The 'liberty' stocks are a bet on John Malone's ability to aquire, digest, and restructure his media holdings.
"Liberty Media Corporation owns interests in a broad range of electronic retailing, media, communications and entertainment businesses. Those interests are attributed to three tracking stock groups: (1) the Liberty Interactive Group (Nasdaq: LINTA - News), which includes Liberty's interests in QVC.com, Provide Commerce, Backcountry.com, BUYSEASONS, Bodybuilding.com, IAC/InterActiveCorp, and Expedia, (2) the Liberty Entertainment Group (Nasdaq: LMDIA - News), which includes Liberty's interests in the DIRECTV Group, Inc., Starz Entertainment, FUN Technologies, Inc., GSN, LLC, WildBlue Communications, Inc., and Liberty Sports Holdings LLC, and (3) the Liberty Capital Group (Nasdaq: LCAPA - News), which includes all businesses, assets and liabilities not attributed to the Interactive Group or the Entertainment Group including its subsidiaries Starz Media, LLC, Atlanta National League Baseball Club, Inc., and TruePosition, Inc., and minority equity investments in Time Warner Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corporation."
In past I've held shares in several. Now I'm just holding Liberty Global, [t]LBTYA[/t] (<span style='font-size:11px'>LAST</span>: 17.79<span style='font-size:11px'> 1/12/2009 4:35:15 PM</span>) . They are the largest cable company outside the US. I am hoping that it is a stable business in a recession. (I'm just guessing that LMDIA's Directv faces more competitors - cable and telephone, so I'm not interested in that one.)
I view QVC as an addictive way for women (men?) to purchase discretionary items. With people cutting back expenditures, I would guess revenues at LINTA would fall. I don't know if that is or is not reflected in the stock price now. |
