Cody Willard : "A Wild Year for Tech"
Enviado: 15/12/2006 16:09Um curto mas interessante resumo do desempenho dos vários sectores tecnológicos em Bolsa.
"A Wild Year for Tech"
By Cody Willard
RealMoney.com Contributor
12/15/2006 9:05 AM EST
"For the third year in a row, the economy grew steadily and consistently, even taking into account the slowdown into year-end. And, for the third year in a row, the market has fought back from scary meltdowns earlier in the year and is closing out the year in strong rally mode.
Let's dig down into some sectors and how they've performed in 2006.
The semiconductors are down about 10%. The glut has been problematic.
Semi-equipment suppliers like Applied Materials (AMAT - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) and Lam Research (LRCX - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating), which sell to semi companies like Intel (INTC - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) and Taiwan Semi (TSM - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating), are up about 15% on the year.
That 25 percentage-point performance difference between the two will have me exploring whether there are any paired trades of long semis and short semi-equipment, if only looking for a reversion of each side toward the other to close that gap. I have to be careful that my arbitrary starting date of the beginning of this year isn't misleading me in that logic, though, in some sort of noisy manner.
Software is up about 20% on the year. Microsoft (MSFT - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) has been a big leader in the market for the past few months.
Radio, despite facing secular decline and a mass exit of listeners burned out by the same 200-song playlist that some genius at Infinity and Clear Channel (CCU - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) thought everyone would want to hear endlessly in every U.S. city, is up almost 10% on the year. A lot of cash flow has steadied these stocks. I still wouldn't touch radio with a 10-foot pole.
The best-performing sector in tech/media this year? Cable stocks, which were up about 60% on the year. I'll be looking to short some of those names later in 2007, when the momentum-chasers, who are thrilled that cable is winning some pointless short-term war with the even more-maligned telcos, figure out that Internet video and ultrabroadband are the actual enemies.
Close behind cable is satellite, up almost 45% for 2006. Satellite isn't as poorly positioned as cable, but both models depend on making their customers pay outrageous amounts of money for time- and channel-bundled video content that never gets watched. I'd rather short cable next year, but I might also short some satellite stocks, depending on time and price, of course.
Wireless is down 10% on the year, despite showing huge unit growth. That must have already been more than priced in late last year. And the market doesn't believe wireless can show double-digit growth again next year. I have my doubts, too, but I think in a strong/steady global economy, a 10% unit growth hurdle would look easy. Betting on wireless in 2007 is probably a bet on the economy. I'd rather find secular growers.
Like the semi/semi-equipment setup, the fact that wireless-tower stocks (up 30% on the year) are up more than 40 percentage points than wireless stocks on the year will have me investigating possible paired trades in early 2007.
Here's to the wild ride that 2006 has been. And here's looking ahead to 2007 -- betcha it'll be wild in its own right. "
(in www.realmoney.com)
"A Wild Year for Tech"
By Cody Willard
RealMoney.com Contributor
12/15/2006 9:05 AM EST
"For the third year in a row, the economy grew steadily and consistently, even taking into account the slowdown into year-end. And, for the third year in a row, the market has fought back from scary meltdowns earlier in the year and is closing out the year in strong rally mode.
Let's dig down into some sectors and how they've performed in 2006.
The semiconductors are down about 10%. The glut has been problematic.
Semi-equipment suppliers like Applied Materials (AMAT - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) and Lam Research (LRCX - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating), which sell to semi companies like Intel (INTC - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) and Taiwan Semi (TSM - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating), are up about 15% on the year.
That 25 percentage-point performance difference between the two will have me exploring whether there are any paired trades of long semis and short semi-equipment, if only looking for a reversion of each side toward the other to close that gap. I have to be careful that my arbitrary starting date of the beginning of this year isn't misleading me in that logic, though, in some sort of noisy manner.
Software is up about 20% on the year. Microsoft (MSFT - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) has been a big leader in the market for the past few months.
Radio, despite facing secular decline and a mass exit of listeners burned out by the same 200-song playlist that some genius at Infinity and Clear Channel (CCU - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) thought everyone would want to hear endlessly in every U.S. city, is up almost 10% on the year. A lot of cash flow has steadied these stocks. I still wouldn't touch radio with a 10-foot pole.
The best-performing sector in tech/media this year? Cable stocks, which were up about 60% on the year. I'll be looking to short some of those names later in 2007, when the momentum-chasers, who are thrilled that cable is winning some pointless short-term war with the even more-maligned telcos, figure out that Internet video and ultrabroadband are the actual enemies.
Close behind cable is satellite, up almost 45% for 2006. Satellite isn't as poorly positioned as cable, but both models depend on making their customers pay outrageous amounts of money for time- and channel-bundled video content that never gets watched. I'd rather short cable next year, but I might also short some satellite stocks, depending on time and price, of course.
Wireless is down 10% on the year, despite showing huge unit growth. That must have already been more than priced in late last year. And the market doesn't believe wireless can show double-digit growth again next year. I have my doubts, too, but I think in a strong/steady global economy, a 10% unit growth hurdle would look easy. Betting on wireless in 2007 is probably a bet on the economy. I'd rather find secular growers.
Like the semi/semi-equipment setup, the fact that wireless-tower stocks (up 30% on the year) are up more than 40 percentage points than wireless stocks on the year will have me investigating possible paired trades in early 2007.
Here's to the wild ride that 2006 has been. And here's looking ahead to 2007 -- betcha it'll be wild in its own right. "
(in www.realmoney.com)