DCG

Thanks for clarifying. The hype was (as usual) driven by the media more than anything. All Apple did was set up a keynote event to announce the new phone. I think a lot of the speculation was due to the fact that it had been 16 months since the last iPhone release (a long time for phone/tech companies, but ordinary for pretty much any other industry). I think Apple was hoping to release the iPhone 4GS earlier this summer, but were most likely delayed by the issues at FoxConn and the Japan tsunami. Producing over 20 million phones and rolling it out globally takes a lot of production time and work.

You're missing my point. I chose Pepsi at random. My point is your comment would be like Buffet buying stock in a company a month before he retired, and then people blaming Buffett's replacement if that stock is down a couple months later. I'm not arguing that Apple won't be the same without Steve Jobs. You were trying to make the point that the iPhone 4S is an indication of Apple without Steve Jobs, which makes no sense. I can almost guarantee that the iPhone 4S was nearly 100% (if not completely 100%) complete long before Steve Jobs left the role of CEO. It's also important to realize that Steve Jobs is still with Apple. He is the chairman and is still involved in big decisions. He is just no longer the CEO. It's also important to note that for much of the time Apple developed the original iPhone 4, Steve Jobs was on medical leave and Tim Cook was also the CEO. Apple also has a nearly completely different leadership team in place now than it did the last time Jobs left the company in the 90's. Again, I know Apple won't be exactly the same when Steve Jobs is completely out of the picture (and time will tell how much), but with all due respect, it doesn't sound like you have a good understanding of the recent history of this company and a history of their product rollouts.

Are you sure about that? He's known for being incredibly anal and meticulous about design, function, promotion and ease of use. The iPhone's we see today probably won't be as versatile and functional without him, and it is almost certain there won't be the same cult following. Yes. You think the iPhone4S was just designed in the last month or so? Apple sells over 20 million iPhones a quarter. Their design, production and distribution schedules are spread out over somewhat long periods of time. What about the iPhone4S does not show meticulous design, function and ease-of-use? I'm about as big of a Steve Jobs admirer that you'll find, but other than maybe a few aspects of yesterday's presentation, I don't see how this phone would be any different if Jobs was the CEO. And keep in mind that Jobs' role at Apple is likely similar now as it's been much of the last few years when Cook has been the acting CEO. Would people be happier if they just named this phone thet iPhone5, or iPhone Magic, iPhone Amazing or any other name? I would've liked to see it include 4G, but think the current screen size is fine, as is the current body design. If you want to make a comparison to Berkshire, this would be like Buffet buying stock in Pepsi (or any company) and then retiring, and then in 2 months later Pepsi's stock went down for no real reason and saying 'that's why Berkshire won't be the same without Buffett'.

How is this any indication of how Apple won't be the same after Steve Jobs? This is the same phone that would have been released if Jobs was the CEO. Apple's product cycles are planned out pretty far in advance. I'm not arguing that the company won't be the same w/out him, but don't understand the thread title.

Regarding AAPL, You have arguably the best run company on the planet selling for 11x conservative 2012 estimates and around $76 Billion in cash. The long-term future is tough to predict in tech, but I think AAPL's product pipeline is strong for at least the next 2-3 years. The talent pool at AAPL is incredibly deep. Even if their level of innovation takes a hit due to the departure of Steve Jobs, I am confident they can still produce better products than their competition. As far as keeping the culture in tact, that's something every company constantly has to work at. Tim Cook has been running the company for much of the last 2 or so years and has done a great job. And Apple is rarely the 'first mover'. They don't invent products. They greatly improve products and make them easy to use. I think they'll be able to continue to do that. The market is treating Apple like it has no growth at all. They can also potentially use their cash to pay a dividend or make acquisitions if the right opportunity came along. AMZN is quite pricey and is a small holding in my IRA, and I would love to buy more at a cheaper price. It is nearly impossible for online retailers to compete with Amazon. They've built an excellent global distribution system (although it came at a cost) and now have the scale to beat nearly everyone in price. They've excelled at nearly every business they've entered, and have made good acquisitions. I think they will get to the point in the next few years where their operational costs will be reduced and their profit margins will increase. I think they are going to continue to take market share from other eCommerce companies across nearly every industry. The stock may easily trade sideways for a while, but I think their earnings will be significantly more than they are today in 10 years from now.

Great portfolio! DCG this portfolio seems like you buy the highest quality companies in the US. How do you approach valuation on some of these stocks like CMG & DECK. What has been your sell discipline? Also are you concerned about GMCR patent expirations coming up? When I bought DECK it was selling for around 13x earnings, and I sold close to half my position earlier this year. I think it has the growth to support it's P/E, which is currently just under 16X 2012 estimates. I think they still have a lot of room to grow the UGGs brand, especially if they can make a dent in the men's market. I'm not buying any more CMG at current prices, but haven't sold any either. I think they still have a lot of room for growth, especially internationally. I am a bit worried about the GMCR patent expirations, but think they've built up a strong brand, and like that they're starting to focus more on B2B K-Cup sales. I'm also not buying ay more at the current price.

My issue isn't so much that they buy companies like the ones I listed (although its partially that), it's more that they bought large positions in some companies like those when there were so many other companies selling for very cheap prices. And he is obviously basing his judgement on past results and not based on what the future looks like for those companies (yeah..I know it's contrarian, but I just question buying those companies compared to every other company out there).

This is good: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/netflix

I didn't love his explanation on why he owns pretty awful companies like RIMM, DELL and LVLT. Seems more relying on 'hoping' their management will be able to turn the companies around rather than anything concrete.

The Kindle Fire is pretty impressive looking, especially at that price. They're apparently selling it for a loss to get people to purchase their products. Bezos is not Steve Jobs when it comes to giving presentations however.

Thanks for pointing out that. I am a Chinese and I am used to getting books for free. I can easily afford books I like, but like most Chinese, I would like to get things for free whenever possible. I do not understand why sharing books would attract wrong kind of people. A guy on this board(thank you!) just give me a website library.nu where a lot of books are available in PDF format. Are you suggesting those who went there are the wrong kind of people? I am not saying what I was asking is right. But your comment is way off the mark, at least for me. Well, I'm not the owner of this board so it's not really my place to say, but I've been on a good amount of message boards over the years, including running one myself a long time ago, so I'll respond and Parsad can correct me if he disagrees. Sharing copyrighted, published books is illegal. We all know there are places to go for people who want to pirate things like books and music. Those websites run the risk of litigation and being shut down. Forums and other websites posting illegally downloaded files puts the site owner at risk (yes, the risk is small, but it is still there nonetheless - I've seen sites with less traffic than this one threatened with law suits). Also, linking to illegal sites, and sharing illegally downloaded files can also effect things like search engine rankings. In normal message board etiquette, if you want to share files, do so via private messages, and not in threads that are indexed by search engines.

Whittman actually said in the interview this morning that her main focus right now is figuing out how to meet this quarter's earnings guidance.

Sorry if I let you feel offended. I'm not offended, but do you really think parsed wants people publically sharing illegal files on the board? I'm guessing no.

So you want people to atttach pirated copies of books?

Watching the David Faber interview with Whittman and Ray Lane (the chairman of the hp board). I am not impressed with Either Lane or Whittman.

Apparently Whittman did not want the job a couple weeks ago but now decided to take it. What a mess.

Below are my current holdings. My portfolio hasn't changed a whole lot this year; sold a couple companies (XOM and FDX), bought MA, and added to a few holdings. While a few of these are trading for higher valuations than what many of you probably look for on this board, I bought those companies at lower prices. I don't have the exact percentages, but here are my current holdings in order of weighting: AAPL FRFHF BRK/B BWLD GOOG V (considering lightening up on V) WFC GMCR CMG DECK USB AMZN MA BAC Options: CSCO Jan 12 calls BAC: Jan 13 calls

I know you were saying that all the user experience data that has been captured will be split into two. But I personally don't think it is going to happen. What is there to stop them from using the same database and allow two different sites (Netflix.com and Quikster.com) to operate out of the same database? I mean, do you see any legal implications in that, after all, they are two divisions of the same company? It says it right in Reed's blog post: "A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa." http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html

Exactly. On top of it, I have never seen a more humble CEO, in recent times. He is actually trying to apologize. Has anyone paid close attention to the medical bills that you receive from your health care providers? If Reed Hastings is apologizing for this, what should the Health Care providers do for what they have done to their customers (all Canadians, you can quit giggling, now)? He apologized, which is nice, but as I said earlier, he didn't really apologize for the right thing, and his email/blog post isn't very well articulated IMO. And again, splitting it into 2 separate websites will worsen the user experience of their sites.

Reed didn't even really apologize for the right thing. He apologized for the way they announced the price change, which is not what people were upset about. People are upset that they tried to put through a large (by %) price increase without adding any value. The price change makes sense for the future, but was done too early (they need to build up their digital library first). Now they have to spend more $ to market the new brand (which sounds like a fictional dot-com, circa 2000). Giving that side the business it's own name makes sense if they're hoping to sell off that business at some point, but by the time they expand their digital library, the DVD business won't have a ton of value. And breaking up DVDs and streaming into 2 completely different websites makes for an awful user experience for people who subscribe to both services. All the ratings and reviews will probably be separate, recommendations will be based off different things, and you have to go to 2 sites to manage your queue. I think they had the view that their service was so good that they could put though big price increases and everyone would just pay them, where a lot of people cancelled. I'm ok with the price change, as I'm now only using the DVD service and paying Netflix less each month. A lot of people are doing the same thing, and Netflix is losing revenue because they they didn't predict so many people would do that, and assumed everyone would just pay for both services. Their streaming selection is awful compared to their DVD selection. When it gets to the point where they're equal, I'll cancel the DVD service and pay just for the streaming service. The first line of Reed's email should be, "I messed up, and I owe you an explanation of my plans to mess up even further."

wow. That is crazy, and incredible.

yeah, their price change is turning out to be a terrible decision. The price change will make sense in a few years, but until they build up their digital content library it's tough to justify paying extra for.

Same software. Kayak runs off of ITA software, which Google now owns.

It makes me very happy so see Bartz embarrass the crap out of herself on a daily basis, and hope no other companies would be dumb enough to give her another show at a high level position. I can't recall any CEO as horrendousn as Bartz at dealing with the media. Below is an article about her resigning from the Yahoo board, although the Yahoo board deserves a ton of blame for appointing her as CEO in the first place. Bartz resigns from Yahoo board Sun Sep 11, 2011 4:30PM EDT (Editor's note: Language in last paragraph may be offensive to some readers) NEW YORK (Reuters) - Carol Bartz, who was fired as chief executive of Yahoo Inc last week, has resigned from the company's board of directors. "On September 9, 2011, Carol Bartz resigned from the board of directors of Yahoo! Inc., effective immediately," Charles Sipkins, a spokesperson for the board wrote in an e-mail on Sunday. The news was first reported on Sunday in The Wall Street Journal. Bartz was abruptly fired from her job as CEO on Tuesday. She had said that she planned to remain on the Internet company's board of directors, a statement that conflicted with that of a company spokesman who said Bartz would have to give up her board seat. After being fired, Bartz gave an inflammatory interview to Fortune magazine in which she characterized Yahoo's board as "doofuses" who "fucked me over".

how graphic is this movie? I don't like the movies that try to convince you to not eat meat by showing slaughterhouses, etc..