nicole42n7: Making Money on Line

Seriously? This is the question of the day? When people are still voicing serious and legitimate concerns about the rest of the economy? We're talking about a company with enough money in the bank to make a Goldman Sachs-sized investment in Facebook if it wanted to, more than triple the amount Dell had in the bank at the end of the last quarter, plus more than five times the amount HP had too, while we're at it.

Let's look at a number for a minute: Apple has 51 billion dollars in cash. That's 51,000,000,000 bucks. Or, approximately the amount of money it takes to fill a vault-slash-swimming-pool. Who has that kind of money these days and didn't get it via government bailout? Apple, that's who. What is its secret? It made that money the old-fashioned way, by selling new-fashioned things.

In a time when few companies are profitable and everyone's excited about a flat line since it isn't a downward curve, Apple is making money iHand over iFist. One could presume from this that analysts and others who watch CNBC professionally would be excited about a company with growth and profitability in the current climate. However, that's not the case.

Remember when Apple wasn't doing well? Those bygone days when people may have actually believed the name of the company was "Beleaguered Apple Computer?" Well, once Uncle Steve made his return in 1996, that started to turn around. Apple Computer started making things that start with "i," and in 2001 with the launch of the iPod, Apple was officially cool again. You know, unless you were an analyst on Wall Street, in which case Apple wasn't cool, it was just less lame than before. But seriously, have you seen what sort of stock prices Dell and HP have these days? Now those are tech companies.

I call shenanigans! Now, instead of being impressed with profitability, the question is "Oh sure, you're all profitable, but can you stay that way?" Apple hasn't proven that yet? Explain to me how making ANY money in a time of unprecedented financial volatility is something that gets played down. What will it take before Apple gets a fair shake? A brand new device that sells a million units in three months? Try two and a half. A new version of the same thing released a year later, how long did that take to sell a million? Three days.

Find and replace "Apple" with a non-tech company in some of these articles and see if it still makes as much sense. Just the iPhone product line by itself is bigger than Coca-Cola, but Apple still gets dismissed like this?

Someone needs to have a little heart-to-heart talk with some of these guys. Apparently they've all had their heads down in their BlackBerrys for so long that they don't realize it's cool these days to carry around something Designed In Cupertino. Clearly a lot of other people have figured it out -- what's stopping Wall Street from seeing the light?

Once thought of as trade bait, Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin (along with Clarke MacArthur) have been the Maple Leafs best line this season, and with nearly 100 points on the season, maybe amongst the best in the NHL

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Prior to the Toronto Maple Leafs' tilt against the Atlanta Thrashers Friday night I was a guest of Louis Pisano on “Get The Puck Out” which airs on MorencySports.com, where, amongst other things, Lou and I debated the validity of Toronto’s second line of Mikhail Grabovski, Clarke MacArthur and Nikolai Kulemin being the NHL’s best second unit.

Low and behold, Grabovski, Kulemin and MacArthur went out and scored a combined six goals and 10 points against the Thrashers, helping the Maple Leafs pound a very good Atlanta squad by a final score of 9-3.

MacArthur and Grabovski are first and second in scoring for the Maple Leafs this season, with 33 and 32 points, respectively. Kulemin is close behind with 29 points, which gives the Maple Leafs second unit a combined 94 points on the season.

There may very well be a second line or two that has more offensive output than the Maple Leafs trio, but none of those lines were as unexpected as the Maple Leafs trio of Grabovski, MacArthur and Kulemin, especially by Leaf fans.

Rewind back to last summer. Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke was preparing to re-sign Nikolai Kulemin when all hell broke lose—Kulemin’s agent was looking for first line money. Burke stood by his comments that, while a decent player, Kulemin had benefited from first line and power play minutes and was undeserving of “first line” money, and therefore, wouldn’t pay.

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Money on Line

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