Stocks for Monday

**Broken Arrow** · 03-07-2009, 09:55 PM

It's... a very general question.

What is your investment style and risk tolerance?

What is your investment goal with this money?

What does the rest of your portfolio look like?

Is this particular $5k something you don't mind "losing" money on?

Are you OK with just buying one stock?

Are you OK buying a tech stock?

Are you OK buying a large cap dividend stock?

What made you decide to pick Microsoft in particular?

How do you feel about Microsoft's product pipeline (or the lack of)?

**yorkinvestmentreport** · 03-08-2009, 03:34 PM

Why MSFT specifically? Why not something more broad, or a diversified ETF that holds MSFT?

**Optsol** · 03-09-2009, 06:44 PM

MSFT's product cycle is declining.

I'm not a microsoft basher, but just an investor... declining rev growth in most segements. Between appl, and free operating systems (linux,ubuntu), and free office software (openoffice), msft is getting squeezed to death.

The cash cows that this bloated pig once relied upon are being eaten alive. I've been wanting to pull the trigger on ' valuation' but each time I sit down and think about it I shake my head and say... man -- they're screwed....

g/l

**Broken Arrow** · 03-10-2009, 05:47 AM

My thinking is along with Optsol on this as well. A tech company with no compelling product line is essentially dead in the water....

But to be fair, I've been countered by proponents that Microsoft isn't exactly a rickety boat out at the sea. Quite the contrary, their balance sheet is a force to be reckoned with, and they still have their hands in several potentially lucrative cookie jars. Current product line may have been duds, but some still have hope for what's coming down their pipeline. The biggest one is Windows 7.

Personally, I still see Microsoft as a "hold", but I admit that it's not a bad buy either. Whether Microsoft can get back on the path of prosperity remains to seen.

**Russell** · 03-10-2009, 09:16 AM

I pondered a few tech stocks myself (I'm in IT) but decided to go with a mutual fund, one that tracks the whole market, VTSMX. The reason was, I'm not certain how long the recession will last and which companies will survive and do well. However, I do know that the market as a whole will recover and therefore going with a mutual fund would be safer than hand picking two or three companies.

As for MSFT, their customer base is huge and I don't see them going away anytime soon, however, I don't know how profitable they'll be in the future because like their customer base their expenses are huge too. Look at MSFT beyond the OS, they have zillion products and they integrate well together which is why most businesses use them. It's the familiar interface, and all the tools just blend together. Personally I come from a unix background and have been using linux since 1999 when it wasn't mainstream like it is today. It used to take days to install it since the drivers weren't included, were hard to find nor did it have hardware detection...anyway, I digress. Point is MSFT has a ton of products they sell to businesses and they're not going anywhere even with Google's own desktop OS looming. Sounds interesting but I wonder if it'll be a dud like their browser Chrome?

Stocks for Monday