Barron's Online is running a short interview with Fred Hickey, editor of The High-Tech Strategist newsletter and one of the most interesting members of the Barron's Roundtables.
Hickey talks about a lot of tech companies that I don't own. But one that I do is Microsoft (MSFT), which is a large holding in my portfolio. Hickey has been bullish on MSFT recently, and hasn't changed:
Going forward, all the new product upgrades will be a boon. I had taken some shares off, in Q4, when the stock was very strong, cutting the position in half. This was the only quarter you could see any disappointment. I've been saying it can go up 50%, 45%. They had blow-out numbers in Q4, they were outstanding. I think you'll see those numbers return when we see July and September and January numbers. I think we could see Microsoft regain some cache. People were very negative a couple years ago. People called it the next Smith Corona, which was insane. People thought they had lost their way. It takes time to turn around that kind of sentiment. There's the threat of Google with its "Chrome" operating system software, and the threat of Apple's Mac gaining share. The Internet search business, with Bing, would be upside if it works. If Bing continues to gain share, and they add Yahoo's piece to it, then it's all upside. You're buying Windows, and Office, and Sharepoint [collaboration software], which is fantastic, and MS Exchange [email server software], and they all work together, and it's the dominant business platform. There's some concern about their position in phone [with Windows Phone 7 software], from Apple and Google, but I don't know why. It's not a big part of their business.
And here's his view of the big picture:
It's more cloudy than it's ever been because there's more intervention in the market than there's ever been. The market is not an effective pricing mechanism right now. The economy wouldn't be rebounding as it is without this economic stimulus that is really unprecedented in this country's modern times. And I think that's what's driving this market higher. It is a liquidity-driven market. I worry about that. I would prefer to see a crisis occur. I don't think the path we're on is the right one. I don't think we should be printing money. Coming out of that bubble in 2002, we saw tremendous asset inflation that didn't help our competitiveness, and we were kicking the can down the road. We're going to get a short-term labor market rebound, I'm afraid, but it's not going to be a real one.
I'll only add that nothing has happened to make me re-think my gold and gold mining stock positions.
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