<p>Ok…my cpa fixed the 2011 tax issues. Now I am happy. It doesn’t take much to make me happy. :)</p>
<p>I might actually file on time.</p>
<p>I sold some puts in ANR today. I think they will be ok. I am short the Oct 6 puts. The Sep puts are worthless.</p>
<p>I would rather have been long Aapl and Goog. Better dos.</p>
<p>Four figures in Aapl is huge. Big winner.</p>
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<p>There have been other, free mapping Apps out there already. If you don’t like Apple’s current solution, you can just use MapQuest, Garmin or Waze.</p>
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<p>Hedge funds loaded up on AAPL, GOOG and MSFT earlier this year. Big play on mobile operating systems. The disadvantage on MSFT is that mobile is a relatively small part of their business right now. They could come out with some very good products too - we’ll see later this year. They will have an uphill battle on branding and apps.</p>
<p>Yeah…</p>
<p>I am not as excited about MSFT as I was earlier in the year. The stock is a little higher.</p>
<p>I don’t really know why. :)</p>
<p>I think the stock will be ok before Windows 8 is released if the stock market holds up.</p>
<p>Hedge funds, as a group, are having a terrible year. The hedge funds should have been long more AAPL. 
I agree that there are some hedge
funds that loaded up on Aapl.</p>
<p>“Interesting article on how census data is showing that the economy is improving:”</p>
<p>I think the economy is improving because housing is improving. If housing improves the balance sheets of the US improves.</p>
<p>If a person is predisposed to buy a house, and the numbers look good, it is a good time to buy one. It does depend on the situation. My daughter is paying half of what the market rent should be on her place, so buying isn’t as good an option. Plus homes are expensive in SF. So, I am talking generally.</p>
<p>I don’t like wealth to be so concentrated in the economy. It is not good economics. It’s not. So, it does bug me that institutions are able to buy homes and individuals have difficulty. Lizard posted a link that Blackstone wants to buy quite a bit of homes in Tampa.
I would rather see individuals buy the homes. But…institutions buy the homes, prices go up. Makes the existing loans look better.</p>
<p>We are going to have problems down the road becaue these existing rates are ridiculous, but for now…things look better.</p>
<p>I think where I am, I made the bottom when I sold last year, and I bought the bottom lSt year with my new place. I traded down, so financially, that might not be so good. We will
see.</p>
<p>I see very little inventory around here. If somebody wants to buy a place out here, good
luck.</p>
<p>I’ve had somewhat of a change of heart on Intel this month. Intel, of course, warned and there’s been a lot of talk of a slowdown in PC sales. Intel has had an aggressive launch of Ultrabooks and there are some nice products out for sale and some more exciting products in the pipeline that are waiting for Microsoft to ship Windows 8.</p>
<p>The question is will it matter?</p>
<p>Our PCs in active use range from 2 years old to 6 years old. I have zero motivation to replace them as they all perform well. Software hasn’t been eating up resources for several years which makes systems with older processors fine for normal use. I don’t think that people are upgrading that often.</p>
<p>So instead, consumers are buying tablets and phones for different use models. Reading devices, shopping devices, reading email or doing video chat - it’s easier with a tablet because you can take it with you. There will be companies coming out with x86 tablets or convertible laptops but those will be relatively expensive compared to what’s out there now. So for me, things are fuzzy. These tablets could take consumers away from the PC market for a while.</p>
<p>BCEagle91, </p>
<p>Ok. Thanks for your thoughts. I have no problem with somebody changing his mind. </p>
<p>I like your post.</p>
<p>It’s quite hard when you buy into a story (and I’ve been riding that story for several years) and then things change so that you start to doubt that story and then reality starts to confirm that doubt.</p>
<p>To me, that’s a paradigm shift and those are hard to adjust to. In the past, it was a lot harder for me to adjust to those. This time, it took me about a month. In the past, it could take a lot longer.</p>
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<p>I’m still unclear if I have figured out what you view as the paradigm shift?</p>
<p>I believed that Intel could eventually overcome their deficiencies in low-power environments with their superior process over time. Apple has shown that they can make an excellent chip on older processes by superior design and by making the chip specific to their needs.</p>
<p>The other change is that we don’t need to replace our PCs as often. Intel was selling a lot of chips to emerging markets but the global slowdown is even hitting there.</p>
<p>The demand for $200 CPUs is getting squeezed by $200 devices. If x86 loses the battle on legacy software, then Intel and Microsoft are in for margin contraction on consumer products.</p>
<p>Intel now considers Qualcomm as their main competitor but Apple is there now too. There are benchmarks released over the weekend on Apple’s new A6 chip and they beat the entire pack for performance overall. They are also very energy-efficient.</p>
<p>Why is GOOG still going up so much today?</p>
<ul>
<li>Euro fine only $22 million</li>
<li>Google Maps > Apple Maps</li>
<li>Magnet at all-time-high of $750</li>
<li>Apple only sold 5 million iPhones over the weekend; estimates were 6-10 million though I think that they were constrained by inventory.</li>
</ul>
<p>"Apple only sold 5 million iPhones over the weekend; estimates were 6-10 million though I think that they were constrained by inventory. "</p>
<p>yeah - that’s what all the funds who hold it are claiming - what a coincidence!</p>
<p>I thought it was insane to practice austerity in countries with debt implosions amd contracting economies.</p>
<p>Spain was pretty ugly today.</p>
<p>I am not short very many puts and I cancelled my put offers today. </p>
<p>One of these days, I am going to take some time off. </p>
<p>Darn it. I did sell some oct 6 ANR puts last week. Forgot about that. Just looked up at the screen while I was typing this and saw ANR down another 31 cents. </p>
<p>My boss wasn’t here for a week. It was just me and youtube. Ok…and a few screens.
Fun is over. :)</p>
<p>Not too much fun in Spain.
[Photos:</a> Anti-austerity protestors clash with police in Spain – - Mercury News Media Center](<a href=“Photo galleries and videos from The Mercury News”>Photo galleries and videos from The Mercury News)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s more insane to default on your debt and continuing spending the way Spain has done can cause the end of a country. That’s more serious than an economic slow down. Spain needs to stop borrowing so much and that means slowing government spending.</p>
<p>I am not even going to argue this anymore. It is just …</p>
<p>… a waste of time.</p>
<p>:)…</p>
<p>Haha, my TVIX up 16% today, finally.</p>