>>If YHOO just double their earning year over year, in 4 years, YHOO's P/E will be 18 assume its share price stays here.
Did you say just double their earnings for four consecutive years? These folks have 543 million shares out. Say they earn .50 a share this yr as you predict. That's $272 million. 4 consecutive doubles would be 272x16= $4,352 million or $4.35 billion. That's not chump change, Danny. It's almost as much as MSFT made during the last 6 months, with their evil monopoly and all. <g>
Now, Danny, I love this company, Yahoo, as I told you. I'm there every day in Yahoo finance, Yahoo calendar, Yahoo addresses, Yahoo e-mail, Yahoo Palm synch. And I'm glad that my clicks indirectly benefit them. But do I ever give their advertisers more than mindshare? Rarely, very rarely.
Advertisers themselves are frequently disgusted at the low click through rates they are getting. But mindshare is important, just as it is for advertisers on network TV superbowl. And Yahoo's ads can be nicely targeted to your personalized demographic. That's very important. And net time is increasing at the expense of TV viewing time, which suggests that Amazon will grow faster than NBC or CBS. And the best thing about it is that this growth is sustainable, its competitive advantage is sustainable, because it is a smart, smart company. Tim Koogle and Jerry Yang really know what they are doing.
But as much as I believe in Yahoo! the company, I just don't love the stock. The reason I cannot love the stock is that it gets enough love as it is from people like yourself dreaming about 100% annual eps growth. I find it easier to love downtrodden stocks that nobody else cares about. Stocks whose threads have dried up without a post in 3 or 4 months. Those are the stocks that get me salivating. Companies whose analysts have shunned them and whose shareholders have deserted for greener pastures. Those are the stocks for me because they need my love.
Don't look to the internet for safe stocks. For safety I'll go to a well managed "old economy" company that is smart enough to protect their turf in the digital age and has a PE of 12. There are plenty of these around. They are not about to double their earnings, ever, but nobody would ever in their wildest dreams would ever expect them to. And this game is all about expectations.
BTW, Danny, that consecutive doubling thing you alluded to is pretty powerful stuff. Say I gave you a very large piece of paper (the thickness of a page in the telephone book) and asked you to fold it in half. And fold it in half again. And again for a total of 50 folds. How thick do you think that stack of paper would be after you have folded it in half 50 times? Give me your best guess, Danny. Do you think it would come up to your knee? Your waist? Do you think it might be as tall as you are? As tall as your house?
Take a wild guess...???....
I'll give you the answer in my next post. Anyone else reading this, please give your guess also. (This is really fun. Take my word for it.) <g>
Sam |
