I haven’t played this right. I should have kept my short position on Research in Motion, maker of the ill-fated BlackBerry. This stock is going even lower. I shall resume my short today.<\/p>\n
After eyeing my BBRY stupidity, I found this chart in European version of the Wall Street Journal, which I read on the plane coming back last night.<\/p>\n It accompanied a piece headed “Battle Toughens for Smartphone Markers<\/em>,” which you can read here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n It’s not easy to “play” technology stocks, especially the big ones. Fortunately I’ve kept right away from Microsoft. I have never been impressed with Gates’ successor, Steve Ballmer — his ideas, his new products, his offish management style, or his lack of Vision.<\/p>\n There’s a piece on Microsoft’s floundering around in the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street<\/em> column. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n My biggest loss in my Fidelity portfolio — the one I use to see if I can finally learn this stuff — is Intel. It just dropped\u00a0 3.6%, taking it to minus 9.1% — below my 8% stop loss. Over the years Intel has floundered around, buying firms it couldn’t manage diversifying into fields it knew nothing about it… But it’s got some new fast chips (Haswell and Silvermont) that really are fast and have big benefits — like much longer battery life for laptops. I thought finally Intel’s stock had the potential of a bounce. I was wrong. It’s dropped quite a bit recently:<\/p>\n I hadn’t read a May 13 article by PC World entitled “Intel loses ground as world’s top semiconductor company, survey says.”<\/strong> The article begins:<\/p>\n As Intel mulls a plan to expand its contract-manufacturing operations, the company has lost ground as the world’s top semiconductor company to chip suppliers benefitting from the success of mobile devices, according to a study by IC Insights released on Monday.<\/p>\n Based on revenue, Intel remained the top semiconductor company, but has lost market share to Samsung and Qualcomm, which design and supply chips for smartphones and tablets. A lot of Intel’s chips are being used in PCs, whose sales are falling.<\/p>\n Intel’s semiconductor sales in the first quarter were $11.56 billion, a 3 percent drop from the $11.87 billion in the first quarter of 2012. Samsung’s semiconductor sales were $7.95 billion, up by 13 percent thanks to a boost from Apple, whose chips for iPhones and iPads are manufactured and supplied by Samsung.<\/p>\n Overall semiconductor sales totaled $53.5 billion in the first quarter, increasing by just 2 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Recording the fastest growth was fourth-placed Qualcomm, with a 28 percent increase in sales to $3.9 billion. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips are used in many of the latest smartphones including HTC’s One and some models of Samsung’s Galaxy S4.<\/p>\n The study covered sales of integrated circuits and other semiconductors by fabless chip companies and chipmakers that own fabrication plants. It does not include companies like Apple, which designs chips but has them made by contract chip makers. Contract-chip companies like TSMC make mobile chips for fabless companies like Qualcomm, but sales of Qualcomm chips are not included in totals for TSMC.<\/p>\n TSMC, however, remained the top foundry, with sales growing 26 percent to $4.46 billion. GlobalFoundries was the second-largest foundry, followed by UMC (United Microelectronics Corp.)<\/p>\n You can read the entire piece here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Italian Surprises<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n + Alitalia is a remarkably good airline. Flat beds and great food. The best-designed passenger pods I’ve ever had in business.<\/p>\n + Airlines will negotiate prices — especially if you’re willing not to fly on weekends, and not during the summer.<\/p>\n + Tuscany is a seriously beautiful place — much more beautiful than I remember from the last time. There are incredible places to rent and incredible hotels to stay.<\/p>\n + Italian hotels can be fantastico. Check out my friend’s favorite place — the Hotel Splendido in Portofino. Here are three pictures.<\/p>\n The hotel.<\/p>\n The view from a room.<\/p>\n The small Portofino harbor.<\/p>\n You can find more photos here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n + Italian wine can be cheap and good, and expensive and superb. Sadly, I don’t drink wine, but I have been assured.<\/p>\n + Italy is more expensive than the U.S. I thought of a Euro as a dollar. But it wasn’t. It’s $1.30. The thirty cents in the killer. The Euro is overvalued, but I wouldn’t short it. Too risky. Too many unpredictable politics.<\/p>\n + There’s nothing to buy (like clothes or leather goods) that you can’t buy cheaper in New York. Italy exports most of its good stuff to the U.S.<\/p>\n + Some Italians pay taxes — but not many. Yet, the place largely seems to work. The buses run. Alitalia left on time and arrived in New York early. Which was much better than Delta going there. Delta was three hours late.<\/p>\n + Delta forgot Susan’s bag in New York. One friend asked “what did I expect? Delta stands for Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive.”<\/p>\n + In summer, get up early. Do some tourism. Eat lunch. Sleep. Go back out in the evening. It’s hot at lunch, cool in the evening.<\/p>\n + There’s so much to see. You need to plan. Most of the guidebooks are awful. Most lack adequate indexes. I spent ten minutes on a street corner trying to figure out a Marcus Aurelius column, which is in the middle of Rome. I couldn’t find it no matter how many variations I used. Next time I’ll take a small iPad, a MiFi and Google it. Google, Google Maps, Google Earth are much better than any paper thing you can get.<\/p>\n + Most Americans plan their Italian trip by reading Dan Brown, and nothing else. Dan Brown is not a substitute for knowledge. He writes bad, but popular novels. Note the word “novels.”<\/p>\n + A friend will give you directions to his house. But they won’t comform to anything you see on the street signs. Italy has a lot of confusing signs, confounded by the street changing its name and number every 35 yards. I found one highway with three numbers and two names. A decent up-to-date GPS is critical. Trust it.<\/p>\n + The MiFi unit I rented from Xcom Global worked well and fast — even in places they had “free” Wifi, like Rome Airport.<\/p>\n + The most useful things I took to Italy: the MiFi, a good Garmin GPS, my trusty Canon G15, sunblock, triple power adapters, a gigantic sunhat, a flashlight, plenty of batteries and a zillion cables for charging iPhones, iPads, my X220 laptop, and sundry other electronic stuff we schlepped along.<\/p>\n Italians think bunga bunga parties are an embarrassment — not exactly what you want for your country’s reputation. Design or wine, or clothing or handbags, but not bunga bunga parties. Wikipedia has a long “explanation” and description of the term, which includes:<\/p>\n It “is said to be a sort of underwater orgy where nude young women allegedly encircled the nude host and\/or his friends in his swimming pool”, “an African-style ritual” performed for male spectators by “20 naked young women”, or erotic entertainment hosted by a rich host involving pole dancing and competitive striptease by skimpy-costumed “women in nurses’ outfits and police uniforms” – but topless women, the prize being prostitution for the host.<\/p>\n Sadly, I never made it to a bunga bunga party. But I enjoy my fantasies.<\/p>\n![\"ReseachInMotionOneYar\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ReseachInMotionOneYar.jpg\")
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\nHarry Newton who came back with a zillion wonderful photos, so far unedited. For now, here’s a view of Tuscan valleys and hills. Neat?<\/p>\n