IBM)

Someone forgot to tell the programmers at Microsoft that the new Vista operating system had to work with current version of SQL server database management software. The database management interface is critical if Micorosft wants to take business from Oracle. The global database business is estimated at $14 billion. Microsoft has painted itself in a corner.

Microsoft’s mistake hands Oracle is critical selling point that could last well into 2007. IBM has already released a version of its database software that works Vista. So, now MSFT has two competitors moving ahead of its.

Should be interesting to see what other problems Vista has. There almost have to be more.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: December 16, 2006 – 9:11 am in Software

Washington Mutual Gets A Brain (WM)

Washington Mutual built its reputation on rapid expansion of branchs and an ultra-aggressive mortgage operation–which its continued to expand into the teeth of the housing recession. The bank’s share price has only risen 14% over the last three years.

Washington Mutual is not closing branchs and cutting back its expansion, but investors have to wonder why it took so long.

The company’s CEO recently said that the mortgage buiness would be poor in 2007. One would think he could have made that statement several months ago.

Washington Mutual is now talking about share repurchases as being one of the cornerstone’s of its plans next year. Always a good answer to a poor strategic performance.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: December 16, 2006 – 8:58 am in Financial Stocks

Dell Takes Another Broadside (DELL)(HPQ)

Dell finally got its non-compliance letter from Nasdaq making a delisting at least a possibility. The SEC, Justice Department have all been looking into accounting irregularities at the big PC maker.

There is already a great deal of talk about the possibility of replacing Dell’s CEO, Kevin Rollins, and the delisting issue does not make his position any easier.

Dell’s stock has actually held up remarkably well. It trades at $26.50 on a 52-week high/low of $33.06/$18.95. The recovery in the stock from its lows puts it down about 20% over the last year. Stock in rival HP is up over 30% for the same period.

Dell needs some good news. Its next quarter will be critical. If the numbers are not good, the market’s small amount of faith in the company is going to erode further and the stock could certainly test $19 again.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: December 16, 2006 – 8:46 am in Hardware