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Texas Instruments Seems Due for a Breather

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- With Tuesday's closing price of $36.60, shares of Texas Instruments now rest less than 2% away from a new 52-week high.

Remarkably, despite deteriorating growth, the stock is now up more than 20% on the year, while trading at a significant premium to stronger names like Qualcomm .

I'm trying to understand, why does TI deserve this level of respect when the company is being outperformed in several key areas including earnings per share, gross margin and revenue growth? In these areas, not only is TI at a meaningful disadvantage to Qualcomm, but the company also lags behind Intel -- remember Intel? ...

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Tumblr Completes Mayer's Yahoo! Vision

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- A few weeks ago, when VMware announced its Pivotal Initiative, my eyes were distracted by a deliberate display of eye candy.

Well behind the executives with their PowerPoints stood a line of desks, extending into the middle distance. Behind the desks were programmers, pounding on keyboards, going back and forth to the water cooler, or standing to talk with one another.

It was an illustration of cloud development. The unspoken message was that Pivotal would be developed using a bunch of young programmers, working tightly together, at all hours, and in close collaboration. ...

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Tim Cook Should Tell Congress to Kiss His Ass

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:10:18 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The spectacle on Capitol Hill Tuesday highlights, first and foremost, what's wrong with our country and, secondarily, what's wrong with Apple .

Second point first. There's no question Tim Cook is killing it in front of that Senate panel. In so many words, he is telling legislators to kiss his ass. I applaud him for that.

Meantime, Microsoft unveiled its next generation Xbox today. It looks pretty impressive. A serious play to take control of the social living room. ...

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The Digital Skeptic: Investors Would Do Well to Get Real, Not Digital

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:57:51 EDT

RIO DEI FRARI, VENICE, Italy (TheStreet) -- Sure, it's a bummer of a bull market, but it's a bull nonetheless. Time to buy a stock and hold it. That makes it time to check in with my favorite expert in what's of real value over time: Mr. Gianni Berengo Gardin.

Gardin is not hard to find. There's no need to go overboard as I did and blow $110 on a water limo to get down a chilly, cramped Venetian canal to get the man to autograph his latest book of photographs. Just search up the man and you'll find, geez, hundreds of carefully crafted, mostly black-and-white photographs.

It's a body of work that gets investors in direct touch with what really holds value over time: reality. ...

Pandora Must Promote Indie Artists, Expose Music Industry Injustice

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:00:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It took investors a couple years' worth of kicking and screaming to come around to Pandora . Of course, it's easy to jump on the bandwagon as a stock trysts with 52-week highs.

How long will it take the music industry, particularly artist advocacy groups such as musicFirst, to not only wake up to Pandora and the rest of Internet radio, but do something meaningful to benefit the independent artists it claims to represent?

Every few weeks musicFirst fires off a nasty email that trashes Pandora's efforts on Capitol Hill to secure more reasonable royalty rates for Internet radio. The latest came Friday. Neil Portnow, the president of The Recording Academy spews the usual rhetoric: Pandora wants to "reduce (the ability of artists) to earn a fair wage from (their) music." ...

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Chevron: It's Cheap But Doesn't Look Cheap

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:30:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It's not unusual for investors to proclaim to anyone who cares to listen his or her favorite stock is cheap. But when that stock is also at a 52-week high, it's time to raise eyebrows at the logic. Somehow, Chevron , which fits this criteria, is still flying under the radar despite gaining more than 17% for the year to date.

Even though rival Exxon Mobil , which we talked about a couple of weeks ago, garners the lion's share of the media coverage, Chevron has never lost its status as a major oil company that consistently delivers solid profitability. It has consistently maintained one of the best balance sheets of any company in any sector. But how is it possible, with Monday's close of $124.78, for Chevron to still be cheap?

Chevron didn't knock the cover off the ball this quarter. But given the broad weakness that has hit the entire sector due to weak oil prices, the company didn't have to. Management only needed to show that Chevron's production growth was still progressing. Even though revenue was down 6% year over year (as reported), Chevron still delivered where it mattered. ...

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Has Baker Hughes Finally Turned the Corner?

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:00:01 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of oil services company Baker Hughes have seen a slight uptick ever since the company's first-quarter earnings announcement.

While there are still concerns about the overall health of the oil industry -- which has been marred by slumping prices and weak rig counts -- analysts at Credit Suisse think Baker Hughes has turned the corner following years of reorganization. But is the stock worth $54 per share, which suggests a 25% premium from current levels? Credit Suisse believes it does.

From the numbers that I've seen from rivals Halliburton and Schlumberger the results have been mostly positive. Given what their management teams have stated, investors should expect a rebound for the sector. ...

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The Growing Fight for Energy Markets

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:00:01 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- For most of my life, and yours, energy politics has been about a fight for energy supply.

Now, as I indicated yesterday it's becoming a fight for energy markets.

So long as that energy is in the form of oil and gas, of course, existing energy companies can control prices by manipulating supply. Are oil prices under pressure, as Marketwatch reports today? Does maintenance on a few refineries, as Reuters reports -- keep the price high. Natural gas prices too low to justify new investment? Export the stuff, as Business Week writes -- then keep flaring and bottling in supplies until the new demand is in place. ...

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Tornado Leaves 51 Dead in Oklahoma: Reports

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:57:33 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - A massive tornado has cut a swath of destruction across the suburbs of Oklahoma City, according to published media reports, leaving at least 51 people dead.

The Associated Press reports that the tornado flattened multiple buildings in Moore, about 10 miles south of the city. At least 51 people were killed, with officials saying that the death toll was expected to rise.

Local Oklahoma news service News9.com reported that two schools were destroyed by the twister. Oklahoma hospitals say that they have treated about 120 people, including 50 children. ...

Mayer Rolls the Tumblr Dice

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:57:20 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- From the get-go, I strongly supported Marissa Mayer's tenure as Yahoo! CEO. While I still believe in the legend of Mayer, I'm officially jumping off the bandwagon.

YHOO stock is up 70% since Mayer got the gig. If you have been long, get the hell out. Even if you miss a bit more upside, why be greedy?

It's not that I dislike Tumblr. It's a perfectly worthy fad among a whole slew of new entrants into the space, if we can call social microblogs a "space." It's just that a.) I do not see the sense in making the acquisition; b.) it makes me feel like Mayer has too few original ideas on how to rebuild Yahoo!; and c.) everybody is on the bandwagon like a pack of blindfolded sheep. ...

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Nvidia's Backing Its 'Big Game' Talks

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:21:14 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Each time Nvidia is discussed it's always in the context of the company's ability to change its chip strategy.

The Street doubts Nvidia can successfully transition itself from a PC-dependent graphics chip company to one that can compete on the big stage with Qualcomm and Broadcom in the realm of mobile devices.

However, management has shown it has a "chip on its shoulder" in more ways than one. The company has made clear it doesn't appreciate the bets that have been placed against it. In fact, during the company's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report in February, during which Nvidia posted increases of 16% and 36% in revenue and profits, respectively, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said, "My expectation is that we'll gain market share this year or we'll continue to gain market share this year." ...

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Betting on BB&T

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:10:49 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet)- On more than one occasion, I've sang the praises of BB&T to just about anyone who cared to listen.

While this regional bank does not carry the high profile of JPMorgan Chase or the consistency of Wells Fargo , BB&T was not bruised like many of its peers during the financial crisis.

Even though the stock has stagnated recently, the company does possess a solid operation and considerable value. ...

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Yes, Apple Still Dominates. However ...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Get a load of the comments section of the YouTube version of my Friday appearance on CNN.

While I'm not surprised at the behavior of a minority with Internet beer muscles, the parts of the interview they took exception to bemuse.

...

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Cisco CFO: Services Still Strong

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:00 EDT

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Cities Need More Starbucks, Not CityTargets

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:45:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- A few months ago, after visiting CityTargets in Downtown San Francisco and near UCLA in Los Angeles, I called Target's urban concept stores major disappointments, though not necessarily epic failures.

Here's the deal: To refer to what Target does in core neighborhoods of big cities as a "concept" belittles the word. I always thought a concept was something bigger than an obvious and poorly-executed idea. There's absolutely no innovation in Target's urban push. It's merely a workaround of city planning regulations and activist opposition.

We'll get updated numbers from Target shortly after it reports earnings on Wednesday, but don't expect much change from the above-citied article. CityTargets -- speaking quantitatively (actual square footage data) and qualitatively (the way they "feel") -- are hardly different from any other type of Target outpost, except SuperTargets. Starbucks Is Urban, CityTarget Is Not ...

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