"In only a few years, 3-D will have a third of the TV market and a sizable chunk of the box office. I have no doubt that this will be one of the 'Next Big Things'," suggests Andy Obermueller.

The editor of Game-Changing Stocks explains, "Here, I review the overall market as well as the four best stock plays in the sector. I see each of these stocks as having serious growth potential as 3-D technology takes off.

"3-D functionality is becoming increasingly available on many high-end TVs. Last year was the first year that 3-D TVs were available; manufacturers sold 3.2 million 3-D sets vs. 247 million HDTVs.

Continue reading Four Plays on 3-D: IMAX, RLD, DLB, TDSC

Four Plays on 3-D: IMAX, RLD, DLB, TDSC originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Serious Money: Buffett Looking Beyond Our Borders

Serious Money: Buffett Looking Beyond Our Borders originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Target's Black Friday prices are leaked

Target's Black Friday prices are leaked originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As an early adopter of the flat-screen television craze, I can attest to the wonderful benefits of the device. I love mine, especially when watching movies or my favorite sporting event, hockey (it's so much easier following the puck in HD).

For a while there a few years ago, flat-screen TVs were flying off the shelves. Builders were using them as perks for new home purchases, and restaurants and bars seemed to buy them in bulk.

A main beneficiary of the flat-panel boom was Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) -- the largest maker of glass for flat-panel televisions.

In 2002, the stock was unduly pummeled in tandem with the rest of the technology sector. At that time, one could fetch shares for the eye-catching price of a buck a share. Investors were speculating that GLW would ultimately fail as demand for its products crashed.

Flat-panel displays saved the day. The company fixed its balance sheet and shares rocketed higher off its lows. By 2006, shares of GLW peaked above $26 per share. It was a great run, but with the collapse of the housing bubble, the easy money in GLW was made.

Continue reading Can flat screens save Corning again?

Can flat screens save Corning again? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Best Buy to help new HDTV customers with satellite bill payments originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Verizon (NYSE: VZ)'s roll-out of HDTV and broadband with its fiber-to-the-home product looked so promising. It even got shareholders in cable companies nervous. They were worried that the phone company would start to take away their digital cable TV customers.

All of that was looking very good for Verizon until it started to run out of the set-top boxes that make the HDTV system work in homes. As if things were not bad enough for Motorola (NYSE: MOT), it looks like the company's set-top operation may be at fault. The Wall Street Journal says ,"a Motorola spokeswoman confirmed that demand for the HD set-top box was 'strong and has exceeded expectations. We are pleased with this positive response and we are working closely with our suppliers to ensure that we meet the needs of our customers as quickly as possible.'"

What a lot of bull. While the market may never know where the mix-up was, Verizon certainly knows how many customers it plans to add and its inventory of boxes. Motorola knows what the demand is across its customer base and whether its manufacturing can handle the load.

Either way, Verizon has given its competition a gift. Who wants high-speed wiring that won't work with the TV?

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Verizon (VZ) hits an HDTV wall: Motorola (MOT) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Warner Brothers, part of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), has decided that its HD material will only be released on the Sony (NYSE: SNE) supported Blu-ray format. That is bad news for Toshiba, which has championed the rival HD-DVD technology. According to Reuters "Warner Bros., Hollywood's biggest seller of DVDs, represents about 18 to 20 percent of sales in the United States and was one of the few studios that backed both formats."

While the news is good for Sony, it is hard to say whether it will speed high definition DVD adoption. The fact that there are two formats has confused consumers. This has likely kept them out of the market and forced them to rely on HD content delivered over cable and satellite. As a matter of fact, it may be a key to improved satellite TV subscription numbers.

The presence of two formats has likely also helped the new fiber-to-the-home products from telephone companies like Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ). They have enough bandwidth to support a number of HDTV channels.

Sony may have gotten some good news, but consumers may have already turned elsewhere for high definition content.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Sony gets big win in HD race originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Welcome to the 42nd installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

Last week, I looked at how Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) competes against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) locations. Best Buy seemed to have the edge when it came to low prices on items like flat-panel televisions and laptop PCs this holiday season, and in my opinion, Wal-Mart's allure to the consumer electronics shopper is not growing despite attempts to beef up that department in Wal-Mart locations.

Continue reading The Wal-Mart Weekly: Wal-Mart's 2007 in review

The Wal-Mart Weekly: Wal-Mart's 2007 in review originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For several years, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) was considered one of the most successful companies in America. It used its cable franchise to build a huge broadband, VOD, and VoIP cash machine. The so-called "triple play" of voice, TV, and broadband could not be matched by telecom competitors, so Comcast took hundreds of thousands of phone customers away from them each quarter.

From mid-2003 to early 2007, Comcast shares rose close to 100%. During the last three months, they are down 27%.

It finally occurred to Wall Street that competition from satellite TV and the new fiber-to-the-home products from telecom companies like Verizon (NYSE:VZ) were eating into Comcast's customer base. The company recently announced that its growth and cash flow would be less than expected. Customer growth was slowing and the firm had to put more money into infrastructure so that it could improve offerings for products like HDTV.

An influential cable analyst, Benjamin Swinburne of Morgan Stanley, says the slide in Comcast shares is over. According to Barron's the analyst "notes that the stock's multiples have been compressed to historic lows." He also thinks EPS and free cash flow could grow as much as 20% a year, if Comcast can keep adding voice and HDTV customers.

The logic for Comcast making a comeback may be a little thin. Verizon's FiOS is taking customers from Comcast and it is only in a small fraction of the 18 million homes that will eventually have access to the service.That means that the head-to-head competition for the cable company will actually increase. And satellite TV companies continue to ramp up their programming and HDTV offering.

The worst is probably not over for Comcast.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Comcast: Is the collapse over? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Circuit City educating consumers on Digital TV

Circuit City educating consumers on Digital TV originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Best Buy (BBY) Says 'Bye Bye' to analog TVs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It was not supposed to happen this way. Cable TV companies had advantages over telecom and satellite TV firms. They could offer TV, voice, and broadband as a bundle. Satellite could not. And telecom companies had to finish expensive fiber-to-the-home deployments to get into the TV business.

Yet shares of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), the largest cable company, trade near their 52-week low at under $24 while AT&T (NYSE: T) seems to make a new high every day. DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) also trades near its high.

Telecom broadband may be taking customers from cable faster than expected. Another problem cable has is the fact that satellite and fiber allow for more HDTV channels. According to The Wall Street Journal DirecTV has 55 HDTV channels compared to a little over 20 at the big cable companies.

Cable companies say they are not taking the problem lying down. They have come up with new ways to add bandwidth, allowing them to offer more HDTV. One involves only sending TV signals to areas where a channel is actually being watched.

Cable company stocks are down. Perhaps the reason is that they had a chance to upgrade their systems for HDTV but simply waited too long.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

HDTV makes life hard for cable (CMCSA, T) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Best Buy (BBY) finds that HDTV confuses consumers

Best Buy (BBY) finds that HDTV confuses consumers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading HDTV transition set to cause confusion and opportunities

HDTV transition set to cause confusion and opportunities originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Best Buy thinks it does HDTV right -- for guys and gals originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Television-Internet convergence still made of fairy dust

Television-Internet convergence still made of fairy dust originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The top retail dogs in digital HDTVs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 02 Jan 2007 15:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

HDTV for you and me? Wal-Mart offers plasma TVs under $1000 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Worried about the futures of companies with huge television and cable businesses, like News Corporation (NYSE:NWS), Viacom, Inc. (NYSE:VIA), Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) and General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), as American consumers supposedly watch less TV?

Count the sheer number of television sets around the country these days and it will ease your worries. In barber shops, tanning salons, grocery stores, day cares, massage parlors and pizza joints -- Americans love their television viewing time. In fact, TVs now outnumber the quantity of actual humans inside U.S. households. There are 2.73 televisions and only 2.53 actual people in the average American home.

This stat flies in the face of research that says television networks are losing throngs of customers to ad-skipping TiVo and Internet browsing, among other things.

Is television viewing on the decline? The number of TVs would *seem* to indicate that TVs are being utilized now more than ever.

New TV technology is a big part of that story. Huge and heavy CRT televisions are now being replaced by LCD TVs at a fast rate, which opens up new areas where TVs can be placed. It's hard to have a 15" TV on the kitchen counter, but you can throw a 15" LCD TV there pretty easily these days without compromising space. Why not watch The Food Channel while cooking up a Paula Deen recipe in the food center of every home, the kitchen? Paula would call that faintsy.

With half of American homes having three televisions these days -- and only 19% having just one -- it's hard to imagine the television going away anytime soon. That would be some packed landfills in the next decade if predictions of "the death of TV" were to come true!

It's the content that will come across those screens that is likely to change, yes? HDTV, cable television, DBS satellite and possibly WiMAX-TV will all be battling for each viewer while still trying to get viewers to watch advertising that gadgets will make an afterthought. So, how many TVs do you have in your household?

Don't dump those television stocks just yet originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.