Walt Disney Co. Message Board

thanks, but it was never a surprise that softbank's principle interest was more geared toward clearwires massive spectrum holdings than it was sprint's network.

Remember that softbank's principle financier was very clear, publically, that they would not allow softbank's bid for sprint to go forward unless sprint were to first acquire MORE than 50% of clearwire to ensure a majority interest...

... thus the acquisition of McCaw's shares in combination with a "make whole" clause that would ensure that he would fully participate in any higher share price as a result of the merger.

Spok

I'm a strategic investor, runup... not a trader. With the exception of "market makers", who ply their trade grappling with one another between the bid and the ask, trading is gambling, IMHO, as I agree with Warren Buffett when he says: "nobody times the market". There are no historically-famous investors who made their fortunes by "trading".

A "short squeeze" is a short-term, trading phenomenon that is virtually impossible to predict.

S

Thx, cas.

The trend since 2008 has always been that SJM "buys" the business that it can't generate with physical growth since it hasn't built anything since they converted a department store into a casino next the the outer harbor ferry terminal.

Because SJM spends so lavishly on junket perks and promotions, it generates a lot of revenue, but much less EBITDA than Sands China does. Sands China, on the other hand, is always more frugal with comps and junket splits... but they build high quality resorts that everybody wants to see. The result is that sands has the highest profits and only grows revenues that will optimize their flow to the bottom line.

S

Old News. The whole concept of Veneitan enjoying substantial "overhead absorption" as a result of the presence of Cotai Central has been on the table since they first re-started construction on Cotai Central.

I don't think I've written one, single comment on Cotai Central without mentioning that the real surprise was going to be across the skybridge from Cotai Central. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Venetian Mall were to put up a 50% surge in patronage in 2013...

... due, in large part, to the 5,800 people holed up across the street that weren't there last year.

S

correction... I said that MBS had the worst table hold ever in Q1. That horrible hold was in Q4's results. S

I owned Blackberry (RIM) years ago before the apple/android smartphone craze really got going. At the time, they were avant-guarde... primarily because of their revolutionary, secure network and the appeal that that had for business users who also desired their nifty handsets.

The smartphone revolution buried blackberry, as you know, and they have been struggling to keep up ever since. Even apple has it's hands full with the Koreans. The question one has to ask is whether blackberry's solid new smartphone can give them the ability to catch up with apple and Samsung (not to mention solid competition from the likes of HTC).

To determine that, it all came down to whether they could catch up with a sufficient number of aps, from my perspective. To get color on that, I phoned up my nephew, who is a call-center manager for T-Mobile and right in the crosshairs of what users are asking/wanting. His opinion was that blackberry was too far behind with aps, and doesn't have the breadth of users to appeal enough to ap developers to close the gap soon enough and well enough to get the critical mass necessary to do the volumes they need to get their margins up to where they need to be.

Beyond that, I'm no Blackberry expert... but it's fair to say they didn't make the cut on my screening efforts. I didn't get into the fine points... like TD-LTE compatibility or other such elements of future efficacy. They failed my screen before I could get beyond ~ 25% depth of analysis.

Hope this helps,

Spok

One does wonder when the arbitrageurs will move in and exploit the gap.

But then, the gap represents the difference between how investors view the prospects for sands china and how they view the mother company.

LVS includes Vegas, where gaming revenues remain flat-lined (ok, growing slowly), and Singapore, where 2012 was a difficult year and no avenues for growth have yet surfaced.

One thing that could close the gap between LVS and SCHYY is some growth in Vegas and Singapore... simply to show the investment community that those geographies aren't a boat anchor that's holding back the mother company. And to that end, we are actually SEEING some indications of such growth.

MGM's Jim Murren (see my other post) was quite enthusiastic about how Q1 had shaped up for Vegas. Vegas is actually doing quite well outside of Gaming itself. Hotel rooms are full, and MGM is turning away business at it's 18,000 seat arena... so it's building another, 20,000 seat arena across the strip from the existing one.

Singapore is ALSO showing good signs of recovery. The biggest, un-told story of Q4 was the 64% surge in VIP volumes at Marina Bay... a surge that was emulated at Singapore's OTHER gaming resort, RWS. That surge wasn't apparent in the income statement because Marina Bay also chalked up the worst table hold in Q1 as they've experienced since they opened the place back in the spring of 2010.

So, if I were an arbitrageur who was bent on playing the gap between LVS and SCHYY, I would favor LVS right now... not in a fanatical way, mind you... but I do see it as clearly the better bet.

Spok

A quick comment, taxx... MHO...

Once earnings/EBITDA disappoint and growth flags, the stock will already be down substantially from whatever peak it hit in the months or years leading up to such an event.

My suggestion: Once fundamentals accelerate and push the stock to a forward PEG ratio that's substantially north of 1.0... that's a good time to sell. At that point, it's a "momentum" stock... and momentum growth stocks, in the aggregate, under-perform contrarian value stocks.

As a rule, any stock with an above-average P/E or P/CF ratio whose PEG ratio is substantially above 1.0 and whose price is only rising as fast as the earnings/revenue/EBTIDA that's driving it...

... is a stock that I run away from.

Sometimes, they keep rising if the fundamentals allow them to... but with substantial risk.

A great example: Buffett issued an emphatic sell on the market in 1998... and for almost 2 years, he was dead wrong. In the summer of 2000, everybody was laughing at him... everybody was saying he had lost his touch.

By late 2001, nobody was laughing at Mr Buffett anymore.

Spok

During one, may-thru-october period in each, 4 year presidential cycle, the market has historically done poorly. During the other 3 of the 4, may thru october is the same, performance-wise, as the average November thru april period.

Your homework assignment tonight, coolguy7701, is to determine whether or not the up-coming May thru October period is the one in 4 such periods that historically matters... or whether it's one of the 3 out of 4 that don't matter at all... in regards to the old "sell in may" saying.

Good Luck,

Spok

Could be. I don't care when... I just need to schedule it for whenever it is. S.

My perspective is long-term, so I don't sweat the day-to-day vacillations in the PPS, and I don't worry which came first... the chicken or the egg (eg: the analyst upgrade or the earnings report that beats the aggregate analyst estimate). Warren Buffett's most valuable lesson for me was...

... just buy good value with good potential in a generally sound company and don't WORRY about how long it takes to get there... because NOBODY "times" the market.

Regarding a stock's price... it's just a reference point, nothing more. For example, if I were to tell you that the temperature outside was 80 degrees lanquiser, you'd say... "what in the H... is THAT". But if I were to tell you that 40 degrees lanquiser equals 30 degrees fahrenheit... and 80 degrees languiser equals 70 degrees fahrenheit...

... then, you'd know whether or not to put on a sweater, right?

S

I don't have a price target, pj. My target is a host of indicators that signal that LVS has become a "momentum" stock, rather than a "contrarian" stock.

Probably the most important metric in that regard is my perception of what LVS's forward PEG ratio is... only, in my case, for this particular industry, the "E" in PEG is EBITDA, not Earnings, primarily because earnings for LVS is heavily contaminated by Depreciation... and most of LVS's resorts are actually Appreciating in value.

2012 trailing PEG is meaningless, given all the factors which impaired EPS for the company relative to what it was doing with cap-ex to prepare for what I anticipate will be a very good 2013/2014. The company treated 2012 like it would treat a "throw-away" year in multiple aspects, so I see the company's trailing P/E ratio as absolutely meaningless.....

..... except from the perspective of how most casual stock-screeners are flat-lining the LVS share price BECAUSE of it.

Hope this helps,

Spok

That's true, qz... the bridge will become increasingly relevant over the next 2 years... but I wouldn't view it as a major mover of LVS stock as company-specific fundamentals would be.

On the surface of it, I would think that the high-speed trains from as far away as Beijing would be more relevant since those trains open up a whole "new" source of Mass Market patronage, whereas Hong Kong punters are already able to get to macau within an hour's time... and the bridge just adds convenience in the form of 20 or 30 minutes of travel time.

Prior to the high speed trains, macau was out of reach of Beijing's middle class. Prior to those trains, Macau was multi-day in terms of travel time and airfare for that key, Sands, customer class was more out of reach financially. The train tickets are quite cheap comparatively.

My hope is that LVS will turn into a "momentum" stock before the bridge has much impact, and as a result, I will liquidate my LVS position, as the word "momentum" is a dirty word, from the perspective of a contrarian investor such as myself. We shall see.

Spok

I appreciate your kind words, svblair. Thank you.

What is interesting is that I never really see the hundreds of Tony, obamahussein posts because I just click the ignore button on them as soon as they show up... and they are easily recognized in the space of a nano-second.

I also could care less what he thinks of me or what posts he bumps. it's white noise, my friend... nothing more.

GLTY, S.

No. Sprint's financing for clearwire is mostly purposed with securing their ridiculous, $2.97 bid for clearwire. To the extent that it is also designed to "finance" clearwire, it was carefully structured by Dan Hesse to allow only "dependency" on sprint... not any semblence of "independence", lest clearwire's minority shareholders be given the impression that Dan Hesse has anything more than absolute total DISREGARD for them, and their historic contributions to both Clearwire's and Sprint's progress.

Sprint's $2.97 offer for clearwire is dead.

Much of freedompop's shift off of WiMax will be increasingly absorbed onto clearwire's network via it's TD-LTE capability in sprint's most dense operating geographies. That is the one aspect of clearwire's 2-year, flat-rate WiMax arrangement with sprint that helps to smooth that glidepath.

As teamrep states, sprint is building it's network to leverage clearwire's spectrum in dense geographies regardless of where the minority-owned half of clearwire ends up. Sprint has always known that re-purposed nextel spectrum wouldn't even come close to handling the volumes that it would experience in highly dense metropolitan areas, and building cell sites so densely that they go well beyond even clearwire's propagation constraints makes little economic sense.

I know a fair number of people who limit their wireless subscriptions today because they can't even come close to streaming high-def video in locations where they want to stream it. Once they can... and they do... then they'll also be streaming it in metro locations that can't even BEGIN to handle it given the current loads. I experience latency on my subscription all the time that bears witness to the load my provider is up against.

S

Thx, ksa... always appreciate your input here as well. S.

As LVS's assets and revenues have surged in value, it's EPS has not... but likely will this year.

Only a fool would have held this stock since late 2010... and then sell it now. S