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Strategic Assassinations May Keep Iran Nuke-Free, Send Oil Lower

January 11, 2012

For years, media have reported on a number of military options to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran has learned from the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s nuclear facility. Nuclear facilities in Iran are widely distributed and most of them are built deep underground. Some of these facilities are believed to be beyond the reach of the best U.S. bunker buster bombs, and it is not clear whether Israel possesses bombs that can penetrate reinforced subterranean targets. Has Israel instead found a low-cost and effective way to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Iranian news agency FARS is quoting Safar Ali Baratlou,

Google Patents Are no Threat to Apple

January 11, 2012

Some stock market gurus seem to have a fatal attraction to technology patents. While technology patents can certainly add to the performance of a stock, that attraction often fails to account for a number of factors affecting the value of the patents. Technology patents are very complex and understanding them requires expertise. Patent law is even more complex. A further layer of complexity is added by the idiosyncrasies of a patchwork of legal systems across the globe that even intellectual property attorneys find hard to master. For investors, the complexity does not end there. How large are the legal fees

How Best Buy Can Wake Up And Whip Amazon

January 10, 2012

Best Buy has done an excellent job at becoming a showroom for Amazon.com. Now Best Buy is working hard at charging more than the competition, making poor service poorer and not stocking what customers want. As a shopper, I gave up on Best Buy a long time ago in favor of Fry’s Electronics. Recently a Best Buy advertisement for a TV caught my eye. I happened to be right by a Best Buy store, so I decided to step in for the first time in several years. I did not see the TV on display. It took about 10

Symantec Says Norton Is Safe After Lords of Kings Attack

January 10, 2012

Symantec, maker of Norton Antivirus, has admitted to a major security breach by a group called the Lords of Dharmaraja, which in English means ‘˜Kings of Religion’. For background, please see my article from January 6th, ‘œLords Of Kings Hack Norton Antivirus, Are You Safe?‘ In the last piece, I stated the key question, ‘œAre your computers and emails still safe if protected by Norton?’ Symantec has provided the answer in an email to The Arora Report as follows: We investigated their claims to Norton Antivirus and found them not to be true and that Norton Antivirus is safe and

MOST GURUS GET IT WRONG

January 8, 2012

Google (GOOG) just bought 100 patents from IBM (IBM). Most gurus have been writing that this buy is to battle Apple (AAPL). It is rare that so many gurus are plain wrong. Perhaps, technology patents are too complex for most stock market gurus to get it right. We are including a list of every single patent that Google has bought. Not a single patent seems to be a threat to Apple. A careful examination of the patents shows that Google is buying these patents to battle Oracle (ORCL), Facebook and Twitter. From an investment perspective, in spite of this and

Will Yahoo Buy Netflix? Speculation Abounds

January 6, 2012

Speculation of Yahoo (YHOO) buying Netflix (NFLX) is rampant in the trading circles. The trigger for this speculation is appointment of Scott Thompson as the new CEO Yahoo.Thompson has been President of PayPal, which is a crown jewel of eBay (EBAY). Thompson has significant background in technology, mobile, and international. As an outsider with a fresh perspective, he is likely to find significant low hanging fruit at Yahoo. Some analysts have criticized this choice because Thompson lacks media experience. It is conceivable that to avert criticism of his lack of media background, Thompson may quickly move to buy a media

OBAMA ACTS TO COUNTER MILITARY THREAT FROM CHINA

January 6, 2012

Astute observers have long contended that the biggest military threat to the United States in the future is from China. Today, Obama in a speech is expected to counter the threat from China. According to sources, Obama has been personally involved at the Pentagon in this matter. Obama is said to have personally opposed reducing the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet to 10 from 11 because he sees the threat from China. Several analysts had contended that the size of the aircraft carrier fleet should be cut drastically. The rationale of such analysts has been that China has

Four Ways to Profit from the Good Fortune of Seagate

January 6, 2012

Thailand is the center of disk drive manufacturing. Recent flooding in Thailand damaged a large number of manufacturing facilities resulting in a lack of adequate supply of disk drives. Seagate [s:STX] is one of the largest manufacturers of disk drives in the world. Compared to the competitors, Thailand flooding left Seagate relatively unscathed. This gave Seagate an edge because it could steal market share from competitors. Seagate has pre-announced better than expected earnings and projections. Seagate reports preliminary Q2 revenue of $3.1-$3.2 billion compared to consensus of $2.81 billion. For Q3, Seagate projects revenue of