We have read the Stalwart since they started and they are one of a few goto blogs we depend on to do the voodoo that we do so well. They are now back from an almost six month hiatus and we implore you to resume your reading of The Stalwart, if you had stopped. If it is new, commence your reading immediately. You will not be disappointed.
Taxes are due April 17th. It is April 7th. That gives you 10 days to create an elaborate tax shelter scheme involving Bermuda shell companies or a family of 740 phantom children you could claim as dependents to minimize your tax liability. This is a tight timetable even if you have top tier tax lawyers working around the clock billing you at $1100 a pop, so we recommend you start your taxes immediately.
Remember that if you don’t get your taxes done, you will die alone.
Cohort and comrade, Equity Private, has created the 2007 Going Private Awards “intended to recognize the contributions of individuals and organizations to financial and economic ignorance, the elimination of market economies and the destruction of economic efficiency everywhere.” These are the most important awards ever created. LoS readers should submit nominations for the awards below to equityprivate@hushmail.com. The deadline is August 1st, 2007.
The Enron M&A Prize
…Presented to the management team responsible for the merger, acquisition, sale or divestiture causing the most extensive financial damage to equity or bond holders.
The Daniel Loeb “Chief Value Destroyer” Award
…Presented to the senior executive most responsible for the destruction of shareholder value.
The Maxwell Smart Prize for Mediocrity in Financial Journalism
…Presented to the financial journalist issuing the most sweeping generalizations, possessed of the weakest grasp of finance and most the deficient command of economics. (Note: As the prize has already been awarded to Justin Fox of Time, only submissions for “runner up” will be accepted).
The Thai Medal
…Awarded to the individual or organization most responsible for fostering regulatory or legislative initiatives leading to the frustration of efficient markets.
Fact: It’s that time of year again. The Ides of March has passed and tax season is engulfing the time space continuum.
Fact: Despite your well-founded reasoning which supports your stance that the federal income tax is unconstitutional, you need to face the facts. The government has more guns than you, so your cache of weapons on your ranch in that remote part of Manhattan will not allow you to avoid paying income taxes on your excessive compensation.
Fact: No woman has ever said “Oh you haven’t filed your taxes yet? I find that so sexy, and now that I know that about you, I would like to show you a special happy time.”
Recommendation: As your friend, and abstract financial advisor, we recommend you file your taxes immediately through this link or you risk dying alone, just like all of our readers who opted NOT to buy their GFs flowers. Things that will probably happen if you do not file your taxes through this link:
We broke it, we fixed it, we are you go to source for breaking and fixing. Submit your research to us here.
We have noticed that there is a tremendous of talent lurking in the comments and around the periphery of our site. “You” is an asset that Long or Short Capital would like to exploit. We encourage you to try out our new Submit feature and submit to us hilarious financial articles and that, funny permitting, we can publish for all your anonymous peers to see. Let’s see what shakes out.
Submit Now and often.
It has come to out attention that Mother Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) blocks our site which amazed us. That’s some serious net-nannying to block a site that lacks anything but incredible research and commentary which has been scientifically proven to generate amazing investment returns.
Do any of your firms block us? Feel free to leave a comment or email us (misterjuggles@gmail.com”) if your firm blocks us. This is just to tickle our curiousity. Anonymity will be preserved and respected as always, especially if you give us some material non-public information to Hold based on.
Long or Short Capital’s fiscal 2nd Quarter ended on 1/31/07, and the company reported its results in a press release:
Mr Juggles: “Good afternoon everyone, let me first state:
‘WOW we really killed it’.
Second, let me welcome everyone on the line to hear me talk about our 2nd consecutive best quarter ever. In the Q1 call, I let you know that we had been internally focused on the so-called “sequential same store traffic figure” and we delivered a “Googlesque” 146%; this quarter we delivered a 50% increase in SSST on top of that that elevated level. I’d like to reiterate the fact that we really killed it and you should say things like “Great quarter guys” and “Thanks for letting me talk in this Q&A, I promise to ask ticky tacky irrelevant questions to perfect my model and not any questions about your sketchy use of SAAP”.
But this quarter was not all about traffic. Our new primary internal focus was on a metric known as the “Eyeball Monetization Conversion” ratio. It’s a proxy for Long or Short’s efficiency at turning our readers into dollars. Last quarter our EMC ratio was $8.43 per thousand readers — note this is not based on page views; this quarter we launched initiatives and improved our mix to drive our EMC to $18.39. None of our competitors can say the same thing, proving that we have maintained our best in class performance.
We generated earnings per subscriberholder of $2.12 compared to $0.60 in Q1’07 and $0.38 in Q4’06. We generated $1,150 in revenue for the quarter, a 489% increase YOY, and 228% sequentially. We re-experimented with Adsense starting in October, and while we eked out decent performance through December, revenue per a click fell off a cliff in January forcing us to switch our ad sourcing back to the Yahoo! Publisher platform. Our timing turned out to be perfect as our revenue per click increased by 3-4x while our CTR increased reasonably, the latter more unexpected than the former. Text link advertising became the stalwart of our topline, although a smaller % contribution than expected. We sold all our inventory for the first time to date and are positioned for a round of price increases. We also exceeded expectations in some of our one-off initiatives including “Operation Sell Our Christmas Spirit Through Amazon.com” and our late in the month experimentation with CPA ads for Valentine’s Day.
Our subscribership increased from 381 to 508.
Our free cash flow took a big hit from working capital, which was unavoidable due to our topline growth. At 81.5% of sales, this is an area we know we need to improve and I’m confident we have the people in place to get it done and effect the necessary changes. Three weeks into February, we have already made headway towards this goal. We want to be at 30-35% of sales maximum.
We had our best quarter ever in terms of revenue, free cash flow and qualifying traffic. This may sound familiar because I said the same exact thing last quarter. Let me tell you something, I really hope to be on this call with you guys and gals three months from now saying the same exact thing for the third time in a row. Thanks for your time, and have a great afternoon.”
Note that the financials below are unaudited and may contain non-GAAP measures. All numbers comply with Seldom Accepted Accounting Principles (SAAP).
Unaudited Financial Results for Q2’07
Income Statement
Contextual CPC Revenue $239.24
CPA Revenue $120.32
Static Ad Revenue $783.41
Other Revenue $8
Total Revenue $1,150.97Cost of Sales $19.55
One Time Charge $45.00
Marketing Expense $7.55
Operating Income $1,078.87
Balance Sheet
Cash $557.55
Accounts Receivable $787.43
Inventory $0.00
Prepaid Marketing/Hosting/Reg $150.95
Accounts Payable $0
Cash Flow Statement
Operating Cash Flow $470.70
Capex $0.00
Dividends $X.00
Performance Metrics
Visits 62,570
Pageviews 134,555
Clicks on ads 313
Subscribers by Email 109
Subscribers by XML 399
Inbound Links per Technorati 461 from 132 Sites
Technorati Rank 25,370
Inbound Links per Google ~367 sites
Google PageRank 5
Past Results (due to our reliance on SAAP, previous unaudited financial results are not reliable)
Long or Short Capital Q1’06 Results
Long or Short Capital Q2’06 Results
Long or Short Capital Q3’06 Results
Long or Short Capital Q4’06 Results
Long or Short Capital Q1’07 Results
Seriously it’s getting ridiculous. Valentine’s Day is less than two weeks away. Do you want to die alone? No? Then hedge your flower exposure immediately.
If you fail to get these flowers, and your gf breaks up with you, you can no longer cheat on her with your mistress. And if your girlfriend AND your mistress dump you, you won’t be able to cheat on them with the eastern european escorts your firm supplies you with. Think about that. Get it done.
Long or Short Capital’s second quarter of fiscal year 2007 closed on January 31st, 2007. After reviewing our financials, we have determined that the quarterly dividend will be the ceiling level of $1.50 per a subscriberholder as of 1/31/2007. To qualify, all you need to be is a subscriber, either by XML or E-mail, as of 1/31/2007. If you were not, you will not be eligible.
For more information on how to collect your cash or cash equivalent dividend for Q2, please refer to our Dividend Policy. Given our float of 508 subscriberstakes (as of 1/31/2007), a 5% growth assumption and our trailing twelve months total of dividends of $3.17 per subscriber, our current capitalization is $56,362 using a dividend discount model. Our market cap has grown 28.3% sequentially.
“Capitalist” is a loaded word.
Some people think a “capitalist” is a pig. Some think a “capitalist” is someone who takes advantage of others and exploits any resource he can to get wealthy. Some people think a “capitalist” is someone who believes in hard smart work. Some people conflate it with entrepeneur. Some people think it can be a woman. Still others think “capitalist” defines a type of person who sees fit to crush the weak. The glorious thing about being “capitalists” such as ourselves, is that ALL these things are true. Except the ridiculous part about being a woman; a woman cannot be a capitalist. We looked it up.
This week, we exploit the position as host of the Carnival of the Capitalists to give you the 15 best submissions (of 56 non-spam entries) related to capitalism. These are the best and in a competition with all the other articles, these are the winners. That is not to say the people whose articles did not get posted are losers, but in this case, they did in fact lose and are in fact losers. These are facts. We looked it up.
In no order here are the entries of this week’s “Carnival of the Capitalists”:
Tomorrow’s News Today provided by Avant News: Ford Motor Company Preemptively Recalls 6.1 Million 2011 Models.
“As part of our continuing Way Forward policy,” the spokesman, Philip Vaughn, said, “which encapsulates our commitment to economy, responsibility and quality assurance, Ford Motor Company will preemptively recall every vehicle we plan to produce in the next year. By holding the recall before a single consumer ever gets behind the wheel of one of our cars, Ford is proving its commitment to these important values.”
Charles Green speaks to how American Idol is empowering incompetents:
One contestant, asked why he believed his (miserable) performance rated a “yes,” replied, “because I love it [the song].” If I believe, it will happen.
It’s the same in business. Empowerment is great—to unleash organizational talent. But empowering incompetents is absurd—an attempt to defy reality….
The “just believe” message is ubiquitous: in self-help books, sports (“I guess the other guys wanted it more than we did”), movies (“if you build it, they will come”), fuzzy-think gurus (“start believing and acting like you’re already a millionaire, and you will get there!”).
Axed Idol contestants blame the judges, anyone but themselves. The reality-distortion field is huge.
James Hamilton of the excellent Econbrowser asks What would Milton do?, especially appropriate on Milton Friedman Day.
And what about right at the moment? Friedman was concerned not just that excessively rapid money growth would cause inflation, but also that decreases in the money supply were often the cause of an economic recession. By that standard, if M2 had been growing less than 1 or 2% over the last year, the Friedman perspective would lead me to have additional concerns that the Fed had gone to far in the recent tightening episode.
SoxFirst puts forth that maybe companies going private or out of business as a result of Sarbanes-Oxley isn’t a net positive for the public.
The disturbing part about that trend is that it undermines one of the great strengths of the markets in the US, Canada, Europe and Great Britain and Australia with the rise of the citizen investor.
The Big Picture gives a real life example of a tax credit that could be straight out of Catch 22:
It is ironic – and patently unfair – that a technology could be denied credit precisely because the company has the ability to pull it off.
Photon Courier points to evidence of an ultracap capacitor energy solution coming to market:
EESTOR’s system claims an energy storage capacity of 280 watt-hours per kilogram: this compares with 120 for lithium-ion and only 32 for lead-acid gel batteries. It is, however, still far below the energy storage per kilogram achieved by gasoline, even when the poor conversion efficiency of the engine is taken into account. Still, if these numbers–cost as well as energy density–can really be achieved, then the implications for transportation and for other energy-related fields could be pretty profound.
The Digerati Life examines their own investment portfolio, which looks a lot like LoS’s portfolio but with substantially less returns and substantially higher risk:
Interestingly, the growth of this portfolio — the total increase being 40% in the last 20 months — is attributed mainly to two reasons: stock market gains and stock option sales which we were forced to apply when my spouse resigned from his corporate job to strike it out on his own.
Lip-sticking provides some commentary on how to market to women, but oddly not one mention of the Pink Dollar:
Do you talk to the women you want to sell to? No, I mean really. Not just announcing new products or writing sales copy or mouthing off in your blog. Do you talk to your female customers on a regular basis? Do you have monthly events to which you invite customers – giving away ‘free’ stuff, including spa coupons, or dinner coupons, or mall coupons – and then create a conversation around a topic that is important to them? Do you do this? Or, do you read blogs and newspapers and magazines and think you have us figured out?
SportsBiz undertakes the implications of DirecTV’s pan-sport exclusivity with MLB soon to be undertheir belt:
All signs now point to Major League Baseball following the path first laid out by the NFL and moving its Extra Innings package of virtually unlimited games broadcast with local announcers exclusively to Direct TV, in return for a mere $700 million.
Overseas Property points to budding enthusiasm for Brazilian real estate:
Budding property hotspots continue to garner international investor interest with up and coming locations such as Morocco and Turkey making their presence felt in the survey. Brazil property however has risen from obscurity to second place behind Bulgarian property to overtake property in Dubai, whose marketing overdrive has assured its potential overseas property all-star status.
InsureBlog gives a point by point commentary on the healthcare portion of this week’s State of the Union:
But many Americans cannot afford a health insurance policy.
Actually, most CAN afford health insurance. They just need to be reasonable in the way they approach managing their money and risk.
Moneyandfinance talks about the Social Security tax in the context of tax brackets:
By looking at hard numbers we can try to remove politics from it and see its effect on people and society. Increasing the social security tax rates will burden even more our lower income people and will create an ever flatter curve. Not doing something to fix social security now will create bigger issues to solve that will make society do hard decisions: like increasing retirement age or increasing social security tax, burdening people even more.
Searchlight Crusade gives an example of what happens to your home equity during a foreclosure which given the current real estate climate is worth knowing:
So if you cannot afford your payments, and you’re looking down the road at a trustee’s sale, it is usually in your best interests to get the property sold before that happens.
Small Business Trends shines the light on pet industry trends for 2007 — expect strong growth as baby boomers continue their self-indulgence using their pets as a proxy.
3. Growing interest in pet health care.
This includes non-invasive surgeries, human medical devices and services being applied to pets, super-premium foods aimed at specific ailments, and alternative therapies, such as acupuncture, massage, and behavioral therapies. High end diagnostics, such as MRIs, will become more widely available for pets, with the price dropping accordingly. Online veterinary pharmaceuticals will become more main stream. Pet lovers want, and are demanding, the same treatment options for their pets as they can get for themselves.
Last but not least, Innovation Zen points to a lead indicator as to who will win the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray — Can Porn Affect Innovation:
The question then becomes: will the adult movie industry play an equally important role on the format war between Sony’s Blu-Ray and Toshiba’s HD-DVD?
It is not clear yet, but should the answer turn out to be “Yes†Sony will need a lot of lucky to avoid losing again. Most of pornographic movie producers, in fact, are going with the Toshiba HD-DVD format after Sony refused to give Blu-Ray licenses to porn movies.
Fact: Your girlfriend and/or your potential girlfriend and/or your mistress needs flowers to sustain her existence. It’s a mission critical input without which she may perish. So if you can’t source flowers for her, she will go to most proximal male asset who CAN source flowers for her. This would be disastrous for you personally and professionally.
Fact: Flowers are more available now than they will be on Valentine’s Day in 2 weeks.
Fact: Anything can happen to the flower supply in two weeks. If bird flu mutates into a virus capable of flower to flower transmission, who is to say there will be any flowers available on the spot market.
Considering this, we are downgrading any male firm with an unhedged exposure to the flower market to “Less likely to get some” from “Probably getting some“.
Recommendation: Buy your girlfriend / “friend” / mistress / boss / potential girlfriend flowers immediately. It’s our pleasure, being that we are smarter than you, to provide you with the link to the shop above to hedge your flower exposure and prevent personal ruin. Reserve your flowers today. This is in no way a latch ditch effort to juice our 2nd quarter (ending Jan 31) financial results.
Inspired by this video about dead puppies, I think I’d kill a puppy for $5000 assuming it belonged to no one. What about you? Everything has a price.
This is a sponsored post from ReviewMe
What if there was an online market place for small time venture capital fund raising? Would that be something you might interested in? That is what the The Go BIG Network’s Venture Capital Funding provides. I love markets, so much so that I’ve played Monopoly games wherein we have created ad hoc derivative markets to better match the demand for complex financing of fictional real estate projects. But this market seems to be plagued by that which plagues most Internet marketplaces: Low quality listings. It’s unclear whether this because the quality controls of the site itself are weak or that this is just an unstoppable internet phenomena.
Take two listings available today.
Travel Packages worth $15,000 for one-time fee of only $1,295 /couple Around The Woprld Travel Packages
Recreation – Travel Packages and more…
Not only is this just an advertisement for some crappy spamlike vacation package, but they don’t even misspell “World.”
Real Estate Co. Seeks 250,000 for mulit unit projects Baxter Enterprise Investments, Inc
Funding needed for rehabing projects short term
Keep looking for $250k, because who would fund someone that much who can’t even take the time to review their 10 word title for mistakes.
But this doesn’t address whether this marketplace actually works. Does this market connect venture capital with those who need it? It’s difficult to say. But my gut feeling is that in the modern world, the types of businesses who would use this market are precisely the ones who are not capital constrained to begin with. Most online ideas are likely to be critical mass constrained.
The GO BiG Network itself is essentially a social networking site for VC’s, wannabe VC’s, wannabe VC funded entrepeneurs and wannabe VC funded wannabe entrepeneurs. From their about page:
The Problem We Solve
The startup community is highly disconnected. Startups, investors, job seekers and service providers all need one another to survive and grow yet at the same time they are hindered by their own lack of connectivity. Go BIG allows members of the startup community to connect faster by exposing all of the demands of the startup community in one place.
Recommendation: We peg The Go BIG Network’s Venture Capital Funding as market neutral; no harm to play with it just like the online C2C debt lending site Prosper.com. We can’t be short something that has no downside other than time. The catalyst for an upward revision of our sentiment would be the development of a critical mass market place. And if that critical mass market were to gain critical mass, we would expect this site to be bigger than eBay.
