Anyone for long term?

What is long term investing for a trader who is currently under water? Lesson learnt: have to protect your present to have a future.

QR codes and barcodes

Was mildly suprised today to learn QR codes was born in the automotive industry by none other than Denso, subsidiary of Toyota. This newly acquired knowledge led me to think which industry was responsible for inventing barcodes. Was suprised again to learn that barcodes was used first in transportation, to label rail road cars.Both technologies innovated in transportation industry but commercially successful in another industry applications, retail.

Way to play growth in tablets..

I have been thinking of a way to play the Tablet category without betting on the success of either ipad, amazon kindle or even samsung galaxy. A play which is device/platform agnostic has to be something which is common to either three and will do well no matter which one succeeds the most in the marketplace. That common play has to be a componentwhich is common to all three, could think of three names: one a semiconductor processing company to remain nameless on my blog.:), second ARM Holdings, third Corning (GLW). GLW's gorilla glass goes in either device. The stock appears to have bottomed recently, with a buy back program in place. Insiders have been buying at avg price around $14. Just one issue is that Gorilla glass isnt the majority contributor to GLW's business. I am long the stock at avg price of $13.20.

Quote of the day

"Most of the world's ills are caused by "liquor and leverage." - Charlie Munger

business school lingo..

Dark pools of money, shadow chasing and high frequency algorithmic trading..all terms learnt in business school coming straight at my portfolio..interestingly no one taught strategies to avoid or lessen the impact of these on portfoilio..

Ouch..

..this is going to hurt ..S&P a credit rating agency had a first hand role in creating and triggering the financial crisis in the first place by not doing their job which ultimately is leading to downgrade of US debt..a criminal also being a judge..kind of ironical and nonsensical..

Several Catalysts for MSFT

MSFT has been getting some positive inflow lately. A lot of catalysts for the tech giant in the immediate to near term future
1. Introduction of Office 365
2. Integration of Skype with FB
3. MSFT gets paid for growth in Android phones. 3 OEMS including HTC already on board, trying to secure Samsung
4. Bing ties up with Baidu in China
5. Partnership with Nokia and launch of Windows phone with partner soon
6. Kinect and Xbox platform doing quite well.
7. Mgmt active in dividend and share buyback. Dividend announced with record date in August

Got in very recently when it was trading in $23.75 level. Expect a 20%+ return.