lt cap,

There sure are a lot of powerful names in that alliance to attempt another takedown of Goliath. (BTW, I don't think that Seagate has made a similar move to Western Digital - acquiring a NAND flash company for the ongoing transition from mechanical drives to solid state storage.) There's a little bit of irony there - Micron is part of the 'alliance', but a bit ago INTC and Micron announced some post Nand flash product they produced together that is supposed to just blow the standard flash storage away in terms of speed and performance. And I have paid attention to your post on Intel execs leaving. And I still acknowledge that INTC has some very difficult challenges (including permanent pc decline/slowdown and diverisfying its niches - the demand for 2nd tier cpus reported a decline today, so Taiwan semi and like fabs are getting hit today.)

Still, I'm an INTC die-hard, I guess. Perhaps they're just extending but not defeating the inevitable (kind of like QE?) And in your scenario, they may end up, as the US was described in Vietnam, as 'a pitiful, helpless giant.'  Or - perhaps they are a combination of powerful and nimble enough to do some transformaions. Notthat I know how or if this works but....if they lose CPU dominance, but own the very core of next-gen solid state storage, do they gain or lose on the whole?

Now, I don't believe that Intel is like the Titanic, and if I continued to hold it I will go down with the ship. But I am wearing my rubbers, just as a hedge.

INTC continues to be a well managed company.  IMO, it will continue to be a cash flow generator for deccades, the problem as I have stated before is growth.  Maybe the new Flash technology helps it grow again.  Whether it is Flash or IoT or something else, it would have to be in the order of billions ($10B maybe?) in revenue to move the needle, afterall, INTC generates $55B per year.

BTW, Seagate gt taken to the woodshed today, wow!

lt cap,

Re: Seagate - I've kept them in sight for a number of years - a very attractive dividend (which just got more attractive at almost 10% - given the humongous fall in share price - closed yesterday at $34, trading today around $25. I expect that, like the oils, they'll either cut the dividend or suspend it entirely.) And for a long time I've been getting daily articles from Seeking Alpha about what a great this stock was to own. It's just a company that interests me, as Nsthil brought it to our attention around 2013 or 2014 I think, when it was a $10 stock with a hefty dividend - and it did ride all the way to $60.

I haven't read the details in depth, but I'm not surprised. Not only has Western Digital bought Sandisk, but it seems a lot of very heavy storage users have been buying their own supply of NAND flash - such as EMC, which acquired a company whose name I can't recall but was purely a solid state storage maker.

I'll just leave it there, as you probably know a lot more about that in depth than I do, given your area of expertise. But -67% earnings growth y/o/y pretty much says it all - they're not navigating the transition from mechanical storage to solid state well at all, apparently.

Although outsized beatings are not rare at the moment - last time CIEN missed their numbers, they dropped 15% in a day, IIRC. A pretty unforgiving market right now. I'm curious how you and Jester see the macro - IIRC, you had pulled a lot of your resources out of the market and into 'safe haven' instruments. I'd guess that you're waiting to see how earnings go, but that's just a guess on my part.

Jamok,

My macro opinion hasn't changed. The market is over-priced and propped up on coordinated Central Bank easing, most recently their attack on the dollar which led to oil's surge and with it the market. Macro data continues to disappoint, except for jobs figures which are blatantly manipulated. I see the GDP estimates are coming down, again, just like they have every year recently. Corporate earnings are down so why are stocks so expensive without organic growth, i.e. not fueled by financial manipulation of buybacks? Despite all this, many stocks are set up for easy beats since earnings estimates have quietly tumbled recently, so even if they come in worse than last year that headline of "beats expectations" can work wonders. We'll see.

I'm curious how long before the CB's credibility really crumbles. We've all known for years that their policies aren't working, and even their own people are admitting in papers that their policies are doing little for Main Street and are just expanding the wealth divide. It's like the Emperor With No Clothes, everyone can see what's going on and we're waiting for the crowd to react. Currently I'm net 20% long, after adding my longs and shorts.