What I Would Love To See In Windows 8

The story always seem to be the same for the tech giant Microsoft, just wait, the next version of Windows, that will blow you away. Wait, wait, the next next version of windows, that will be the game changer. Taking a look at all the factors in the past few years, it may be time to make that call again and have that call make you some money. There are a lot of features I, and the larger tech consumers would love to see in the new version of Microsoft and from what I have seen, the anticipation may finally live up to the expectations.

Microsoft has finally woken up to the competition that is Apple. They have shown this by there recent ruling to avoid employees from purchasing Apple products. This can be taken two ways. One, that Microsoft is gunning for Apple and die hard Appleheads should be scared. Two, the war is about to begin, and Apple is positioned to take the crown. Either way, a showdown is eminent. If you go here to a preview of Windows 8, you see that  Microsoft is going in a much different direction than before. Hey, you could even say that Microsoft storm is stealing a little Mac OS thunder.

What I am looking for as a Windows 8 potential consumer and an avid iPhone user is Microsoft to give me some love in the app world. I am so tired of logging into my computer and having 3 or 4 programs wanting to update themselves. While on my iPhone, all those programs are updated with one touch. This may not be a substantial problem for many of you, but it actually resembles a large issue. The problem that Microsoft has had over and over again, is they fail to focus on the ease of use of the consumer. Apple continually makes their products idiot proof and that usable to almost everyone (hell even my mother can use her iPhone with ease). Providing ease of life, that's what technologies true purpose for consumers is, and until Microsoft sees that, Apple will continue to dominate.

Whichever way you cut it, the tech war is now here and impassioned. The telltale sign of dominance will likely come at the end of the year when we see how Windows 8 sells and how the populous responds. The masses love Apple computers, but who's to say they won't love Windows even more? One of the benefits of technology is it moves rather rapidly, in turn allowing the Windows Apple game to change over night.

Looking At Zynga's Potential

Zynga, Facebook's baby, seems to have lost it's parent's halo in the past month. This is merely because those evaluating the company are looking at it all wrong. As I mentioned in I Was Wrong About Suggesting A Tech Bubble, technology allows for unprecedented growth, that box stores cannot match. What bothers me most, is not that the stock price is down, that happens, but rather the masses interpretation of Zynga. I have read multiple articles, tweets, and of course watched CNBC, and I have to say all these people are looking at the gaming giant wrong.

What makes a great company? The answer to this question is simple, a great company is one that sees potential and takes advantage of it. Zynga has this quality and it sees the future in a multiple platform gaming community. The Q&A in the conference call also showed that the smart money is behind this movement as well . What Zynga has is the potential to be more than a Facebook company, they have the willpower and the desire to take over the phone market. Gaming on the smartphone is the future, just like gaming over multiple platforms is the future of gaming. Well who is aligned to profit from this? Zynga. The conference call said one thing loud and clear, that Zynga sees the smartphone market for the taking and they are taking it.

That's just great isn't it, but what about making money? A lot of questions surround the monetization of Zynga. Where will Zynga make money? How can a company make money with Facebook? How can a company make money by giving away a free product? All these questions and many more are well founded, the answer is much easier than one initially thinks. We are witnessing advertisements on cell phones and Facebook in their infancy. We are seeing AdWords before it was AdWords. The growth of the smartphone arena is unquestionable, last quarter well over 200 million smartphone were sold. Zynga is selling apps on all of them. The phones they aren't selling them apps on, they are giving away free apps and profiting from advertisements. As the call suggested the ads are only going to get better as app advertisement goes from its infancy to becoming a toddler. The strongest argument for the future advertisement potential is the companies that are backing Zynga, on the call they mentioned a giant entertainment, Fox. My memory fails me on the other big names, but that fact remains, Zynga has epic advertisement potential and big names see it.

The stock is not institutionally held in high numbers because the company doesn't have potential. Big money knows the epic growth that the smartphone market is seeing and will see. Zynga's purchase of OMGPOP shows that they will take any measure to have the top (profiting) games. I like putting my money to work behind companies that are playing to win. Just go listen to the earnings call, it suggests a company with a vision that knows how to implement it. They are across multiple growing platforms and are the gaming giant of the next generation. You can't fight the trend.

Sunday Funday: Lions Gate

Investors and movie goers alike seemed hungry for the first installment of The Hunger Games. I had many a women fill my ears about the hype for almost a year. The reviews on the rating sites were decent to good, the personal reviews I have heard were quite lackluster. Though the fact of the matter is that the hype will only grow in anticipation for the following movies. So looking at LGF, it is a great candidate for Sunday Funday.

LGF last 6 months

With the huge potential to have a blockbuster brand in the hunger games and the possibility of other big hits for the rest of the year, LGF seems to be on the right track. Most of the above story you have heard and see the massive upside potential. Though their is always one point many fail to bring up, the streaming qualities of an enterprise like this. Nowadays there are so many ways in which movie fans can access content. Lions Gate has found ways to monetize all of these above and beyond what is normally expected. For example look at there Mad Men deal with Netflix. That is just a simple example, but content will be monetized more and more in the coming years. This monetization will LGF will make a killing.

So sit down on this Sunday Funday and enjoy a quality LGF movie and keep an eye on that stock.

I Was Wrong About Suggesting A Tech Bubble

We all have preconceived notions about how the world works, but due to technology this notion is outdated daily. Last month I suggested in And They Say This Isn't A Tech Bubble that we were seeing a repeat of what occurred in the tech bubble of lore. I am now standing here realizing that I was wrong, very wrong and my impudence can be explained simply. To make the advent of technology easy to understand for all ask yourself, how many people can a website reach? Then proceed to ask yourself - how many people can my local big box store reach?

Ahh the skeptics are now questioning there positions. Well reconsider your ignorance for a moment. Many of you live in a decent sized city, anywhere from 100,000 individuals to 1,000,000 and more. Look at your local Best Buy, Walmart, or even Apple Store and ask yourself, how many people can that store serve in one day? You obviously get the direction in which I am headed, the fact that a store has limitations to the amount of people it can serve. Limitations do not apply to tech companies, I am not suggesting they have super powers by any means, I am merely proposing that tech companies can reach many more consumers than stores. Big box stores have been a key part of our society for the last century, they are by no means dead, but are making room for the world wide web to take a piece of the pie. Consumerism will run rampant in our society for years to come, it will profit from both stores and the web, and these new sites that have millions upon millions of users will be positioned perfectly in the years to come.

Social networking is a key aspect of our life, not a fad of the late 90s. People get up in the morning and check there twitter for news rather then picking up the newspaper, the world is changing. Websites are what shopping (consumerism) was at the turn of the century, an arena with unprecedented growth posibility, a newfound aspect of life we cannot live without. Look at your phone, more and more americans can access the internet from there hand! So to sit here and say the tech bubble is back borders on stupidity. These tech companies may have high valuations, but have growth potential to back even higher valuations. Social media, social networking, and websites that serve a purpose are changing the way we interact with each other and interact with our daily world. If there are consumers to buy goods, which there will be, then these companies can find a way to monetize content (which many already have). I suggest realizing the trend before down the road you say I wish I had.

On This Applelicious Day, Reminding You Investing Is Not Gambling

On this day full of apples - apple slices, apple cobblers, caramel covered apples, and oh of course Apple earnings. I wanted to remind investors the difference between investing and gambling. You may think that you know the difference, but many of the brightest have been triickd into thinking they are investing when they are gambling away. Investing in the simplest terms is looking at the variables of a company and inferring if the stock price will go higher or lower. After making this inference one will allocate a portion of capital to this endeavor, calculating the risk, so that as an investor you will always know how much you can lose. Gambling, hoping, praying, those words are all defined differently, but an investor that gambles knows that hoping and praying, are just that.

I am not standing her telling you how to invest, I am merely reminding everyone during the exciting earnings season, not to get caught up in the hype. It is easy to think you know a company, how the earnings will play out, and in turn how the stock will react. The fact of the matter is you and I don't know the results until they are posted. What we do know is that if the company does well and the market responds nicely, the stock will continue to rise. Look at Apple over the last quarter, if you missed out on the initial earnings day you could have made tons of money the months following and not taken on as much risk. You can also look at the other end of the spectrum, Netflix last night, where investors lost 15% or more in an afternoon. Or take a look at Netflix when there earnings were bad and continued to trade down for some time.

Just look at the above image, after earnings, where the arrow is located, Apple went off like a rocket. In the case of earnings waiting may be the best policy. As Apple showed us in January, good earnings are just the beginning of a run. So don't gamble with earnings, invest afterwards.

You Can't Win If You Don't Play

Emotions, the worst thing a trader can have. No matter what literature you have read or what pros you chat with, the opinion on emotions is the same, they are the downfall of a good trader. One of the worst disadvantages of emotions is it creates a fear of getting involved in the market. As traders and investors, not being invested can harm you. One should never trade as if those dollars in your account are burning holes in your pockets, but one should trade. No matter which way you look at it, the truth of the matter is that money has to be invested to make money.

There was a time in when putting money in the bank or real estate could make a rich fellow richer. Those days are gone and with that, we see a new group of retail investors. Men and women that see the advantages of trading, see the big rewards that can be made, but at the same time see the catastrophes (look at those who pulled there money out of the market  in the end of 2008). In more recent times just look at the downfall of Research In Motion and Netflix in the last year. We all fear of losing our precious capital, that is why we all have good money management practices (if you don't feel free to email me and I will give you some).

I am not here to preach on the matters of diversification and good money management ideas. There are 100s of books and websites contributed to those ideals. What I am here to remind you is that if you follow good money management practices you can conquer emotions. You must follow the mantra that you must play to win. I see more often then not that the retail investor cannot make the right picks so they sit out of the market. The sit on the sidelines and watch other make money. Making the right picks is never easy, but you cant ever make the right picks if you don't make any picks. I look at it this way, a trader does not have to be right 100% of the time, they just have to be right more then they are wrong.

Sunday Funday: Boston Beer Co.

What better way to start my installment of Sunday Funday (click here to figure out what Sunday Funday) is then to talk about one of the most popular beers on the market. Samuel Adams, seen by many as a one of a kind beer, is in fact a one of a kind company. From the investing standpoint we often ask ourselves, what makes a good company? The answer is as simple as having a good product and Boston Beer Co. has just that. They don't just make a good product, but their brand loyalty is quite extraordinary. It may be that they take pride in their product or it may be that they just make a damn good beer, either way SAM is doing something right.

In the down economics time as of late, it seems that many turn to alcohol as a cheap and fun form of entertainment. While Americans are forced to cut back in many aspects of their lives, they also splurge in a specific few. When it comes to beer buying on Saturday night even the cheapest of us will drop an extra $5 to get a better beer, and it looks to be that the beer of choice is Samuel Adams. The higher P/E ratio compared to competitors says it all, investors are willing to pay more for a better company.  I can also sleep safe at night knowing that some one passionate like Jim Koch is standing behind his product. With great earnings, great brand loyalty, and a damn good beer I would have a little Sunday Funday with SAM.

What Is Sunday Funday?

Capital Overlook strives to assist investors by taking a different perspective to the daily stream of news coming out of the financial sphere. Starting this Sunday and continuing forward here at Capital Overlook we will be donating this one day out of the week to looking at a specific stock. This stock will change on a weekly basis. The goal is to cover a company a lot of investors are not familiar with and something oriented with weekend fun. Hopefully this weekend read will give you an insightful look at a company you aren't familiar with and will help you profit from this new-found information. Sunday Funday takes the fun theme of the weekend and combines it with stock picking, to give you a competitive edge.

A Change In The Tech Guard

Just like at the beginning of the year, when everyone was convinced the market can't go down, that seems to be the recent interpretation of technology stocks. Don't get me wrong, I am a big bull on the tech space. Social media has legs to run and it is going to make me a lot of money in the process. So to sit here and say that the tech hype is dead and gone is ignorant. What I will stand behind my podium and preach is that there may be a changing of the guard. As of late people seem to be a little more leery of Apple, Yelp, Zynga, Google and so on. While at the same time things like Renn, Sify (Redf intraday on Friday), and LinkedIn have been doing well and/ or holding up fine. What may be happening is a movement away from the tech leaders of early 2012 into the new tech leaders of the late 2012. Keep an eye on this as the next few weeks play out. I may be trying to call thisone to early and things like Apple, Yelp, etc. may just be cooling off before they are hot once again. I am going to keep an eye on Apple earnings to help me gauge this movement, so we will revisit it again after the 24th.

Shout out to Fifty2weekhi in his article Don't Overstay The Flagging Welcome for bringing this up in his technical analysis.

Time To Sing My Own Praises On Zynga and VXX

Over the past few months I have attempted to contribute adequately to the investment community via my blog here on Capital Overlook. Looking back at some of my calls, I can gladly give myself a pat on the back.

My goal daily is to be more right then wrong. As easy as that sounds, it is far from a nice stroll down the park. Two calls of mine I can gladly look back upon and smile. A majority of my calls are more of a long term view on the macro economy and only time will tell. Below are the links to my articles from earlier this year.

VXX: They Took Fear Out Back And Shot It 3/21
I suggested at this point to avoid the VXX until we see a hard pressed reversal that would give the VXX some real legs to run. We haven't seen that and if you avoided this fund you would have made some money elsewhere.

Zynga: Zynga Scares Me 3/15
In the above article I suggested that the shares that were coming to market would decrease the price of the stock. I was right and as I said "Why buy at $13 when you can by at $9." Don't get my wrong I think social media is hot, but Zynga wanted to go down and I am not touching it until it shows some good upward momentum.

Where Is The Market Going? And Is This Even The Right Question To Ask?

We all wonder, day in and day out, where is the market going? This is the million dollar question that can land you, me, and the rest of the family a much richer and luxurious lifestyle. The quick answer to this is the market looks to trade sideways for quite sometime, until the global economics concerns are resolved. But maybe questioning the market is not the appropriate question to ask. Maybe this is the question that is costing us the money we think we could gain by asking the question. Maybe the more appropriate question is: Which stocks will be higher by the end of 2012? The saying goes, miss the forest for the trees, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to investing, the trees make us rich and we could care less if the forest went up in flames.

So as the market dynamics have changed, so should your investing strategy. It is likely that you invest in the best of breed in many sectors. The reality of the situation is that the leaders are changing, and new ones will emerge (I am currently in the process of evaluating that). Broad markets moves are cashed out for the moment, with the renewed global economic concerns, and if these worries come continue to rise, the market will trade down. So take some time over the weekend and realize what the trends of the future are. Is social media the leader of 2012, or will it fall off, are the automakers set to make record profits, or will the IPO babies of the year give us a once and a lifetime return? Rather then questioning where the market is headed, one should question which are the stocks that will trend higher over the rest of the year?

Please feel free to comment some of the companies that you think will take 2012 by storm. The best investing occurs when ideas are shared.

Apple, You Have Grown So Much Without Your Father

With all the talk yesterday morning on CNBC (thankfully without Cramer) about Warren Buffett and his illness. It reminds me of a time when Steve Jobs was headlining the news and investor concerns about Apple ran rampant. We all know that Steve Jobs was an innovator, one of a kind, a revolutionary. The same can be said about Warren Buffett in his own right, for he has impacted the investing world tremendously. This lends me to wonder, after a great company like Apple or Berkshire Hathaway looses its icon, how should the share price react?

We have seen a tremendous run as of late in Apple. Is the huge Apple run warranted? I have been listening to the arguments for months about valuation and potential in the stock. I see the bull case, but I wonder about the bear case. When a company loses its visionary, should it be on a tear? Does the concern about the unknown, the losing of an icon, relate to lower value when the visionary is alive, to only rally after his or her loss? This is obvious through the massive move in the Apple equity. Though people that talk of Berkshire Hathaway claim that the company would never be the same without Buffett. This leaves me wondering, how important is an icon? To be honest I don't know the answer. I usually have some devious conclusion that gives me an edge on the market, but in this case I would have expected the exact opposite reaction of the Apple stock with the loss of its father. Only time will give us the answer we seek. In the coming year one should watch the equity to see if the initial enthusiasm was overstated, because CEO's can be replaced, visionaries cannot.

Politicians Vote For Themselves, Do Traders?

Just because you have a pulpit doesn't mean you are qualified, or for that matter knowledgeable. With the advent of Stocktwits and twiter it is now so easy to plug your stock a caveman can do it. Well that may have been a bit corny but the facts still remain, everyone who has an opinion, no matter who, can share it. Now even the uneducated and ignorant can pass as brilliant. The best of us know that real decisions are calculated and precise and come from a variety of sources. The best trades are made when listening to those who may know more then you rather then those who speak the loudest. Taken at surface value this new voice of the masses can have more cons then pros, but if you break down others opinions, you can get the most out of the social media to boost your trading accounts.

One can see how someones articles or comments align with their holdings very easily, just look at my past articles. When I was very bearish on the market I was a huge supporter of the VIX; in more recent times I am very bullish on social media, just look at my chatter about RENN. What I strive to do when I post articles and opinions, is back this up with some facts. If I am not taking a look at the graphs, I am looking at the basics of the business. What many in the sphere of social media do is neither, and as someone like yourself, obviously trying to be a better trade, you must separate the crap from the knowledge.

My point is simple: consciously or subconsciously everyone in the social media finance world seeks to praise their own positions. Before you let yourself or any of your buddies go running in like a chicken with your head cut off, evaluate. Take a look at what this person has to say currently, see where their opinions come from, look at there past performance. Evaluate what they have to say, never, never, take things at face value. There is always more to the story, and it is your job as a trader to look deeper into that story, before realizing if what is being said should be relished or taken as chatter. More times then not traders are telling you to jump in head first, saying the pool is 10 feet deep and in fact its only 3.

Social Media Isn't Hot, It's On Fire

If you have followed my tweets today, you have seen my obvious bullish sentiments of RENN. I hate to break it to those who read my post from yesterday about me preparing to fire my VXX bull gun, but I changed my mind. I pulled a complete reversal on sentiment. This is obvious by the massive amount of monies headed into social media. As I stated in an article a few weekends back, you Cant Fight Where The Money Is Going. Just take a look at the volume on RENN, its mind-blowing. Looking back to last summer, the last time enthusiasm was really behind this stock, it doubled in a week. Below is that graph.

RENN from June to August 2011

With the recent revisited enthusiasm, I am putting my money to work. I believe we are far from being done with this movement. Tech is hot and social media is on fire. I believe that the stock is not even overextended and I have not even heard any bearish sentiments on it. If you have them I am more than willing to hear them, but it looks to me like your bearish sentiments will be crushed. Supposedly the short percentage is high, I am in and waiting to see how that plays out for the bulls on social media. 

Shoutout to Ragin' Cajun at ibankcoin.com for making the call last night

Why I Love Nike

There are many reasons I love Nike. From both a consumer side and an investor side. Yes some competition exist, but at the end of the day the company never fails to innovate. Below is a different take on advertising by Nike. It has over 1 million hits in 2 days. Watch and feel inspired.

Revisiting Caterpillar And Possibly Some Market Normalcy

As I mentioned last month, Caterpillar would be a pillar in which the bulls could stand upon. It just so happens that in the more recent times this pillar of strength has been sinking into the sand. I recall looking at CAT when it was priced at around $100 in mid January. Guess where it is today? My thought process for avoiding the purchase was that globally the economies were weak and the stock price of CAT would reflect this. Now we are four months into the bull market of 2012 and this CAT sits perched right where it started the year.

The sell off hit many hard yesterday and over the past week. The truth of the matter is we all saw it coming, many of us saw it coming for quite some time. What will give us momentum higher one direction or another is how the masses take the news. If this is merely more European mess that will be shrugged off because those across the pond will do anything to keep the union together and strong, then I would make my money on the shorts quick. If it is a concern for the global economies around the world, and perhaps the effects of a European recession of the greater intertwined global picture, I would be worried if I were bullish. Either way CAT is hinting at a weaker global economy and over the rest of the day I will seek to find more barometers to back up my bearish tale of woe.

I sit waiting patiently for the perfect moment to fire my VXX bull gun.

A Good Day To Be Bearish, But The Month Is Far From Over

I have been bearish for quite sometime, so much so, it may have in fact caused me to miss the rally at the beginning of the year. Today I feel slighted for letting go of my VXX bull gun. I couldn't take the pain anymore and capitulated quite some time ago. Looking back this may have been a foul move as the VXX looks to possibly make some real moves in the coming future. Before I put my bearish words to practice and buy back in, I will wait and see. This may seem a cop out to many of you, but less then a week ago we were in the driver seat of a crazy bull market, which was running over valuations and possibly could have steamrolled through weak earnings. With big earnings on the horizon and valuation up due to the recent stock rally, one must wait and see if the earning meet these inflated expectations. To jump in and out of the market as momentum swings one way or another is a fools errand, let the market settle out, and hopefully turn bearish to support my thesis.

What If iTV Is Not The Next Big Thing?

There is no question that Apple has dominance in the smart phone market. This is prevalent through the fact that I helped my dear old mother purchase the advice yesterday. She had to have an iPhone to listen to her classic hits in her car and join in the words of friends mania that entice her friends into long hours of intense play. My concerns do not fall with the smart phone dominance of the great apple. That is more than obvious and was confirmed when the Sprint representative exclaimed "yeah we barely sell 10 a month," as I ask him how many Blackberrys they sell nowadays.

The story is the same again and again, no matter which analyst mouth it comes out of. The Apple iTV is set to change the world of the television industry. Apple did without doubt revolutionize the smart phone industry. Though to sit here and say that the Apple success can be replicated once again, sounds more like a gamble that smart stock picking. So I pose the question; What if iTV is not the next big thing?

First off, one of the key important selling points of the iPhone, is not just their capabilities, but its price. To go and make a purchase of the price magnitude of the iTV one will have a hard fought consumer dilemma. Yes Apple has succeed at selling iPads at a price point higher then the iPhone. Though through the lowering of the price of the old iPad and the old iPhone it is obvious that Apple realizes that their high priced products are just that, priced high. The new iTV will likely have some great features, but will those features suggest the astronomical price that goes along with it? The market for TV's is large and fierce, not only that but developed. For apple to break into this market will be a significant challenge particularly at the price points the rumors suggest.

Second point of concern, is the sentiment regarding the stock price. The argument for the growth in the iPhone market seems somewhat valid, yes there will be other global markets to grasp in the future. Yes there will be the new phone cycle selling more iPhones. Though as the shares of Apple come into a more realistic valuation, the new argument for the stock to go higher is that the iTV and the iPad will be as much of a growth for the company as phones. Yes these products will sell and may sell decently. They are good quality products and Apple has a following. Though one cannot sit here and tell me that the iTV will move 40 million units, or anywhere in that bracket. That is suggesting that Sony and Samsung will cut there market share in half, handing it over to Apple. As we have seen in the recent months, multiple tech companies are gunning for apples iPad and the same will be the case for the iTV. The major players in the TV space are just that, major players, and aren't going to walk away from there bread and butter like RIM did. Apple is entering a market where the fight will be fierce and gaining market share will be a true challenge.

Apple makes great products, I have some myself. Though before one can say that the stock price is going to infinity with conviction, we must consider all the factors. Some of those were brought up above, such as the pricing challenges and intense competition in Apples future. Many more challenges will surface in the future, as we know will tech companies, the future is coming quickly and continually staying a tech titan is nearly impossible.

"Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest" - Steve Jobs

Where Will You Be When The Correction Really Happens?

It is quite obvious that the market is down today. This may be a shocker to most, but the market can trade down and will. Not only that, but the ammunition for trading lower is by no means in no short supply. Everything from U.S. housing to a weak global economy are bullets in the gun to this potentially bearish market. What concerns me is not today, tomorrow, or the next week. What concerns me is the day when we have completed a so called correction. On that day when the market is finally down 5%, 7%, 10% or more, one must ask, will I be a buyer?

It is always good practice to buy things when they are cheaper. As traders and investors we buy stocks that we think will gain value in the future, this is why we buy on dips or in places we see bargains. That being said, would you buy after this correction, when and where it occurs? When evaluating this question, we must think about one thing, and one thing only; Why is the market trading down? If the market is trading down because its gotten to big for its britches, that is understandable. If the market is trading down because profit taking is occurring, that is also understandable. If the market is trading down due to economic concerns here and abroad, then one should be very concerned. For quite some time the U.S. has not been correlated with the economies of the rest of the world. When this correlation resurfaces, only fools will be the one buying the dips, or calling the bottom. If you are bargain hunting, be leery, what you can get today for $10 you may be able to get tomorrow for $5.