81–90 of 293 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The line-of-business software is quickly turning into a web browser accessing an internal server cluster, and just about any chip can run that nowadays.
servers also have chips though
Pay cuts are better than layoffs. That said, investors need to take a paycut in dividends as well.
> Pay cuts are better than layoffs. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that. With pay cut, comes a huge drop in morale across all the employees. Highly performers even consider leaving, and some employees leave. After a layoff, the rest of the employees are more productive and the company gets to decide which employees to lay off (depending on business needs, comp-to-productivity, or whatever else). > That said, investors…
Layoffs also create huge general morale drops, greater the more the company has succeeded in the near universal practice of trying to get people to treat the company as a surrogate family.
When bailed out banks paid bonuses it was understandably unpopular, but there was a certain logic that retaining talent optimized performance of the remaining bank, and therefore it was ultimately in the interest of taxpayers. It seems surprising that Intel either doesn't think that retaining top talent is in the interest of shareholders, or thinks that investors aren't able to understand the investment. I would assu…
I don’t know who is invested in Intel that's betting on anything but a high risk high reward underdog story comeback. Intel already was undercompensating to the point of driving the talent out of their company to begin with. These wage cuts are a sign for investors to flee faster because management lacks coherence. Management seems to be betting on a strategy of promising the world to gain government subsidies while…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once upon a time dividend payments were _the reason_ to hold stock in companies. Funny that tax loop holes and the borrowing-against-assets-infinite-money-cheat rendered dividends "silly". Yes this is a shit situation for Intel, but public companies should be paying dividends, IMO.
If stock buybacks are more tax-efficient, why are dividends better?
> Artificial financial results: The impact on earnings per share can give an artificial lift to the stock and mask financial problems revealed by a closer look at the company’s ratios.
> Abuse: Companies can use buybacks as a way to allow executives to take advantage of stock option programs while not diluting EPS. However, there isn't much evidence supporting the widespread belief that this happens.
> Price bumps: Buybacks can create a short-term bump in the stock price that some say allows insiders to profit while suckering other investors. This price increase may look good at first, but the positive effect is usually temporary, with equilibrium regaining when the market realizes that the company has done nothing to increase its actual value. Those who buy in after the bump can then lose money.
Basically there is a greater potential for price distortion and abuse with buybacks than dividends. Of course dividends can be gamed too, but as a relatively unsophisticated buy-and-hold investor I feel a lot more confident about buying a stock with a solid yield and long history of increasing dividends than I do about buying a stock with no yield whose valuation has shot up recently and is sitting near its record high.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-advisors/121...
When bailed out banks paid bonuses it was understandably unpopular, but there was a certain logic that retaining talent optimized performance of the remaining bank, and therefore it was ultimately in the interest of taxpayers. It seems surprising that Intel either doesn't think that retaining top talent is in the interest of shareholders, or thinks that investors aren't able to understand the investment. I would assu…
Where are they going to go? I’m sure the key people won’t hurt as much, but hardware people are pretty screwed overall. Your mastery of some Intel process has not much value in the market. I worked at a tenant in a well funded facility doing semiconductor manufacturing R&D and prototyping. The nicest cars on that lot belonged to the tradesmen running wire and pipe for the tools. A few execs drove fancy cars in their…
When bailed out banks paid bonuses it was understandably unpopular, but there was a certain logic that retaining talent optimized performance of the remaining bank, and therefore it was ultimately in the interest of taxpayers. It seems surprising that Intel either doesn't think that retaining top talent is in the interest of shareholders, or thinks that investors aren't able to understand the investment. I would assu…
As an investor, I would have been fine with cutting the dividend if it meant saving the compensation of employees. Intel has a lot going for it still, but this is a sure fire way to hurt morale and create an exodus of good talent and future leadership, especially when your key rivals are hiring.
Agreed. This is a very capital intensive business. They should be investing that capital into upgrading their technology. The dividend should be off the table for the next few years, at least. Paying a dividend probably made sense in the 90s and even into the early 2000s when Intel pretty much owned the whole PC CPU market. But now they're in a tough spot and the only way out is to invest that money that they're thro…
The dividend has become more political than normal. In finance theory, a dividend is supposed to be a paid-out return. If you're cutting salaries to pay the dividend that means that you don't have enough surplus...by definition.
Intel's sales aren't going to get any better anytime soon, so the cut is coming eventually. They're starting a death spiral, one that'll be hard to escape.