Intel Q1 2015

You can read my appraisal of Intel at Seeking Alpha:

Intel Q1 was a Dinosaur Egg

You can also see my notes on the Intel Q1 2015 analyst conference.

It's interesting how at Seeking Alpha my most profitable articles tend to get ignored, but if I write about a company like Intel I get far more page views (Seeking Alpha pays me by the page view). Just for instance, anyone who has been following my series on Dot Hill (See my main Dot Hill page for links) and taken a chance buying HILL has done far better than anyone who has invested in Intel (INTC) lately. Of course, I do a lot of educated guessing, so I do guess wrong once in a while. So be careful, think for yourself, and

Keep Diversified!

AMD woes and wishes

I had an article published at Seeking Alpha about AMD's third quarter results and prospects:

AMD Seasonality Does Not Imply Failure

You can also see my notes on the Thursday, October 16 AMD analyst conference

AMD remains problematic. The company is the only competitor to Intel and Nvidia, and so keeps them from overcharging consumers. But the benefits to AMD investors have been non-existent for years. I own AMD stock, but it has been a serious drag on my portfolio.

One interesting thing about writing for Seeking Alpha is that AMD is the subject of intense interest there. This has to be because the online community recognizes AMD as one of the two PC CPU makers. So far (5 PM Pacific Time) there are 31 comments on the article. My typical article, which would be far more valuable to investors, gets just 3 to 5 comments. The first commenter is Ashraf Eassa, who I first saw as a Seeking Alpha writer, who had long pushed Intel and bashed AMD, and who graduated (if you can call it that) to be a regular columnist for Motley Fool. All I am saying is, based on a limited sample, that there is no correspondence between the number of comments at Seeking Alpha and the performance of the stock commented on.

This week and next week I will be covering mostly biotechnology stocks. Illumina reported record results yesterday, Intuitive Surgical reported earlier today, tomorrow morning Biogen Idec reports.

AMD versus Nvidia

I have a new article at Seeking Alpha:

Advanced Micro Devices Versus Nvidia: Is There Anything For Investors In Their Final Battle?

As stated there, I own AMD stock. While I don't own NVDA, I have owned it in the past, and like the company.

For details on the latest quarter results, and Q&A with analysts, you can see my notes at OpenIcon:

Nvidia Q3 2013 results and analyst call

AMD Q3 2013 results and analyst call

This is an epic battle, with a surreal sense since both companies make the chips that power computer games. I don't see an obvious winner. Both companies have beaten-down stock prices, but AMD's is more downtrodden than Nvidia's.

There are already 13 comments at Seeking Alpha. I write about both IT stocks and biotech stocks, and I have noticed that there are a lot more comments on IT stocks. It appears a lot of IT guys who are investors are members of the Seeking Alpha community.

They are a sharp bunch. They will fill in many details about AMD and Nvidia. They will pounce on any errors I made. The shorts will challenge my pro-long details, and the longs will challenge my pro-short details. It is a debate not dissimilar to what you see at sites like www.anandtech.com when someone reviews an AMD or Nvidia gaming card. But generally more polite, less sarcastic, and more fact driven.

I've been covering and investing in and out of Nvidia and AMD for a long time. For a long-term, historic view check out my numerous links to old article and analyst conference summaries at:

Openicon AMD
Openicon NVDA

Cantel Medical (CMN) update

In retrospect, one of my luckiest stock picks has been Cantel Medical (CMN) a manufacturer of sterilization and infection control equipment.

Yesterday the stock hit a record high after the market digested its morning report on its fiscal Q4, and the analyst conference. Hansen is still a small cap, so it is not well-covered by Wall Street, sell-side analysts. I've been covering it since before I bought it in 2009.

My Seeking Alpha article on it is:

Cantel Medical: Proven Aggressive Growth and Stock Returns [September 27, 2013]

My summary of Q4 is: Cantel Medical (CMN) Q4 2013 results and analyst call

For earlier analyst conference summaries and stories see Cantel Medical (CMN) Analysis and News

I own stock in CMN. Because it grew so quickly, at one point it violated one of my portfolio rules (not too much of any one stock) and I sold a portion of my original stake. I has split twice since I bought it. It pays a small dividend.

For those who wonder about how Seeking Alpha works, I would share that contributors get paid per page view. Hence, if you are writing mainly for pay, you want to cover large cap stocks that have a lot of shareholders, and especially stocks that are constantly in the news, like Apple and Facebook. There is basically no pay for covering small caps like Cantel. I made $3.60 on my last Cantel article. Hence, small cap stocks tend to be under-covered at Seeking Alpha, just as they are elsewhere. Another issue is pump and dump. Because they are thinly traded, small caps are subject to attempts to pump and dump them.

Seeking Alpha articles also can warn you about overpriced stocks. Often in the feedback you can read a contrarian view, which at least should discourage hasty decision making.

But for that very reason, small-cap stocks also are more likely to harbor undiscovered value than large-caps.

I am a long-term investor and write for long-term investors. I think  the vast majority of writers on Seeking Alpha are honest, but even honest writers (including me) can get over-excited about a stock. Never buy a stock without first, at minimum, reading the recent SEC documents and running the numbers yourself. That is true of large cap stocks as well. Look for value. Don't try to be a momentum player unless you are an insider. Never fully trust anyone. And above all:

Keep diversified!

Dot Hill Outlook and Change to Seeking Alpha

In the past I have posted articles here. Seeking Alpha has reposted some, but not all of my articles.

Because so many more people are viewing the articles at Seeking Alpha than here, I am now posting the articles first at Seeking Alpha. I will post a link to the Seeking Alpha articles here.

Articles not appropriate for Seeking Alpha will continue to appear here.

Here's my first link:

 Dot Hill Sees 2013 Revenue Ramp And Profitability

To see all my articles:

William Meyers at SeekingAlpha.com

Keep diversified!