Speaking of CSCO.  Lightreading.com analysts have once again started to wonder if Ericsson could be acquired by CSCO.  I tend to think this could be a decent possibility.  I too wonder if the market would view this as a validation of the long term prospects in the wireless industry or if it would be viewed as a threat to Nokia.

I believe the market is big enough for all three players to rise significantly, i.r. NOK, ERIC and Huawei.  So I would hope the market would take the positive view if an ERIC acquisition were in the cards.  I too think that even though this is a highly cyclical market, CSCO would view it as a strong way to diversify its revenues away from the Switching and Routing, more so now that Arista Networks has started to steal market share away from CSCO. I too believe that this next cycle promises to be one of the longest to date, i.e. 5 to 7 years in length .

lt cap,

It seems like an awful lot of tech stocks, and networking  a real standout, in making up for losses in core businesses by diversifying into other areas where they think they can establish a footprint. I know you've always been skeptical about INTC, and the cost of establishing a footprint in other areas spooked me a bit, when they spent something like one billion on getting footprints, and a million dollars in profits from it for that period. But I believe INTC is really well managed, and some of those bets are starting to pay off. You probably know that INTC has partnered with NOK, using NOK's products, to build '5g generation projects' to speed up implementation of 5G. That seems 'win-win'  to me as INTC gets more of a presence in that area, and NOK gets its products used as infrastructure.

On CSCO, I'm pissed that I didn't grab some when it was in the 20's and up to $30. $34 as we speak and still a 3.41 dividend. Apparent that the analysts 'bought the future' rather than the present on how the company did that Q, which seems to just be 'analyst mode' for most stocks right now.  I'm too leery of taking any stake in ERIC, as their future doesn't seem so grand unless there is a buyout. I wondcr how the street would see CSCO if they did such a thing.

Jester - yeah, this market just seems insane to me. Okay, so Trump has encouraged strip mining for coal again.And the 'border tax' is being cheered by CEOs.  So maybe the stupid trade is investment in companies that specialize in environmental safety and cleanup. Yes, that's lead in the water that's making your coffee taste bitter. How far does the pro-business stance propel the market furture? I have no idea. I suppose part of today's rally jis due to the 'border tax' that Trump is proposing, while US CEO's egg him on. Two things concern me most: That America becomes isolationist in stance, from military alliances to looming trade wars, rather than alliances, with an interdependt world. The other is him being taken at his word by an important country, starting a scary interational incident. I thank the market would retreat really fast at that one, esp. as it would reveal how incompetent his advisors and billionaires appointees are. But I've been wrong on most everything for some time now.

Trump makes me think of two analogies. One is having a pitbull for a President, and the question is whether his 'handlers' can restrain him or not. The other is an explaination of what makes Trump 'tick': He's spent all of his adult life accumulating real estate. He recently acquired Pennsylvania Avenue. And he wants Park Place and Boardwalk. But only if he can build skyscaper towers on them, not dinky red hotels.

Jamok,

INTC continues to be an extremely well managed company, there is no question.  In a market down turn I could see it weathering it better than most companies.  So from a safety with income point of view it is a very good choice.

However, has it missed the oncoming AI wave?  Is it a player in it like NVDA or dare I say AMD? How about IoT? Connected Vehicle market, which will also pull in the oncoming smart road revolution? I too fear that ARM is still a potential competitor in the server market down the road, i.e. Data Center.

lt cap,

I can't speak to whether INTC has plans, projects in development, or products ready to sell on most of the areas you name. But I think management did finally 'get it' in terms of what trends were going to be, what areas that may exist now or in the future could be exploited, and so on. And although I know that it might be a sign of prescience or massive stupidity, the huge outlays of capital to develop niche products where they had no presence, to get a footprint in thoses spaces were spent with little to show for it initially, I think were the results of forward planning by INTC. And, of course, developing joint projects in some areas (like their partnering with NOK to bring 5G more quickly than others), is a great way for one or both companies to be a force in future technology. (Just as NOK, GE, and Qualcomm announced a partnership today to address IOT for industrial areas.)  And Intel and Micron partnered to develop what I understand will be *the* next iteration of solid state memory devices, some insane number like 40 times the speeds of today's SS, and they'll have the exclusivity of it, and so licensing fees can be a good stream of income for the forseeable future, I think.

My guess is that there is also the factor of the ways in which INTC can 'throw its weight around' in the service of just such transitions, to its benefit. I think one has to ask the question of - has INTC stock done so well in holding and increasing stock prices, while keeping a nice dividend? Is it simply market inflation (which it could be), or is there value in the company that would support these prices?  So, well, yes, I guess I am an INTC 'fan-boy', and I may be naive or wrong about all that. When I owned a ton of AMD right before the dot-com bubble bursting, I stopped thinking I knew enough about tech (AMD was the first to 1000mhz, with Intel having no way to catch up for at least 9 months) to invest wisely and witha fair degree of competence. Silly me, lol.

 

 

 

What do you all thinkg about the new AMD chip?

forbes.com/si... 

 

AMD Launches Ryzen PC Chips With A Price And Performance That Will Anger Intel

Aaron Tilley ,  

FORBES STAFF 

AMD is coming out swinging against longtime competitor Intel with the launch of Ryzen, its latest PC processors based on the company's Zen chip architecture.

On Wednesday, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chipmaker announced details for three central processing units (or CPUs) under the Ryzen 7 brand that beat Intel's top PC chips in both price and performance.

The Ryzen chips all feature 8 cores and 16 threads. They come in three tiers:

• Ryzen 7 1800X running at 3.6 GHz or up to 4.0 GHz for $499
• Ryzen 7 1700X running at 3.4 GHz or up to 3.8 GHz for $399
• Ryzen 7 1700 running at 3.0 GHz or up to 3.7 GHz for $329

Using the popular CPU benchmark tool Cinebench, AMD pitted the three processors against comparable Intel PC chips, and the initial results look promising:

• Benchmarks show the Ryzen 7 1800X performs 9% better than an Intel Core i7 6900K. Perhaps even more crucially, however, that top-of-the-line AMD chip costs half as much as Intel's: $499 for AMD versus $1050 for Intel.
• The 1700X performs 39% better than Intel Core i7 6800K, based on Cinebench's figures. The 1700X will cost $399, versus $425 for Intel's i7 6800K.
• Finally, the Ryzen 7 1700 achieves a 46% performance boost over Intel Core i7 7700K, and costs $329 against Intel's $350.

Jon, lt cap,

Those numbers and prices for the new AMD chips certainly look like winners. And AMD's stock has been on a tear for months, rising to $14 (after I sold mine for $3, at a loss.) The thing is, historically, that every time AMD's pc chips grab a significant part of the PC market (15% tops), Intel has done two things: 1. Engaged in a bloody price war that hurt both their profits, but AMD just can't stand that economically, the way INTC can. (Although at most of those times, Jerry Sanders was at the helm, and he had this obsession with beating INTC, at any cost, kind of like Ahab and Moby Dick, which was not good for AMD, certainly.) 2. INTC was not above unfair, strongarm tactics, such as telling box makers (Hewlett Packard, IBM, Gateway, etc) that if they put AMD chips in their boxes, they'd be last in line to receive new inventory from INTC. It worked, as AMD chips indeed disappeared from model lines. Again, this was around the time AMD had 1ghz chips, priced lower than Intel's offering, and faster than anything INTC had. I never did understand why AMD didn't  sue Intel for unfair trade practices - well, they did, but it was 5 years later, and in a European court.) 

However, these are different times, when PCs are not the kings they were, and leveraging customers when it was a 2-player field is a far different scenario. (e.g., some said INTC could have, but didn't kill off AMD, as AMD's presence let INTC protect itself from being a monopoly.) Well, INTC is no longer king of everything, only some things. It'll be interested if AMD can score a touchdown. In the past, AMD has gotten the ball to the 1 yard line, only to fumble and lose the game. This might get interesting.

 

 

Looks like a very compelling chip if you manufacture PCs and Laptops.  Wonder if AMD has managed to woo some INTC only manufacturers already. It should force INTC to repond in kind.  Consumers would benefit.