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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rdkflorida2 who wrote (250)	10/2/2013 1:39:40 PM
From: Kirk ©	Respond to of 26434

Even the top universities don't teach the difference between cause and effect well. Back in the days when HP was the top place to work for the top graduates from top engineering schools, much like Google is today, I was on the recruiting team at UC Berkeley. We had interview questions we each worked out that we could tell the critical thinkers from the rote learners quickly. Even with a good screen to get the cream of the crop from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Rice and a few other good engineering schools, we had to send the majority of our college hires to an in house statistics course to teach them some of the things they didn't learn in college. You see it today with global warming is manmade and college degrees lead to good jobs religions. If I ask someone promoting global warming is manmade how global warming on Earth correlates to shrinking polar ice caps on Mars and their eyes glass over in ignorance, then I know they really don't understand the issue well enough to listen to.

To: rdkflorida2 who wrote (250)	11/6/2013 2:59:31 AM
From: Kirk ©	Respond to of 26434

Here are some articles I recently wrote that are all worth a look: Nov. 4: SPY Sets Another Record High While ECRI's WLI Is Back Near Its 3-Year High It makes you wonder how far the market can go before another bear market. We clearly have pockets of over valuation in cult stocks like "Tesla" or "Facebook" but there are many other stocks like Intel and Finisar that could be as good as bargain today as Intel, IBM, HPQ and IBM were for me in 1996, just after they had great returns in 1995. Nov. 4: Savings Account Rate Survey Still none paying over 1% but perhaps we've seen a bottom with four months in a row with 0.90% the top rate. Also see Historical Surveys Nov. 1: Current Series-I Bond Interest Rates 1.38% with a 0.20% base rate is great but you can only get $10,000 a year. Oct. 30: Social Security COLA for 2014 My property tax goes up faster than the COLA!

To: rdkflorida2 who wrote (250)	12/2/2013 9:52:58 AM
From: Kirk ©	Respond to of 26434

PMI jumps to highest reading since January Key points: PMI rebounds to ten-month high, signalling solid improvement in business conditions Output and new order growth accelerates sharply Rate of job creation slows PDF: www.markiteconomics.com/Survey/PressRelease.mvc/f2489cf394d94b409e04a2ffa7a8e36b

To: rdkflorida2 who wrote (250)	12/13/2013 10:18:05 AM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26434

Today for smart, young adults just out of school Google is a great place to work much like HP ( HPQ) was 35 years ago when I was hired. Back then, I went to HP to design semiconductors for the Optoelectronic group (OED). HP used its own chips in many of its own products. The group I went to invented the LED for their first calculators and the HP01 watch. (I get a kick out of how Apple, Google and Samsung are still talking about getting regular folks to dress like geeks with wearable computing technology...) BTW, OED grew and spun off OCD (Optical Communication Division) where I designed fiber optic transceivers and later infrared (IrDA) transceivers when Bluetooth and WiFi were still too expensive so the industry used light to communicate wirelessly between devices. My Patent Later chips went into HP computers and later PCs. Eventually, it was not cost effective so we sold the unit (mostly R&D) to Intel. One of my friends and neighbors still works at Intel designing advanced processes. I speculated that this was "cyclical" and eventually some companies would want more control of the chips and not rely on Intel or TSMC and bring both design and manufacturing back in house. From Wall Street Breakfast at Seeking Alpha: Intel threatened as Google mulls creating own server chips. Google ( GOOG ) is reportedly thinking about designing its own server processors using technology from ARM Holdings ( ARMH). The idea is that with its own chips, Google could better manage the interaction between hardware and software. The move could hurt Intel ( INTC), which earns over 4% of its revenue from the search giant, and which has a 95% share of the market for server chips that use PC processors. It is interesting that Google is now so big that they are contemplating doing their own chips. Will they also build their own fabs or have UMC, TSMC, Samsung or even Intel build the chips for them?