Cloudy Stocks with a Silver Lining

I remember in the 'old' days, when I was using AOL (AOL), I had the option of saving my mail on my own computer or AOL could save it for me. Back then, I thought it was 'safer' to save it locally. But then I ran into a problem. When I was using my laptop, I couldn't access the mail on my desktop computer, and vice-versa. Plus, I had mail stored in two different places, and wasn't sure what was saved where. I finally gave in and had AOL save my mail for me. This concept is a very simple example of cloud computing. So to understand clouds a bit more, let me give you a couple more examples, without using a lot of technospeak, and keeping it in layman's terms.

Cloud computing is having your programs and data stored remotely on a server in another location, instead of on your own individual computer. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can have a cheap old computer and still take advantage of cloud computing. The servers of companies that provide this service represent the 'clouds', and those servers can be located anywhere. Yahoo (YHOO) mail, Google (GOOG) gmail, and Microsoft's (MSFT) hotmail are examples of cloud computing in a limited way. The email servers are not in your office or home as you use the Yahoo or Google or Microsoft servers. Many corporations, organizations, and universities are utilizing the email services of Google, which saves them money on servers and saves on staffing.

For corporations, cloud benefits are substantial. Cloud computing can reduce waste and carbon footprints along with providing significant cost savings. Companies that utilize cloud computing don't need to keep buying more servers. Costs relating to the disposal of old computers and servers is cut back significantly. Data security is the job of the cloud computing firm. Businesses can eliminate the techs that have to come out and install new software to each employees' station, and network administrators monitoring the company's servers are reduced.

Investors like the green and financial benefits of cloud computing companies. According to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, there are over 25 stocks in the cloud field, based oh the free Cloud Computer Stock List, which includes companies involved in server farms and outsourced storage systems.

The one of the largest corporations that falls into the cloud computer arena is Salesforce.com (CRM), which is a provider of customer-relationship management services. The company's stock symbol stands for Customer Relationship Management. Salesforce has customers of all sizes, including Staples (SPLS), Expedia (EXPE), News Corp. (NWS-A), and SunTrust Banks (STI). Salesforce trades at 66 times forward earnings. Quarterly revenues ending January 31 were up 38% year-over-year. The company reports latest earnings on May 17.

Citrix Systems, Inc. (CTXS) provides on demand applications and online services, including GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToTraining, GoToAssist, and GoToMyPC. This company has a forward price to earnings ratio of 25. The latest quarterly earnings were down 7%, however, revenues were up 20%. I like the fact that the company is debt free.

VMware (VMW) is another major cloud and virtualization company. Its product VMware vSphere is a cloud computing data center platform. It sports a forward price to earnings ratio of 44. The company reported that latest earnings increased an incredible 52% in earnings on an amazing 25% increase in revenues. Although VMware has $450 million in total debt, it holds $5.2 billion in cash.

To access the free database of numerous companies involved in cloud computing in some way, that can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com. A couple of them even pay dividends.

You can also get info on the green aspects of cloud computing from my book The Green Light on Green Stocks: A Quick Guide to Green Investing and Making Money in Alternative Energy Stocks, available through the publisher or through Amazon.com (AMZN), which also happens to be involved in the cloud computer business. As far as I know, my book is the first to publish information on cloud computing as a green industry.

Disclosure: Author owns AOL, AMZN, and YHOO.

By Stockerblog.com

Lindsay Lohan To Pose For Playboy Rumor: LiLo Stock Index Up Over 70%

You have to admit, Lindsay Lohan, the famous and occasionally notorious actress and singer, has a knack for getting her name in the news, whether intentionally or not. According to a recent article at OMG!, a source has said that Lohan has signed a contract with Playboy to pose nude for a spread in the magazine. She is reportedly being paid somewhere between $750,000 and $1,000,000.

What is nice about all the publicity that celebrities get is the ability to promote products and services for various companies that they are affiliated with. This includes motion picture distributors of movies that they appear in, products that they promote on television commercials, and even products that you see then use or drive. A perfect example is the Apple (AAPL) iPhone that Lindsay Lohan has been seen using.

When you look at all these companies, a Celebrity Stock Index™ can be compiled and compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the S&P 500. Stockerblog.com has developed numerous Celebrity Stock Indexes, including Gisele Bunchen, Heidi Klum, and Angelina Jolie. At WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, you can also find free downloadable lists of stocks in celebrity indices including The Beatles and Charlie Sheen.

So lets take a look at Lohan and see what companies she is affiliated with. First, you can no longer invest in Playboy as Hugh Hefner took the company private several months ago.

Lohan starred in The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Herbie: Fully Loaded, and the TV show on ABC, Ugly Betty, all distributed by Disney (DIS). She received numerous awards including
Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film Leading Young Actress, MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance, Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Breakout Star. The Disney stock pays a yield of 1.1% and trades at 12 times forward earnings.

She also received several awards for her starring role in Mean Girls, a Paramount Pictures release. Paramount is owned by Viacom (VIA). The stock yields 1.9% and trades at 12.2 times forward earnings.

Lohan also appeared in a couple of movies for News Corporation's (NWS) 20th Century Fox, Just My Luck and Machete. News Corp. pays a yield of 1.1% and has a forward price to earnings ratio of 10.

Lohan has been seen numerous times wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses, produced by Luxottica Group S.p.A. (LUX) and recorded some albums on the Casablanca Records label, which is owned by Vivendi SA (VIV). These include Speak and A Little More Personal.

What is amazing is that is you track all these stocks as an index and compare it to the Dow Jones Industrial Average starting January of 2010, you will discover that the LiLo Index substantially outperforms the Dow. As a matter of fact, the LiLo Index was up 71.8% versus only 16.3% for the Dow during the same time frame. Of course, a lot of the growth of the LiLo was due to Apple more than doubling, but even if you back out Apple, Lindsay Lohan is still up 27.4%. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, you should check out the chart.

There are a few other companies which are part of the Lindsay Lohan Stock Index which can be found at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com. To see a free list of all the stocks in the Lindsay Lohan Stock Index, along with financials and the connection to Lohan, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author owns AAPL and DIS. No celebrity endorsement is expressed or implied. No investment recommendations are expressed or implied.

By Stockerblog.com

Charlie Sheen Stock Index Graph

The above chart shows how the Charlie Sheen Stock Index has performed over the last three years. As you can see, except for a drop at the beginning of 2009, the Index has outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average. As a matter of fact, the Sheen Index is up 6.2% so far this year versus 4.3% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Since the beginning of 2010, the Sheen Index was up 21.1% versus 15.0% for the Dow, and from the beginning of 2009, Sheen was up an incredible 65.0% versus only 34.7% for the Dow.

The blue line represents Charlie Sheen and the red line represents the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Even during the couple weeks after the February 24 radio broadcast of the Charlie Sheen interview hosted by Alex Jones, the Charlie Sheen Stock Index rose 2.0% versus only 0.8% for the Dow.

Check out the previous article on the Charlie Sheet Stock Index, which describes in detail all the stocks and the connection with Sheen, including such stocks as CBS (CBS), Time Warner (TWX), and News Corporation (NWS) (NWSA). You can also find a free downloadable list of the Sheen stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Assumptions: This is a price-weighted index, similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It includes dividends. Both indexes were converted to a starting baseline of 100.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written. No celebrity endorsement is expressed or implied. No investment recommendations are expressed or implied.

By Stockerblog.com

Do Investors Have Their Heads in the Clouds?

A year ago when I wrote my book The Green Light on Green Stocks: A Quick Guide to Green Investing and Making Money in Alternative Energy Stocks, I started touting cloud computing as a green industry, not to mention a way of providing money saving services to many corporations. Cloud computing as a growing industry is finally being recognized. Look at Salesforce.com (CRM), which is up 633% since it started trading in 2004. Last week, Isilon (ISLN) shares jumped 28.5% in one day, after EMC announced it would take over the company at $33.85 a share.

So what is cloud computing? It is having your programs and data stored remotely, 'in the clouds,' instead of on individual computers. As long as you have Internet connection, you can have a fairly dumb computer ans still utilize cloud computing. So where are these so-called clouds? They are basically, in very simple terms, the servers of companies that provide this service, and those servers can be located anywhere.

Do you have Yahoo (YHOO) mail, Google (GOOG) gmail, or hotmail? Then you are using cloud computing in a small way. You don't have the email servers in your office or home, you use the Yahoo or Google servers. As a matter of fact, many public universities are turning over their student email services to Google, giving students a type of gmail account. It saves them money on servers and saves on staffing for support.

These same benefits apply to the private sector, especially when you extend it to data storage and computer software. You don't need a technician to come out an install new software to each employees' station. You don't need a bunch of network administrators monitoring the company's servers. You don't need to periodically upgrade computers. You don't need to own a bunch of servers. You cut down on the costs and issues relating to the disposal of old computers and servers. You don't need to deal with data security, as that is the job of the cloud computing company. The benefits of clouds are extensive, and there are over 25 stocks in the cloud industry to choose from, according to the Cloud Computer Stock list at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, including companies involved in server farms and outsourced storage systems.

Salesforce.com is a provider of customer-relationship management services that has promoted 'the end of software'. Salesforce has customers of all sizes, including Corporate Express division of Staples (SPLS), Daiwa Securities (DSECY.PK), Expedia (EXPE), Dow Jones Newswires subsidiary of News Corp. (NWS-A), SunTrust Banks (STI), and Kaiser Permanente. Salesforce trades at a lofty 76 times forward earnings, debt in the amount of $476 million, with over $742 million in cash. The company just reported a quarterly sales increase of 30% year over year, with a one cent drop in earnings per share.

VMware (VMW) is another major cloud and virtualization player. Its product VMware vSphere is a cloud computing data center platform. It sports a forward PE ratio of 45. The company has $450 million in debt with $2.9 billion in cash. The company reported that latest earnings increased an incredible 121.4% in earnings on a 45.8% increase in revenues.

Citrix Systems, Inc. (CTXS) provides on demand applications and online services, including GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToTraining, GoToAssist, and GoToMyPC. This debt free company has $902 million in cash and carries a forward PE of 29. The latest quarterly earnings were up 64.3% on a revenue increase of 17.8%.

To access a free Excel spreadsheet database of numerous companies involved in cloud computing in some way, that can be downloaded, sorted, and updated, go to wsnn.com.

Disclosure: Author owns YHOO.

By Stockerblog.com

Cloud Computing Stocks: A Growing Green Sector

You may have heard about cloud computing but never knew what it was, or how it can make businesses more green and cost efficient. Cloud computing means that instead of running software applications on your computer, you run the apps in the "clouds" in cyberspace, in other words through the Internet. All your programs and files are stored on an outsourced computer network residing on remote servers. Sometimes, certain aspects of cloud computing are referred to as platform as a service [PaaS] and software as a service [SaaS]. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has just updated a downloadable Excel database of 16 different publicly traded companies with some connection to cloud computing.

Do you use Yahoo (YHOO) mail or Google's (GOOG) gmail? Then in a small way, you are using cloud computing. In other words, you don't have an email server in your home or office, you're taking advantage of the cloud offered by Yahoo or Google. As a matter of fact, many companies, organizations, and universities have turned their email system over to gmail. If you have ever used Google (GOOG) Docs or Google Calendar, you have experienced another example of cloud computing. Google will be one of the major players in this field. The stock has a PE of 26, is debt free, and has over $24 billion in cash.

Here are a dozen of the economic and green advantages of clouds:
1. Server equipment cost reduction due to elimination of the necessity of on-site servers.
2. Staffing cost savings, since there is little or no need for on-site network administration.
3. Potential for lower software licensing costs.
4. Elimination of server maintenance costs.
5. Small initial upfront investment.
6. Built-in computer disaster recovery services & back-up sites.
7. Reduction in client station costs. In other words, no need to buy new computers for staff as long as existing computers can connect to the Internet.
8. If additional staff computers need to be purchased, they can be cheap 'dumb' terminals.
9. Clouds provide scalability; can easily grow as the company grows.
10. The ease of the sharing of resources.
11. Services can be automated.
12. Speed of access of data.

As for disadvantages, the one major concern is security of the data. So it is a matter of which is more trustworthy, your own company or a company that specialized in data security. Another option is the utilization of cloud computing within a large corporation. Everything stays 'in-house'.

One major company in this currently narrow industry is Salesforce.com (CRM), a provider of customer-relationship management services. They have been promoting 'the end of software'. Salesforce doesn't just market to the small and medium size-companies, they have major users of their services, including Corporate Express division of Staples (SPLS), Daiwa Securities (DSECY.PK), Expedia (EXPE), Dow Jones Newswires subsidiary of News Corp. (NWS-A), SunTrust Banks (STI), and Kaiser Permanente. Salesforce has a very high PE ratio of 117, a small amount of debt amounting to about $18 million, with almost $445 million in cash.

To access a free Excel spreadsheet database of many companies which are involved in cloud computing that can be sorted, added to, and changed, go to wsnn.com.

Author owns YHOO.

By Stockerblog.com

Supermodel Gisele Having a Baby Girl, Outperforming the Stock Market

Gisele Bündchen, the richest supermodel in the world and wife of football star Tom Brady, is pregnant with a baby girl and is expecting in December. Gisele is connected to a lot of publicly traded companies, acting as spokesperson for their products. Tracking the stocks she is connected with from January of 2007, the Gisele Bundchen Stock Index has greatly outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The stocks in her portfolio include:

Volkswagon (VLKAY.PK) TV commercial spokesperson

Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (RL) Advertising campaign face for Ralph Lauren, owned by Polo Ralph Lauren Corp.

Vivo Participacoes (VIV) Celebrity endorsement - largest mobile phone service provider in Brazil and in South America

News Corp. (NWS-A) Starred in the comedy, Taxi, in her movie debut, and The Devil Wears Prada , both produced by 20th Century Fox, a division of News Corp.

Procter & Gamble (PG) Celebrity endorsement

Disney (DIS) Celebrity endorsement - appeared in the 'Year of a Million Dreams' celebration photoshoot

The Gisele Index is down only 2% for the last three years versus the Dow which was down 23%. By the way, Apple (AAPL) used to be part of her index because she appeared on the 'Get a Mac' advertisements to promote the new line of Macintosh's a few years ago. If Apple was still in the index, her return would be quite a bit higher.

Other celebrity stock indexes you may be interested in include the Heidi Klum Stock Index, the Eva Longoria Stock Index, the Angelina Jolie Stock Index, the Jessica Alba Stock Index, the Nicole Kidman Stock Index, the Freida Pinto Stock Index, and the Supermodels Stock Indices.

Assumptions:
The Gisele Index is a price-weighted index, similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Author owns DIS, NWS-A, and AAPL.

By Stockerblog.com

Supermodel Gisele Still Outperforms the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Gisele Bündchen, who was named by Forbes Magazine as the top earning supermodel and Guinness World Records said that she is now the richest supermodel in the world. In 2007, I developed the Gisele Bundchen Stock Index, which contained the stocks of companies that Gisele is connected with, such as being the celebrity spokesperson. At the time, her index was outperforming the stock market. I have updated the index to the present time, and noticed that Gisele has continued to outperform the Dow Jones Industrial Average significantly.

The stocks in her portfolio include:
Volkswagon (VLKAY.PK)
Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (RL)
Vivo Participacoes (VIV)
News Corp. (NWS-A)
Sony (SNE)
Procter & Gamble (PG)
Disney (DIS)

Although the Gisele Index was down by 15.7% since the beginning of 2007 to the present, it far outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average which was down over 30% during that same time frame.

Other celebrity stock indexes you may be interested in include the Heidi Klum Stock Index, the Eva Longoria Stock Index, the Angelina Jolie Stock Index, the Jessica Alba Stock Index, the Nicole Kidman Stock Index, the Freida Pinto Stock Index, and the Supermodels Stock Indices.

Assumptions:
This is a price-weighted index, similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Author owns DIS.

By Stockerblog.com