Slashdot Mirror
Computer Demand Boosts MS Profits
elzurawka wrote to mention a BBC article discussing Microsoft's boost in profits as a result of an upswing in PC demand. From the article: "The company announced record revenue of $39.79bn for the fiscal year ending on 30 June, an 8% increase over the $36.84 billion reported last year. The main drivers of sales for Microsoft's Windows, Office and Server software products - PC makers and Asian component manufacturers - have reported healthy demand for PCs."
their stock price is way down though: http://www.google.com/search?oi=stock&q=stocks:MSF T&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmsft%26hl%3Den%26hs%3DbnK%26l r%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-U S:official
You buy your PCs retail?
If you're smart enough to run Linux, you ought to be smart enough to build your own machine, or at least get your local computer shop to build one for you. Most Mom and Pop computer retailers sell systems they build themselves without an OS installed, and their prices are usually cheaper than the big box retailers. Support your local computer shop!
Uhh.. Apple Revenue rose 75% to $3.52 billion from $2.01 billion, while MS rose 8% to $39.79 billion. That 8% increase alone is more that Apple's total Revenue, its all relative.
One thing I'm sure we can agree on though: if they keep increasing at this rate it won't be long until they both have infinite income!
Starsucks
Support your local computer shop!
:-)
I was pretty happy with parts I got at a computer small computer shop in California. All the components were of high quality, and I could reach over the desk and strangle someone if it didn't work. Unfortunately, such shops don't seem to exist here in Chicago. There's big places like MicroCenter, but I don't really trust them. I received suggestions for NewEgg.com, but they didn't carry the parts I wanted. In the end, I ended up getting parts from MWave.com. They had everything I needed, good prices, and the service was fast. I can't speak to complaints (since I didn't have any), but they may be worth checking out.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
this is not "insightful" but actually quite silly - that a company makes billions tells me nothing about the direction of its stock price changes. The price should be high but it may be declining or increasing depending on changes in expectations of profits
This really just shows that MS is no longer considered a "growth" company. The software they sell is mature and other than their groups that are currently losing money, there's not enough room to grow to support a P/E ratio of 100 or whatever it was 6 or 7 years ago. And even the divisions that are in "growth" categories look like small peanuts compared to the sheer size of their OS and office revenue.
Once MS started paying a dividend, it was clear they themselves had come to grips with the fact that they were no longer a ocmpany that can expect near triple digit growth every year.
In the tech market, P/E is not an entirely appropriate measure. What you're really hoping for is future earnings, and tech requires a high start-up cost but returns recurring profits. (Which is why companies so jealously guard their IP, to bring up another Slashdot flamewar.)
The trick to getting rich on the Street is to see technologies that have a high P/E (or, more often, negative or infinite P/E because they have no earnings or losses) but will "win" eventually. A nose for good technology and a strong stomach for loss are required.
That said, it doesn't apply to Microsoft, whose earnings can be roughly tracked; you know that they're never to expand by a factor of 1,000 again. That's why their P/E is a comparatively reasonable 25, and their numbers go more like a blue-chip than real high-tech.
It also doesn't apply to stocks that have already been bid up by speculators who don't really know the value of what they're buying, which was pretty much all of them during the dot-com boom.
There's a hell of a lot more going on than this (like when you buy a share of MSFT you're also buying $3.48 in cash). I'll cease to bore you with any more details; usually this is as far as I go and beyond that I just play my instincts. Additional numbers can make more fine-grained analysis but they tend to get into the "damned lies and statistics" category.
So for myself I count those rough numbers, my instinct for a products that don't suck, and the rising tide that lifts all ships. I've done pretty well, but never confuse genius for a bull market.
One last thing: there is a difference between earnings and dividends. Dividends end up in your pocket; earnings are invested in the company. But it's your money either way, so you don't lose much by not getting dividends. When a dividend is issued, the share price usually goes down to compensate. If you want your money in cash, you just sell your stock and get your cash from the next guy. But it's not a problem that tech companies don't issue dividends; you can think of it as automatically reinvesting your dividends in R&D for new products.