Stock Trading

ARM (ARMH) is the biggest pure play technology licensor in the world with a market capitalization in excess of $23 billion. The company's IP is used in a vast majority of graphics and logic processors shipped in the world today. ARM architecture has a near monopoly in the mobile devices market with all the major players such as Qualcomm (QCOM), Nvidia (NVDA), Samsung (SSNLF.PK), Apple (AAPL) etc. using ARM IP to design and produce their mobile chips. The company's design places emphasis on low power consumption which has made it a favorite for use in mobile devices. x86 architecture is not optimized for energy consumption, as a result of which it has almost no presence in the mobile industry. ARM gets a licensing fee for each processor that is shipped using its IP and also a royalty payment from its customers. Mobile device shipments have boomed in the last 3-4

B&G Foods (BGS) recently announced that it is raising $700 million aggregate principal amount of 4.625% senior notes due 2021. The announcement further states: B&G Foods intends to use the net proceeds of the offering to purchase all $248.5 million aggregate principal amount of its existing 7.625% senior notes due 2018..., to repay $222.2 million aggregate principal amount of tranche B term loans and approximately $40.0 million of revolving loans under B&G Foods' credit agreement, and to pay related premiums, fees and expenses. B&G Foods intends to use any remaining net proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include the repayment of indebtedness and the acquisition of assets used or useful in, or the equity of an entity engaged in, B&G Foods' business or a related business. The "remaining net proceeds" total approximately $148.6 million. The company also shows that its total long term debt (including the

Last month I questioned why one of my two favorite hedge fund managers owned Chesapeake Energy (CHK). It wasn't so much that I questioned Chesapeake as an investment opportunity, but rather how Chesapeake fit with this particular manager's style of investing.The hedge fund manager I'm referring to of course is Monish Pabrai who runs a very concentrated portfolio using an approach that he refers to as "Dhando Investing". A core part of that philosophy is focusing exclusively on investments where there is little chance of losing money.With Chesapeake's high debt load relative to cash flow and exposure to commodity prices, losing money in some circumstances (protracted drop in natural gas prices) seems like a real (although not necessarily likely) possibility.While I think I have a point, I have to admit it takes a bit of nerve on my part to question someone much smarter than I

8x8, Inc. (EGHT) is a promising technology stock that is currently priced under $10. 8x8 is a California-based small-cap technology company and it has approximately 30,000 business clients as of 2012. The company develops and distributes telecommunications services for Internet protocol, telephony and video applications. As such, it offers Web-based conferencing, unified communication services, and cloud-based computing services. The 8x8 Virtual Office hosts private branch communication services for small and medium enterprises; the 8x8 Virtual Contact Center is a small call center solution that works with broadband Internet connection; and lastly, the Virtual Office Pro is a business communications solution that functions on an integrated Web-based portal through PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.On May 1, 2013, Virtual Office Desktop 8x8 was recognized by TMC, a global media company, as the winner of the 2013 Unified Communications TMC Labs Innovation Award. Recently, on April 16, 2013, the U.S. Patent

When I wrote last week that it was safe to sell, I should perhaps have checked the options tables first. Although the S&P index options that are favored by the institutional set were heavily tilted in favor of calls, the options on the SPY ETF were massively imbalanced in favor of puts. Over two million put contracts by my count went to zero last Friday after two little sudden pops in the SPY out of nowhere - one Wednesday morning, one Friday afternoon at about 2PM. Okay, so maybe the pops weren't out of nowhere (details on my website).Nevertheless, I sold the last of my unhedged SPYs Friday, and have no regrets. I do expect that yesterday's big reversal - from up 155 on the Dow to down 85 - is the beginning of the spring correction, though I don't believe it will be straight down. The market will

Start Time: 21:00 End Time: 22:03 Shanda Games Ltd. (GAME) Q1 2013 Earnings Conference Call May 22, 2013, 21:00 PM ET Executives Xiangdong Zhang - CEO and Chief Producer Richard Wei - CFO Tunghai Chien - President Ellen Chiu - IR Analysts Timothy Chan - Morgan Stanley Thomas Chong - Bank of China Mark Marostica - Piper Jaffray Evan Zhou - JPMorgan George Meng - Macquarie Securities William Hill - Barclays Andy Yeung - Oppenheimer & Co. Muzhi Li - Citigroup Presentation Operator Welcome to Shanda Games Limited First Quarter 2013 Financial Results Conference Call. The conference call will be recorded and available for replay in its entirety. A copy of Shanda Games 2013 first quarter results announcement can be found and downloaded from its Investor Relations website at http://ir.shandagames.com. At this time, all lines have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for questions

When I learned about BlackBerry's (BBRY) acquisition of QNX in 2011, I was admittedly curious about who these folks were and how the BlackBerry 10 OS was "built on a QNX OS." What was it that Research in Motion, and at the time, Mike Lazaridis, saw in this developer of UNIX-esque operating systems? In recent interviews, Thorsten Heins (BBRY CEO) lauded QNX's for providing the "embedded systems" behind rail trains, nuclear power plants, and medical devices. It turns out they also build the "infotainment" systems (including the UI, Navigation, Bluetooth connectivity, etc.) for over 20 million cars worldwide. Their customers include Acura, BMW, Audi, and believe it or not, Samsung.Here is what BBRY had to say in its most recent annual report, about QNX and what they have in store (Page 17, second paragraph): Leveraging and capitalizing on the embedded market. Over the past

Trading in Yongye's (YONG) common stock was halted while the company was on its way to going private. Yongye is currently being scrutinized by regulators while the trading remains halted. There are signs that Yongye is robust and may be able to survive the halt. There is also fear because so many previous and recent halts of Chinese reverse takeovers ended delisting. If trading in the stock resumes, Yongye will go private. If it gets delisted, the going private will break up. The belief of the writer is that for the interests of investors, NASDAQ will not delist the company and the going private will finally prevail. Below I will explain this in more detail and show you an example of NASDAQ facilitating a buyout. At the end, I will also explain why Yongye may survive the halt without regard to the buyout. The delay of filing was not the

The short answer is: Yes. Any weakness in the market is a buying opportunity today. The market sell-off on Wednesday was a result of only two factors: 1) Bernanke saying that bond purchases can be slowed 2) Fed minutes showing that participants are talking about scaling back the bond purchases. Point 1 above is an outcome of point 2, and not vice-versa. That is, Bernanke is still as dovish as he has always been. In fact, for most of his testimony he was focused on affirming that bond purchases have been working for the economy and he does not want to scale back anytime soon.And here is a finer point from both Bernanke's testimony and Fed statement from last month: The Fed is still keeping itself fully engaged in that if it sees any weakness then it will increase the bond purchases again.So this market sell-off is really

With Sirius XM's (SIRI) recently added debt, the rise in the stock price, and the shrinking of the share count via a share buyback program, it is perhaps a good time to explore the current valuation of Sirius XM. While there are many ways to value a company I like to use the EV/EBITDA method because Sirius XM is a media company and media companies tend to be valued on their EBITDA growth and free cash flow growth. (click to enlarge) The EV/EBITDA method is obtained by taking the Enterprise value and dividing it by EBITDA. Enterprise Value is the Market Cap + Debt - Cash. EBITDA is the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Historically, Sirius XM has traded at a multiple of between 17 (on the low side) and 24 (on the high side). As the components of the formula change, the multiple will change as well.