:-))

Trust, but Verify before you Buy

Another wonderful article from Clark Howard that applies to everything:

See what marketers know about you

By Clark Howard

ClarkHoward.com

Marketing organizations that have been super secretive are now facing scrutiny in the aftermath of continuing revelations about government spying.

One called Acxiom that I've talked about in the past reportedly has massive documentation on who you are, what activities you like, what cars you own, what your mortgage is, what kind of ailments you have, etc.
This data can be continually crunched and packaged for sale thanks to the miracle of parallel computing technology. But now for the first time, you can get a peek at what's in your Acxiom file.

Just go to AboutTheData.com and you can answer a series of questions to fully verify that you are who you say you are. Then you can see the info they have on you that they believe is fact -- but may actually be fiction.

Out of a sample group of 4 people on my show staff, two were able to see their records and two weren't. The two of us who couldn't probably couldn't because we've frozen our credit.

My executive producer Christa was able to see her file. It contained incorrect info including the wrong age of her kids, the wrong number of children, and the wrong income. My associate producer Joel's file was even more radically wrong. It listed him as a blue collar craftsman who completed high school, but had no college education. Joel is, in fact, a graduate of Kennesaw State University and not a craftsman -- unless you count drinking craft beer as a qualifier!

So these data brokers are out marketing what they claim is a precisely fine-tuned dossier they have on you. And in many cases it's kerflooey! "All the inaccurate data, all the time." How's that for an advertising slogan, Acxiom?!

Fortunately, you have the option to go to AboutTheData.com and opt out so they can stop compiling data on you!

One caveat, though: There's been a lot of widespread suspicion that the opt out form may be a backdoor kind of way for Acxiom to collect further data on you. The company denies it, but that hasn't quelled the skeptics. Use your own best discretion before taking the leap.

===========================================================

Quote worth repeating again:

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know that just ain't so."  Mark Twain

Professional, "highly trained" (whatever that means) Stock analysts are a great example, especially when they appear on CNBC or Bloomberg TV :-))

Go Netflix Go!

Much more interesting investor call then having to listen to a bunch of analysts asking questions as though they are trying to sound smarter than each other :-)

Netflix 2nd quarter conference call

Here comes Yahoo!

Yahoo Weather App:   Forecast for Yahoo:  Bright and Sunny

 Yahoo 2013 Q2 earnings video

Buyer Beware

(the author of the following article, Clark Howard is top notch)

By Clark Howard

Should you pay more when you're shopping online simply because of the browser you're using? Some popular online retailers think so!
The New York Times  reports shoppers are getting widely different prices based on whether they use Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. Here are just two examples:

• For the same Samsung TV on NewEgg.com, a Chrome user was offered a price of $997. Meanwhile, the price was $1,399 when using Firefox or Internet Explorer.
• Another Samsung television model at Walmart.com was offered for $199 on Firefox and $168 on Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Meanwhile, Mac users could be paying a higher rate for hotel rooms on Orbitz.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Orbitz has been experimenting with a 30% premium on Mac users when they search for select hotel rooms versus PC users. That effectively works out to be around $20 to $30 more than a PC user.

When asked for explanation, Orbitz basically stated that Mac users make more money and are interested in fancier hotels. (There were no happy campers in the Apple world based on those comments!)

The best way for you to stay one step ahead of online retailers who are manipulating price is to use technology to fight back.

If you want an easy way to see if a quoted price is a deal or not, you can compare prices on websites like Decide.com or ShopoBot.com, or use a browser bookmarklet such as Hukkster.

Another alternative would be to install a browser plug-in like Invisible Hand that automatically pops up an alert while you're shopping if a better price is available on another website.

Finally, Amazon customers can typically get a better deal if they put something in their cart and then abandon it before the final purchase. That usually signals to Amazon that you're willling to walk away and triggers a lower price the next time you put it in your cart to checkout. Give it a try!

So many know it all's

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know that just ain't so."  Mark Twain

A great quote from recently released A's pitcher Travis Blackley

Blackley lamented his fate after a nightmarish spring in which he posted a 14.21 ERA and allowed 27 hits in 12  2/3 innings. Opponents hit .450 against him.

"I kind of saw it coming, just from previous experiences," said Blackley, 6-4 with a 3.86 ERA in 24 games last season including 15 starts. "You've got to be making a lot of money to get away with the spring I had and still make the team."

Incredible....another article from a brainless author concerning an analyst and his Apple rating.  Wait....this is from 2010.  Read carefully!!!

An ‘I told you so’ moment for early Apple bear

 

Has Apple analyst Edward Zabitsky finally been proven right?

By Quentin Fottrell

In 2010, when Apple stock was trading at $199, Edward Zabitsky, CEO of ACI Research in Toronto, was the only analyst on Wall Street to rate the stock a “sell.” Over the next two years, shares went on a tear, peaking at just over $705 and making Apple the world’s largest company as measured by stock-market value. Today, shares have fallen by more than a third from that high. Through it all, Zabitsky has stuck to his bearish call; and while he has since been joined by a couple other pros who have sell ratings on the stock, including Adnaan Ahmad at Berenberg Bank and Per Lindberg at ABG Sundal Collier, Zabitsky retains the distinction, and in some circles the notoriety, of having gotten there first.


COMMENTS:  How could this be an "I told you so" moment?  "Proven right???"  I realize too well that aapl stock has performed very poorly since Sept. of 2012.  Nevertheless, the price of the stock as of the end of 03/28/2013, is 442.66.  Is 442.66 still a higher number than 199.00????  (OH, I should have known, "analysts" math is JUST different).

I thought the other analyst giving aapl a $710 price target was bad enough.  Here, this analyst is being lauded and applauded for rating aapl a sell at $199 back in 2010, even though the stock price today is 442.66.  Unbelievable... :-))

Read the green highlighted section carefully and stop vilifying Marissa Mayer for her 100% correct, proper and justifiable decision to ban telecommuting at Yahoo, for now at least.  This should serve as a warning to all remote workers.  Remote workers doesn't mean turning on the television with your tv remote control and watching soap operas or talk shows.  It doesn't mean going to the gym or finishing up your weekend project on that lousy, crooked looking wood work thing, you call a cabinet :-)))

How Marissa Mayer Figured Out Work-At-Home Yahoos Were Slacking Off (YHOO, GOOG)

Nicholas Carlson, provided by

Yahoo banned employees from working from home.

How did CEO Marissa Mayer decide to make such a controversial decision?
According to a source, the only way Mayer is comfortable making any decision: with the help of data.

Like a lot of companies, Yahoo has something called a Virtual Private Network or VPN. Remote workers can use it to securely log into Yahoo's network and do work.
(LifeHacker has a really good explanation of what a VPN is.)

After spending months frustrated at how empty Yahoo parking lots were, Mayer consulted Yahoo's VPN logs to see if remote employees were checking in enough.

Mayer discovered they were not — and her decision was made.

Kara Swisher first reported the news that Mayer was showing executives Yahoo's VPN logs to justify her work-from-home ban.  Mayer is famously obsessed with metrics and data.

 

Once, a Google designer quit the company in a huff because he was tired of how Mayer, in charge of how Google.com homepage looked, would choose design elements like color or font not based on taste, but raw data.

For every design variable, she looked at how users inteacted with Google with one design — and then the other.

If the data showed users were using Google.com faster one way instead of the other, that particular design choice won out.

It's hard to argue that Mayer's process didn't work for Google. It was not the first search engine on the market, but it's just about the only one anybody uses now.

Likewise, we're hearing from people close to Yahoo executives and employees that she made the right decision banning work from home.  "The employees at Yahoo are thrilled," says one source close to the company.  "There isn't massive uprising. The truth is, they've all been pissed off that people haven't been working."

HELLOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!  IS ANYONE THERE?  LOWERED TO $710???  IS $710 A TYPO???.....IT MUST BE A TYPO.....

Why Charlie Wolf lowered his Apple price target to $710
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt February 25, 2013: 12:43 PM ET
The difference between Wolf and Wall Street may be that he values Apple's cash holdings

FORTUNE -- There's something about Charlie Wolf's approach to Apple (AAPL) that I find charmingly old school -- perhaps because he's been in the business even longer (14 years at First Boston and 15 at Needham & Co.) than I have.
Most analysts seem to change their mind about Apple's prospects every time the wind shifts; Baird Equity's William Power, for example, has issued seven different Apple price targets in the past 12 months.
Wolf, by contrast, recalibrates his targets on a strict biannual schedule -- once in February and again in August. And he tells you with some precision how he arrives at those targets, breaking down Apple's line items -- Trefis style -- by their contribution to what he thinks the company ought to be worth.
In his most recent reevaluation -- issued Monday -- Wolf lowered his 12-month Apple price target to $710 from $750.

Data: Needham. Chart: PED. Click to enlarge.

That puts him an even $100 a share over the Street's median target (as reported by Thomson/First Call) -- primarily, as near as I can tell, because he puts a value on Apple's excess cash of $142.48 a share. According to Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn, the market values the company's $137 billion cash stockpile at less than zero.
The highlights of Wolf's latest report: (I quote)
On the positive side, the growth in excess cash over the past six months added $18.70 or 15.1% to Apple's valuation.
A newly minted line item — iTunes, software and services — contributed $83.48 or 11.7% to Apple's valuation chiefly because of the outsized gross margins Apple earns on its software.
On the down side, the value of the iPad fell $11.83 or 10.8% to $98.11 chiefly because of the introduction of the iPad mini, which has a much lower gross margin that the full-sized iPad.
The value of the iPhone fell $14.56 or 4.5% to $308.64 because of our assumption that the iPhone's worldwide share would stabilize at 20% rather than 22% as before.
The largest decline occurred in the Mac, whose value fell from $100.50 to $57.42, a 42.9% decline, in belated recognition that neither Mac nor Windows sales would continue to rise at past rates because of the onslaught of the iPad and other tablets.
"The lingering risk in the Apple story," he concludes, "is that the company may no longer innovate at the same pace and with the same disruption that characterized the era when Steve Jobs was at the helm. With respect to our valuation model, any deterioration in the iPhone's market share or gross margin would have an outsized impact on our price target."
Below: Wolf's current valuation spreadsheet. The NAs reflect line items that Apple rejigged in January.

OH NO!!!!!

Why do these rear view looking "analysts" have to ruin a good thing???? 

Update: Make That Two Analysts With $1,000 Targets On Google

It’s the latest Internet meme: raise your price target on Google to $1,000.
OK, so maybe we’re not talking Harlem Shakes videos here, but there does appear to be a trend forming.
As I noted previously, Bernstein Research analyst Carlos Kirjner has upped his target on the Internet search engine to $1,000. But it turns out he has company. CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets analyst James Lee likewise is showing the stock some love this morning, reiterating his Buy rating and upping his target to $1,000, from $900.
“We expect the [cost per click] improvement to accelerate on the back of Google’s recent announcement of a new ad management system,” Lee writes in a research note. “The purpose of this change is to simplify the ad-buying process in the multi-screen environment and increase the adoption of mobile search. The current system is segmented and complicated, barring less-sophisticated advertisers like local merchants from participating.”
Lee says the new system will have multiple beneficial effects:

• Improve mobile pricing through wider adoption.
• Drive mobile CPCs on par or higher with the desktop.
• Alleviate concerns that desktop volume might be slowing or declining.

Concludes Lee: “We believe that the likely accelerating mobile CPC trends could potentially reaccelerate Google’s revenue growth.”
GOOG today is up $6.82, or 0.9%, to $799.28.

And still No. 1 !!!!!!!

One BCS computer still ranks Notre Dame No. 1, because it’s the BCS

By Frank Schwab | Dr. Saturday – Thu, Jan 10, 2013 1:56 PM EST
You saw the BCS Championship Game, right? Well, at least the parts that mattered before turning to something more interesting, most notably Alabama rolling to a huge lead over Notre Dame and ESPN showing A.J. McCarron's girlfriend (I've seen better).

So you know that Alabama is the best team in the nation (no &^%$ way!). Nobody in their right mind would pick Notre Dame ahead of Alabama after witnessing the carnage that was 42-14 on Monday night (why not? or you mean nobody in their wrong mind)  Oh, but the BCS has a computer that still prefers the Irish (algorithms at its best). So let the BCS bashing continue (Keep the BCS).

The Colley Matrix, one of the six computer systems used by the BCS, has Notre Dame ranked No. 1 and the Crimson Tide No. 2. Notre Dame's final ranking was 0.973997 to Alabama's 0.961139. Notre Dame had an edge in strength of schedule (Can't argue with the facts). Alabama won more games against top 25 teams in the rankings (what a bunch of bs, Florida Atlantic, Western Kentucky..!). Margin of victory is not part of the calculations (why should it, Florida Atlantic, Western Kentucky?). No matter how the computer spit out that reading, it's worth mentioning again: An entity the BCS uses still prefers Notre Dame to Alabama. (it's worth repeating again)
An entity the BCS uses still prefers Notre Dame to Alabama.
They're not going to make Alabama give back the trophy over it or anything (time to sue!), and it's just one of the many rankings the BCS uses to determine who plays in the final game (not who is awarded the championship) but it just shows once again that there are flaws in the process (what flaws are we talking about?).