First Adopter

September 18, 2008 9:30am
-Started alliance with POSH Office systems and selling to Costco
-New Embody chair coming out soon
-West coast more difficult. Southwest too due to housing issues. Softer levels in London and Japan. Financial services sector weak especially investment banking
-They started with 20 Costco stores and expanded it to 40 with 2 [...]

September 17, 2008 8:30am
-Knapp-Track industry sales -3.7% for the quarter ex-Darden. Olive Garden same-store up 2.4%. Red Lobster -3.7%. Longhorn -4.9%. Capital Grille -8.6%. Bahama Breeze -3.7%
-Wage inflation 2-3%. Guide to 0-1% same-store sales growth in FY2009
-Difficult June, more difficult July, better consumer in August, but not great
-100% company [...]

“There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side”
Comparing Paper Trading vs. Real Trading
“Are you a good shot?” “I can snap the stem of a wine glass at twenty paces” “That’s all well, but can you snap the stem of [...]

September 16, 2008 10AM EST
-Employee retention is all-time high as turnover is 49% last 12 months. Never been below 50% before
-4.2% same-store, 5.3% U.S.
-Strength in notebooks, gaming, TVs, and acceleration in Best Buy Mobile
-International weaker than expected. Canada 1% and China 7%
-Expect 2H of FY to have 1-2% comp store sales
-Flat panel TV [...]

July 31, 2008 5PM
-DVD playback software in Microsoft Home Premium contain Dolby technology
-In North America, Dolby Digital is mandated audio standard fro digital terrestrial broadcast. By February 2009, TVs must be connected to ATSC tuner which contain Dolby technology
-15% of U.S. households still rely on OTA broadcasts
-South Korea has adopted the ATSC standard
-Japan has [...]

July 22, 2002 2pm EST
-Reducing outlook for the year due to rapidly rising raw material costs and expectation of continued weak economic conditions
-Raising prices and will do so again later this year if inflation continues to accelerate
-RFID revenue quadrupled
-Organically US down 4%, Europe up 4%, Asia up 4%, Latin America up 5%
-Raising their estimate of [...]

August 12th, 2008 11AM
-new name and branding
-enterprise revenue grew 4% q/q, total revenue 3%. 24 straight quarters of enterprise growth
-lost about $1M in revenue due to the mortgage industry
-small customer accounts below $500 a month are 3% of revenue
-see increased customer churn from very small customers as well as pockets of pressure in local markets

-Last 200 years America’s elected politicians built up $5 trillion in debt. In last few weekend, some un-elected officials added another $5 trilion
-When British empire declined there were many people who rang the bell and said we’re making too many mistakes, but nobody listened until it was too late
-When Spain and Rome were in [...]

July 25th, 2008 10AM
-AUM $923B down 3% q/q and 7% y/y. Equity outflows of $11.6B vs. $17.2B last quarter
-Permal fund of funds seeing flows of $300-400 million a month vs. $1B before. AUM now $39B
-Royce’s average fees close to 100bps
-On equity side, no single manager contributes more than 10% to core operating results

July 30th, 2008 10AM
-Q2 was awful as “fear gripped the marketplace… rational analysis has been discarded and emotion is driving securities prices”
-Valuation spread between financials and commodities is the highest in 55 years
-Buying financial companies at 2-3 times normal earnings power
-Had $700 million of net inflows
-AUM declined by 19% during the quarter from $20.4B to [...]