intel

No doubt you’ve often read here that we recommend a three-pronged investment strategy:

1. Invest mainly in well-established companies with a history of sales and earnings, if not dividends;
2. Spread your money out across the five main economic sectors: Manufacturing & Industrial; Resources & Commodities; Consumer Goods & Services; Finance; Utilities;
3. Downplay or avoid stocks in the broker/media limelight. This limelight spurs investors to build up excessive expectations for these stocks. When the limelight stocks fail to live up to these excessive expectations, stock-price downturns can be sudden and brutal.

Recently a member asked a good question about item #3. He said, “You advise investors to downplay or avoid the broker/media limelight stocks, yet you continue to advise buying Google. I can’t think of a stock that’s more in the limelight than Google. It’s in the media every day. How does this square with your third principle?”...

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., $190.00, New York symbol IBM, reported lower-than-expected earnings and revenue for the latest quarter. That’s why the stock fell 8% on Friday. In the three months ended March 31, 2013, the company earned $3.03 billion. That’s down 1.1% from $3.07 billion a year earlier. IBM spent $2.6 billion on share buybacks in the latest quarter. Due to fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share rose 3.4%, to $2.70 from $2.61. Without unusual items, such as costs to integrate recently purchased companies, IBM’s earnings per share would have risen 7.9%, to $3.00 from $2.78. The gain was mainly the result of the company’s ongoing efforts to cut costs and improve productivity. Still, the latest earnings missed the consensus estimate of $3.05 a share....

POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $67.02 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers; www.invescopowershares. com), formerly called Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares, holds stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index. That index consists of the 100 largest shares on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap.

The Nasdaq 100 Index contains shares of companies in a number of major industries, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. The fund’s expenses are about 0.20% of its assets.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, Amazon.com, Oracle Corp., Comcast Corp. and eBay.

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Most stock markets have risen lately. But as always, they remain subject to unexpected downturns. Even so, the long-term outlook is for higher stock prices.

One way to profit from rising markets is to add exchange traded funds (ETFs) that track major stock indexes to your portfolio.

ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks....

INTEL CORP. $21 (Nasdaq symbol INTC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.0 billion; Market cap: $105.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 4.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.intel.com) earned $11.6 billion in 2012, down 14.4% from $13.5 billion in 2011....

Advanced Micro Devices, $2.53, symbol AMD on New York (Shares outstanding: 711.9 million; Market cap: $1.8 billion; www.amd.com), makes computer chips. The company produces microprocessors for desktop PCs, laptops and servers, including its Athlon, Turion, and Opteron designs, which are compatible with Microsoft Windows applications. AMD also makes circuits for communications equipment and graphics processors through ATI, which it bought for $5.4 billion in 2006. AMD’s graphics division is profitable, but demand for its chips is falling along with desktop PC sales as more consumers switch to mobile devices....

INTEL CORP. $21 (Nasdaq symbol INTC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.0 billion; Market cap: $105.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.9; Dividend yield: 4.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.intel.com) is the world’s leading maker of computer chips....

INTEL CORP. $21 (Nasdaq symbol INTC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.0 billion; Market cap: $105.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.9; Dividend yield: 4.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.intel.com) is the world’s leading maker of computer chips. Its products power about 80% of the world’s personal computers.

Intel’s revenue fell 8.4%, from $38.4 billion in 2007 to $35.1 billion in 2009. That’s because businesses and consumers put off upgrading their computers during the recession. However, pent-up demand pushed up its revenue by 24.2%, to $43.6 billion, in 2010. In 2011, revenue rose 23.8%, to $54.0 billion.

Strong sales boosted Intel’s profits
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POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $69.11 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers; www.invescopowershares. com), formerly called Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares, holds the stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index. That index is made up of the 100 largest shares on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap.

The Nasdaq 100 Index contains shares of companies in a number of major industries, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. The fund’s expenses are about 0.20% of its assets. The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, Amazon.com, Oracle Corp., Comcast Corp. and Kraft Foods Inc.

Most stock markets have risen lately. But as always, they remain subject to unexpected downturns. Even so, the long-term outlook is for higher stock prices. One way to profit from rising markets is to add exchange traded funds (ETFs) that track major stock indexes to your portfolio. ETF’s trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Prices are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You must pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell ETFs, but their low management fees still give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....