The Steelers Are Bullish

A good friend and client is a huge Steelers fan. Being a Buffalo Bills fan I don’t know how I can stand the guy as they are probably going to get their 6th championship and neither the Bills nor any other team from Buffalo has ever won anything, just lots of near misses. I can’t […]

Apple Acting Better

Apple is now up about 10% this year and almost 20% from just before it reported its December quarter. I think there a few things at work and that the stock still has “all clear” for another 60 days. That means I think AAPL can be a market leader and outperform the market over that […]

Good Quarter But Confusing and Lower Gudiance Muddies the Water

Immediately below are two comments on AT&T’s 4Q08 earnings report. The first one is my immediate reaction writtne prior to the conference call. The second one is my summary of the call. Overall, I would have liked better 2009 guidance but I think the stock offers upside while providing downside protection given the large dividend, […]

Negative Reaction to Verizon 4Q Raises Stakes for AT&T

AT&T is projected to report EPS of 65 cents on revenues of $31.35 billion. A negative reaction to Verizon’s report and some negatives that cropped up took T shares down hard ahead of the report. This may take out risk as the bar is lowered but it also raises the stakes for the “resilience” theme […]

Sundance 2009

I went to the Sundance Film Festival for the second year whereI saw eight films over two days. If I had a longer stay I would cut down to three films a day. One of the films was a series of shorts. Of the other seven, my son, a junior at NYU studying music composition […]

Apple Comes Through

I have to admit a sense of great relief following Apple’s December quarter earnings. The numbers were great and guidance for the March quarter was much better than feared. A lot of stocks I like, including Apple, are really struggling and it makes me question my analysis. In this case, I got it right and […]

Slow Sales at Sundance So Far

While you are reading this I’ll be heading to O’Hare to hop a plane to Salt Lake City on my way to Park City and the Sundance Film Festival. The Festival started last weekend with many questions surrounding the market for films given the economy and major cutbacks at the Hollywood studios. As though the […]

Dreamworks Animation is Relative Safety in Media

There seems to be no place in media to hide as estimates continue to fall and no signs of recovery in advertising or other key revenue drivers is apparent. One stock that largely avoids the potholes in media is Dreamworks Animation. The company is vulnerable on DVD sales but has no advertising exposure. In the […]

New FCC Chairman Presents Risk

In big news for media and telecom, major media outlets are reporting that President-elect Obama will nominate Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Genachowski was technology adviser to Obama during the campaign. According to the Wall Street Journal, he put together detailed plans for Obama “that expressed support for open Internet or […]

January 2009 Model Signals

Northlake’s monthly Market Cap and Style models favor Small Caps and Value for January. As a result, client and personal accounts have a position in the Russell 2000 (IWM or IJR) and the Russell 1000 Value (IWD or IVE). These positions are unchanged from December. In fact, the small cap signal has been in place […]