DCG

You mean the service that crashes for days on end? Yeah, people love that.

I don't disagree with this, and it Jobs' vision is irreplaceable. I don't think any one person can fill his shoes. That said, I think Apple can still be great without him. One key thing I got out of Isaacson's biography of Jobs was that one of Steve's main goals over the last decade or so (actually pretty much since he returned to Apple from Pixar, after seeing what happened when he left the company the first time, and even more so after he was diagnosed with cancer) was to set Apple up to be able to run without him. He talked about it pretty often in the biography. He was working for years to put the leadership, culture, and even more importantly the processes in place so he would be able to completely remove himself from the company. It was also pretty clear that the product pipeline had been largely laid out for the next several years before he passed away. I do have some concerns about how long Ive and other directors will stick around though (I'm really more worried about that than what will happen just without Jobs - at least for the next several years). Those guys have made a ton of money through options, and don't need to work another day in their life. The talent pool at Apple is currently probably deeper than any other company in the world though. I can't predict what will happen several years down the road, but I think the company will continue to do very well for at least the next several years. And here's the thing: they don't need to release brand new products every year or two. The iPhone will be around for a long time. It's not like people just buy an iPhone (or any phone) once, and then never again. People replace their phones every 2 years. As long as Apple is able to continue to improve the iPhone, iPad and other devices, there's no real reason why people won't continue to by them. I think they can do well for a while without needing to enter new markets. I know it's easy to watch RIMM and say Apple is destined to repeat RIMM's failures, but Apple is not RIMM. RIMM had pretty much 1 single product (with a few small variations of it). Apple has products in numerous categories, and an outstanding ecosystem that ties all their products together. HP might be a better comparison, but HP did very well for a long time after Hewlett and Packard left the company.

Paypal is generally cheaper than most other merchant accounts that charge monthly fees, and yes, Dwolla is trying to out-price paypal. I said this earlier in the thread as well, but the main thing analysts and other people don't understand about Paypal is how important and excellent their fraud prevention is. I'm unclear what level of fraud liability Dwolla takes on and what they have in place to prevent it. I ran a eCommerce site, as well as worked for a couple eCommerece sites, and loved using Paypal to accept credit cards and payments. Fraud is a huge problem for online stores, and Paypal's built in fraud provention (which is built on algorithms they've been building for years, and again, the company was founded as a fraud prevention/protection company and later realized they could apply what they built to payments). Paypal saves merchants large amounts of money every year that they would've lost to fraud...I'm guessing in many cases, more than they'd save by paying Dwolla a smaller fee per order. Another big draw of Paypal is as a merchant, is how they handle refunds/credits. When using other merchant accounts, you charge customers for their order, and the merchant account takes a cut of it. If you need to credit the customer, the merchant account still keeps their cut. With Paypal, they credit you back their fees any time you issue a credit. This might not sound like a big deal, but they add up. Again though, I'm unclear what the level of fraud is with ACH transactions - probably quite a bit less than credit cards. So yes, there might be a market for Dwolla, but I don't agree with the comment that their business model will pose a big threat to companies like Paypal. And most of my comments are more related to small businesses. Large companies can get pretty good pricing on merchant accounts. And of course Dwolla might be fine for individual-to-individual exchanges.

It's a tech company at heart, that just happens to do retail. Just like Google is a tech company that happens to do advertising. Amazon is absolutely a tech company, some of the best I would say, especially with Jeff's vision. Think about all the amazon web services that it offers -- they are ahead of everyone else. Yes, it has become much more of a tech company in recent years, but the majority of the company's earnings come from being a retailer and marketplace. Their website is of course built around technology, but so is every other online retailer.

That will change quite dramatically over the next decade without Jobs. Cheers! How are you so sure of that?

PayPal operates as a network, and describes it as such on their website. https://www.paypal.com/worldwide/ Credit card processing is only a part of their business. They offer exactly what this guy is trying to do with an immensely larger scale. They have build a huge brand built on trust and security. What Is it going to cost this company to achieve that? Also, Paypal offers unparalleled fraud protection/prevention for merchants (and was built as a fraud prevention company before becoming a payment network and processing company), and has hundreds of people staffed to handle fraud. Other companies act as portals for credit cards because it takes them out of the loop of being liable for fraud.

Um...so he's never heard of the enormously successful company called Paypal? He mentioned paypal in the interview 5 times... and his concept could likely do some immense damage to that company. I was referring to the quote of nobody building a payment network in 30 years (and admittedly, posted before reading the article). That said, I don't know why he keeps saying Paypal is just a portal for credit cards, which it clearly is not. PayPal added the functionality of processing credit cards, but it is a payment network. It sounds like he's just copying Paypal, but with a worse business model, and just trying to compete on price. How is his business model going to do 'intense damage' to Paypal?

Um...so he's never heard of the enormously successful company called Paypal?

Apple still destroys Google, RIMM and every other phone manufacturer when it comes to profit. http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-of-available-mobile-phone-profits-in-q2/

I've never understood people classifying Amazing as a tech company. Yeah, they have gotten into tech recently with the Kindle and Cloud Services, but they are a retailer more than anything else. Anyway, I like Bezos. There's a new book out about him that I was looking forward to, but it unfortunately has pretty awful reviews.

Finished the book last night and that it was outstanding overall.

Gates was often a jerk in his younger days as well.

This book looks interesting. I have too many damn books on my reading list and not enough time, but I'll add this one to the list.

I started looking at it JCP recently with Ron Johnson taking over as CEO, as I was very impressed with him at Apple and have confidence in him. I just don't know what Johnson can/will do to try to transform the company, and what that would cost (store remodels, marketing etc). I generally don't like to invest in retailers that don't sell their own products, but am curious to see what Johnson does with the company.

Home construction (and housing in general) is so tough because it's tied to lending. Banks are still extremely hesitant with mortgage loans, and I don't really know what it will take to change that. Obviously you don't want to get back to the point where they're giving everyone loans, but people that actually can afford to pay mortgages are currently being declined.

I agree with much this, at least as far as that anything could happen with Apple. Apple's moat currently revolves around their brand, distribution and scale. The key word there is of course currently. Regarding their products being consumer discretionary, I can't really argue that, except for that smart phones are becoming a bit less discretionary, at least in terms of the fact that once you have one, it's tough to live without one. Apple's market share in smartphones is still quite small though. I think a lot of the industries they're in are so large that several companies can succeed in them - there doesn't have to be one clear 'winner'. And with AAPL, regarding margin of safetly, we're talking about a stock that is selling for only 14.4 current earnings (which is quite about less than the S&P!). It would be one thing if the stock was pricing in enormous growth and selling for some very high multiple (like CRM, BIDU, etc.).

I like to do much of my research by talking to people and viewing what's going locally and while traveling. While there have been some local companies going out of business lately, I've talked to people across various industries and everyone says their businesses have been doing better this year than the past few years...not great, but better. I talked to a friend work forks for a company in commercial construction, and even he said their business has finally started to improve. That said, things can obviously get worst in a hurry. What we've seen from overall earnings recently is that business has been average..not getting much better, but not getting much worse either.

I do remember everyone wanting Windows 95, but MSFT did dominate for the next decade after that though. Not sure it's a great comparison though. Apple is diversified across several industries, which MSFT was not at that time.

I finally watched this movie over the weekend and though it was very good. The amount of corruption in the large Wall Street firms seems beyond what I realized - especially Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Makes me want to never invest in either of those companies. Everyone should watch this.

So, the market is currently valuing Groupon at around $20 Billion with their IPO today. That's more than companies like Waste Management and Kellogg, about 8 Billion more than Whole Foods, over twice the size of companies like Safeway, ConAgra, Bed Bath & Beyond & Clorox, and just $5B less than FedEx and Yum Brands. ....right

http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2011/11/03/bank-of-america-exploring-issuing-common-stock/ Bank of America Exploring Issuing Common Stock Posted by Avi Salzman Bank of America (BAC) said in a regulatory filing that it is exploring the idea of issuing common stock that it would exchange for preferred shares and trust preferred capital debt securities in private transactions. BAC shares fell 1.7% after hours. The announcement is on page 10 of the the company’s 10-Q that it just released. “The uncertainty in the market evidenced by, among other things, volatility in credit spread movements, makes it economically advantageous at this time to consider retirement of issued junior subordinated debt and preferred stock. As a result of these matters, we intend to explore the issuance of common stock and senior notes in exchange for shares of preferred stock and, subject to any required amendments to the applicable governing documents, certain trust preferred capital debt securities (Trust Securities) issued by unconsolidated trust companies, in privately negotiated transactions. If we pursue the exchange of Trust Securities, we would immediately use the purchased Trust Securities to retire a corresponding amount of our junior subordinated debt that we previously issued to the unconsolidated trust companies. These transactions would increase Tier 1 common capital and, on an after-tax basis, reduce the combined level of interest expense and dividends paid on the combined junior subordinated debt and preferred stock. The senior notes and common stock would be recorded at fair value at issuance, which is expected to be less than the par and carrying value of the preferred stock and/or junior subordinated debt, which would result in the exchanges being accretive to earnings per common share for the period in which completed. The ultimate impact on earnings per common share is not expected to be significant for periods subsequent to the exchange and will not be known until the level of earnings per common share for the period and the exact combination of exchanged preferred stock and Trust Securities are known. We will not issue more than 400 million shares of common stock or $3 billion in new senior notes in connection with these exchanges.”

I think Prime is worth $79/year just for free 2-day shipping.

He didn't say anything about Ireland.

Except for now they have Cramer on the air about 10 hours a day spewing out B.S. in addition to all the other morons. What I might hate even the most about these idiots is that they never refer to companies as companies or businesses. They're all 'names' or 'situations' and everything is a game. CNBC really treats the market like a casino (as do so many investors and fun managers). There is no acknowledgement that there are actual businesses with lots of employees behind the stock ticker.

It's ridiculous how short-sighted 99% of the people who trade stocks (as well as the entire media) are. CNBC is unbearable to watch. Everyone's time frame and attention span is about 1-2 hours. People just sell every stock they own just because other people are. Are these people also selling their homes, cars and everything else they own today?