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Viking

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Well according to Wikipedia you're right ERICOPOLY - thanks for the heads up.  However, even though I'd no longer get the benefit of the tax loss I'm still thinking about trading out the common shares for LEAPS. 

 

Basically, my thought is if a stock goes up and you own LEAPS/Options then it might make sense to sell the LEAPS/Options and buy the common.  Conversely if the stock goes down and you own the common then it might make sense to sell the common and buy the LEAPS/Options.  Does that make sense?

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Humm I thought it wasnt a wash. I do it all the time. When my leaps go down, I sell them and buy deeper down in the money. I will have to research this.

 

Also this is getting Interesting, Berkowitz has the resources to verify that Cisco moat / market share is sustainable. All roads point to large caps. I hate this whole subtract the cash game, hate that cash is largely trapped overseas, hate the fact that its tough to see where these are going, but its the only game in town nowadays it seems.

 

Getting more interesting by the day with Paulson in HP, HP getting pounded afterhours (LOL), and now Berkowitz in Cisco.

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]I just bough some shares of Cisco today. The rationale was that after reviewing all the cheap teck stocks it was the one where the outlook could be the longest.

 

The switching side of the business will continue to have tailwind for some time 10-15 years easily.

 

Cisco is a dominant player and even if China's knockoff would bang on doors I don't believe any serious company is willing to risk it's network infrastructure yet. Plus there is many patents still active on the Cisco portfolio.

 

It's not like the american cars in the 80s... Cisco is still offering a quality product that meet their customer's needs.

 

They have tons of money on the balance sheet that they can't bring back to the USA. I can't see how in the last 18 month of his presidency would allow to leave off the table a tax lift on foreign cash to try to boost the economy. Obama will need all it's aces ... and he will use them!

 

Regards

BeerBaron

 

 

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Well according to Wikipedia you're right ERICOPOLY - thanks for the heads up.  However, even though I'd no longer get the benefit of the tax loss I'm still thinking about trading out the common shares for LEAPS. 

 

Were they to be fair about things, there should also be a "wash buy" too, right?  Like, if I sell for a gain and buy it back within a month, I am then not realizing a gain and thus no tax due (yet).

 

It's these one-sided rules that makes me want to not be a team player -- so I try to minimize my tax burden even though I too use public services like roads and schools.

 

Laying out fair rules in the first place, my attitude may be different.

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Rules of network design.

 

Rule 1 : Don't mess with security

Rule 2 : Don't forget rule 1

 

By the way. DOS attacks can hurt any servers/link, there is very little providers can do to protect against them. It's not hacking as it does not steel information.

 

BeerBaron

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My education and earlier background was in computer science. It really surprises me whenever I hear that CSCO or MSFT moat is not big enough and thats the reason not to invest. Yes, they are getting challenged but at current price, they don't need to do anything more than what they have been doing to be a reasonable investment. In my opinion, their moat is deep enough to allow anyone to make reasonable projections of their businesses for atleast next 4-5 years. I don't think HPQ and DELL moat are anywhere close to MSFT/CSCO but they might be decent choice at current price.

 

In general, large techs are selling at decent price and some of them do have enough moat. Due to being in tech field , the moats are not huge enough to buy and come back after 20 years. But for the next 3-5 years, reasonable assumptions for some selected companies should work out fine.

 

 

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My education and earlier background was in computer science. It really surprises me whenever I hear that CSCO or MSFT moat is not big enough and thats the reason not to invest. Yes, they are getting challenged but at current price, they don't need to do anything more than what they have been doing to be a reasonable investment. In my opinion, their moat is deep enough to allow anyone to make reasonable projections of their businesses for atleast next 4-5 years. I don't think HPQ and DELL moat are anywhere close to MSFT/CSCO but they might be decent choice at current price.

 

In general, large techs are selling at decent price and some of them do have enough moat. Due to being in tech field , the moats are not huge enough to buy and come back after 20 years. But for the next 3-5 years, reasonable assumptions for some selected companies should work out fine.

 

 

I agree. You should also post this thought on the MSFT threads in General Discussion.
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I'm in government contracting.  Cisco is the router of choice. Has anyone seen a Leveno laptop used in the government? Or a Japanese car used by the Secret Service or any federal/state organization. It's buy american. Also, with HP/printing companies putting all this secret encryption in their printouts, I doubt the government wants to depend on a foreign company with their strategic information architecture... which can pass info to China, Russia or some enemy of the State.

 

 

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I was discussing with a friend in charge of implementing the networks of a large cable operator and he was stating two interesting things.

 

First, he says nobody in a developed country would buy a Chinese knock-off yet. The cost of downtime is huge and the customers expect 99.9999% uptime. The Chinese companies have won some big contracts in developing countries tough.

 

IPV6 will need to arrive very very soon, there is just no more IP addresses and it's becoming an ever increasing concern. Network operators have postponed it for the last 10 years but we are now at the river there is no more postponing. IPV6 would not requireme that much new server but a lot of software upgrades, which Cisco is really strong with. They are earning 60% gross margin on this service and it's likely that for the next few years that part will grow faster then the equipment side.

 

BeerBaron

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-3% in a slightly positive market today.

 

I am looking into this but have very little insight in tech. I am scared of management (big stock options, possibility of stupid acquistions because of amount of cash, see history...) and deterioration of margins but current valuation even gives some MOS for those factors.

 

I do believe earnings are of more quality than those of RIMM for example but the amount of cash is something I like to discount a lot.

 

 

 

 

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I do believe earnings are of more quality than those of RIMM for example but the amount of cash is something I like to discount a lot.

 

Both are different tough, one is a value play (CSCO) wile the other (RIM) is an asymetric risk/reward.

 

BeerBaron

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So it looks like more and more value fund managers are piling onto the Cisco bandwagon.

 

Tweedy Browne's thoughts on Cisco

http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2011/06/10/tweedy-browne-betting-cisco-will-hold-up-against-competition/

 

Bruce Berkowitz at the Morningstar Conference

http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2011/06/09/fairholmes-berkowitz-cisco-important-player-in-americas-continued-growth-still-bullish-on-goldman/?mod=BOLBlog

 

Eddie Lampert has added another 873,764 shares to his existing holdings and as of March 31, 2011 was up to 7,313,484 shares.

 

Barton Biggs says Cisco's way too cheap

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-07/biggs-avoiding-financials-says-cisco-intel-are-way-too-cheap-.html

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  • 2 months later...

Hi everyone,

 

Cisco was bought by Bruce Berkowitz in the first quarter and sold in the 2nd quarter...rather large stake (38 million).

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-15/fairholme-s-bruce-berkowitz-adds-to-bofa-holdings-sells-cisco-stake.html

 

Usually, what can be reasons for such a sell-off? Redemptions? Appreciate any thoughts on this...

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Well looking at his last filing which was for April

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1096344/000119312511111826/dnq.htm

 

it lists the total of the FAIRX fund at:

20,024,333,240.  Just over 20 billion.

 

Morningstar currently lists his assets at 13.4 billion.. I'm not sure where M* gets it's date but I'll assume it's more up to date.  As such he had to liquidate even more since then.  I guess since Cisco isn't in that sec listing he probably didn't liquidate due to redemptions..  But one can only imagine what his current fund makeup looks like.. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
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Anyone taken a second look at this over the past year? It seems their operating metrics have improved, such as RoA and OCF. Unfortunately though I'm not knowledgeable about their business.

 

I had actually come searching for this thread so that I could post a news article about Cisco. Didn't know this thread existed.. haha. But as it so happens, I have done some writeup on Cisco relatively recently.

 

http://startingat22.blogspot.ca/2012/05/stock-analysis-cisco-systems-inc.html

 

http://startingat22.blogspot.ca/2012/05/stock-follow-up-cisco-systems-inc.html

 

As for the news article, apparently Chinese telecoms are stopping usage of Cisco products. I suspect this has more to do with the US's position on Huawei products, but it could still have a significant negative impact on CSCO.

 

http://www.morningwhistle.com/html/2012/Company_Industry_1026/214830.html

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