Ike, I think you will find the answer in this week's Barron's. They have a crow eating to follow up to their story about how Intel sucked eggs. Despite the fact that everything they said about Intel's business, and both the company and the cheerleaders on tv and at brokerage firms laughed at, turned out to be true, the stock has been up bigtime since then. I think they have joined the "fundamentals don't matter for chips" gang. <g> Getting bloodied can do that to you. Having 100s of letters every week telling you how "I bought Intel and made money and you are stupid not to buy it just because the business is over and they have been faking the accounting for years to no avail" wears on an editor's soul, too.
Another fact is that Barron's is not strong in Asia and that is where the rumblings in the chip industry really start.
As for myself, I have certainly not done great with my chip puts of late and even got down to a very thin representation. Now, part of that is due to the fact that I have been able to print money with my bear credit spreads with options at such silly levels, and the levels of premiums for longer term options, where I prefer to play if given my druthers, weigh on buyers and work to the advantage of sellers or credit spreaders right now.
But it gets old to see and Intel or a MU fake eps ridiculously time and time again and have nobody but an ignored minority pay attention. I am still fighting that theater of the war, but it is kind of like the battle for Kentucky during the Revolutionary War: my big guns are aiming elsewhere and finding soft, easier targets. |
