Google and Motorola Mobility: Leaks?

After taking a very brief time to celebrate being right on my call that Google would buy Motorola Mobility (http://limbinvest.blogspot.com/2011/05/google-will-acquire-motorola-mobility.html), I began to think about recent events.  Motorola Mobility was inexplicably going up last week in the midst of the market's crash.  I thought nothing of it at the time, other than to tell myself that perhaps others were finally recognizing the value I had seen, even in the midst of chaos.  Now, however, the rise does seem curious.  I am not the only one to wonder if, perhaps, some folks knew about the acquisition in advance and acted on it:

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/08/15/was-there-advance-word-of-google-motorola-deal/?mod=msn_money_ticker

Google (Goog) and Motorola Mobility (MMI): I Was Right

I'm always wary of the dangers of ego but I told you all about this one back in May:  Google will buy Motorola Mobility.  Only, I predicted a five year time horizon, not five months:

http://limbinvest.blogspot.com/2011/05/google-will-acquire-motorola-mobility.html

It's good to be right about something this big but you're only as good as your last pick, so I'm going back to my studies...  

Low Priced Stock Performance During Market Crash

Apparently, low priced stocks have performed quite a bit better than their peers in the recent dark days of the market:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/286358-surprisingly-smaller-stocks-went-up-when-the-market-dropped?source=msn

Anecdotal (very) evidence of the low price anomaly. 

Google Revisited: I Sold

Like anyone else, I like to point out when I'm right (unlike many, I'll also point out when I'm wrong).  Here's what I said in a recent post about whether I should sell Google when it spiked to over $600/share:

I bought Google at $537 per share (after in an earlier life buying it at $247 and selling at $320 -- there is perhaps another lesson there).  As some of you may have noticed, Google has spiked dramatically to over $600 per share after reporting earnings.  I do believe that it's worth much more than $600 ultimately but it's tough not to sell it after the recent upswing because I think the world generally is in for more negative economic news which will once again depress Google. 

The bolded language has been validated.  I sold while Google was still at $615.  It's now at $547.  One for the win column but I am the last person to beat my chest.  Back to the desk...

Correlating Unemployment, TV Watching, Crown Media,and Hallmark

Consistent with my low price anomaly strategy (one among several, admittedly), I've been taking a look at Crown Media Holdings (CRWN), which operates the Hallmark Channel.  It's trading around $1.70/share, has a well-known trademark (courtesy of Hallmark itself), and has recently secured the services of a well-known celebrity in Martha Stewart.  These are assets I can understand at a price I like.  Thinking about Crown a lot led to a sudden curiosity:  has the elevated unemployment rate of recent years led to an increase in television watching?  Apparently, there is some evidence for this:

http://moneyland.time.com/2011/06/23/americans-spend-more-time-sleeping-watching-tv-brewing-beer-is-unemployment-the-reason/

There is another thing I find appealing about the Hallmark Channel -- the generally innocent level of its programming.  I've been feeling recently that parents may soon start rebeling about the general slumming down of TV programming (and perhaps American life in general which takes some cues from TV).  See Miley Cyrus' tattoos or virtually any show on ABC Family for an example of what I'm talking about.  The Hallmark Channel has wholesome programming and a wholesome image.  Won't American families ultimately want more of this? 

Some Strange Things About Search

This is not an investment idea per se but does bear on the topic.  I've gotten curious about how one would check how often a particular search term is used by folks using Google and Yahoo.  It seems that the quick way of finding this out is to use Google Trends and Yahoo Buzz. Both of these services also list the "top" searches for a given day.  There is something puzzling about the results, however:  there is almost no overlap between the most popular searches reported by Google and Yahoo.  Now, I understand that the companies may calculate search numbers differently but no overlap whatsoever seems to me very odd.  I'm going to look into this further and set up a separate blog to track and explain this.

To Sell Google or Not to Sell Google, That is the Question

I bought Google at $537 per share (after in an earlier life buying it at $247 and selling at $320 -- there is perhaps another lesson there).  As some of you may have noticed, Google has spiked dramatically to over $600 per share after reporting earnings.  I do believe that it's worth much more than $600 ultimately but it's tough not to sell it after the recent upswing because I think the world generally is in for more negative economic news which will once again depress Google.  I'll think on this some more but why do I think Google is worth much more?  A host of reasons but compare it to Microsoft, which is arguably a proxy for similar growth.  Google began life trading at less than $100 per share.  It now trades for 6x that.  I dare say that Microsoft is now trading at far more than 6x its initial offering price.  Yes, I know, there are differences but rough measures in these instances are useful, I think.  Also, new computers using Google Chrome are selling quite well.  One more step toward the browser as operating system, the "dumb box" computer accessing a smart cloud, and Google eclipse of Microsoft.