Which companies get extra credit in Obama's school address?


Given the recent controversy over Obama's address to school children Tuesday, I was interested to see the speech released on the White House web site. While not all schools will be showing the speech, it is still likely to have a huge audience of many students across the nation. I looked to see which companies might benefit from this exposure.

Overall, Obama encourages kids to study hard, be responsible and overcome the many obstacles they face, while relating his own difficulties from school.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) gets a positive mention as an example of the kind of company to strive to build.

The iPhone also makes it into the speech, to the benefit of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

J. K. Rowling -- author of the Harry Potter series -- gets included, a plus for her publisher, Scholastic Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHL), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), which has released the movies based on the books.

Obama discourages kids from playing on the Xbox, which is bad news for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). I somehow doubt Xboxes are going to become less popular just because the President encouraged kids to study instead. But since an educated and competitive workforce is vital to our economic future, hopefully he can inspire students to study harder.

Not surprisingly, Obama encourages kids to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment, while making no mention of becoming oil drill workers or banking executives. Given political and economic considerations, I can understand why those careers may not have been mentioned -- although more talent may be needed in those areas as well.

Kevin Kersten is a stock options analyst and financial writer.

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