Hi MeDroogies, <<CBS and NBC … Fox and ABC>>
Thank you for the update and closer insight on the nuances and details of the advertising industry. Nothing beats the view of a front line soldier when it comes to intelligence on the adversary.
<<AOL … problems … are quite specific to them>>
Based on your comments I would agree that AOL’s ad problems are perhaps specific to AOL, though as you commented, the collapse of the broader advertising environment (post bubble) did not help matters. OTOH, AOL’s problems bear some semblance to the problems of Global Crossing, Worldcom, Enron etc, at least when viewed from 6,000 miles away.
I read your PM with interest. The president of Time Warner Asia is a 31-year old whose father is a big shot back in NYC AOL Time Warner. Smart, yes, experienced, no.
<<Not the huge 10-20% increases that the people had expected 2 years ago, but back to the normalized 5-6% of a standard "good" year>>
This is not good news when applied to the broader market outside of the advertising sector, because the valuations of the aggregate market have not adjusted to ‘standard good year’ yet given the market cap to GDP and debt to GDP numbers.
<<done quite well … options successfully on all my holdings … while the holdings themselves have stagnated>>
I consider myself to have done quite well so far this year, after inputting the latest exchange rates and metal prices, without playing accounting games with real estate and bond prices. I am up 1.75%, with the last 60 basis points scored in the last few days due to favorable currency movements and slowly recovering gold shares and underlying firming physical prices. As you can see, I am well on track to tally a 5% YOY return by Christmas:0/
Chugs, Jay |
