Comments on: Buy Microsoft MSFT: This is as bad as it gets

By: topdog53711

topdog53711 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:45:36 +0000

I been in the IT business for over 50 years and in the market for 55 years and I say don’t buy now. Sales of xp will continue to drop until they bottom out when 7 is released. I would wait at least until after next quarter’s earnings are released. I thin another drop is possible. Then about the 1st of the year a buy will be in order.

By: slee12dent

slee12dent — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:44:13 +0000

I’ve been selling puts when a stock gets slammed hard. Its a great way to establish position but also getting paid while you wait through time decay. As for microsoft, I do think we are going to wait a bit before the stock takes off. Ryanpatrik…I am using interactive broker and I strongly recommend it for put writing due to its ultra low commssion.

By: ryanpatrik

ryanpatrik — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:10:55 +0000

slee12dent…..great idea selling the puts. I went out even further and sold the jan11 20s before the recent runup and cashed them out for a nice profit. After MSFT drops a bit closer to 20 I just may do it again. MSFT has a lot of downside protection because of it’s cash position and it’s solid reliable cashflow, so selling puts is not overly risky and as I said above you don’t have a lot of upside that you may miss by not just buying the stock.

By: ryanpatrik

ryanpatrik — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:48:58 +0000

Jim, I have to agree with Algalli that MSFT does not stand out as a great buy amongst all the others out there at the moment. At $20 or less, perhaps, but not now. They will have difficulty maintaining sales levels, let alone increasing them because the way people use software is passing them by. MSFT mobile apps are not preferred, APPL is encroaching on the PC market share, GOOG and the rise of netbooks are cannibalizing their margins on Office and Windows and they still have losses greater than even revenue from online business. MSFT will be a nice cash engine for a few more years if they cut costs but I see no real catalysts for any real growth. With limited resources, there seem to be a lot of better choices don’t you think?

By: slee12dent

slee12dent — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:23:05 +0000

I believe microsoft is getting less and less money for its OS. We are still currently using XP in our office and do not want to upgrade to vista. Why? Because xp is reliable and works well with our software, and there is absolutely no need to upgrade our software. I think the trend for pc is going simple…less is better. Imagine a low netbook with qcom cpu and google o.s. that run as good as the windows notebook but with better battery life.

I sold some Jan10 $20 puts for a nice premium. That way you are protected if the shares falls 10-20%, which can happen if this rally stalls.