Eddie: On a scale of one to ten, I'm a minus two with respect to world economics. Like most of us, I rely on a ton of reading, a good contact network, and common sense. Personally worry much more about deflation (especially in Asia), than inflation, and like you, have weak knees with respect to amount of U.S. paper held offshore (China now second largest holder....yuk). Oh well, the world will continue to rotate. (g)
Have been spending some serious time on INTC. Probably wrong, but see serious risk to market in this one. Don't know a single fund manager who isn't swimming in it. The market's bet is that tons of inexpensive PC's will be sold this Fall, and maybe they will (which I doubt), but with serious competition now well established at the lower price points, and BIG price cuts carving up margins, the company will need to sell much larger quantities to keep the bottom line up. I don't see it. They don't have four Japanese pipelines to fill this year, and they're not getting last year's fat margins. Huge capacity additions and mostly fixed costs will also create deep wounds if the volumes aren't exceptional. Andy's bright, but math is math. Maybe they'll just sell a lot more put options (g) Time will tell.
Best, Earlie |
