King of All Trades

Yesterday CITI had a Global Entertainment and Media Conference, in which Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) and Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media (NASDAQ:LINTA) spoke. There was no formal presentations by these gentleman but they were on board for answering some really good questions. This conference helped answer some important questions investors had about the company. Greg and Mel were very frank and offered valuable information investors can use to make better decisions about their investment with the company. First let us look at what Mel had to say. The first thing Mel offered was information on Q4 subscriber totals.

Just announced today is that Howard Stern will begin filming in February for being a judge on America’s Got Talent, a hit reality TV show in a talent show format. This is one of the most watched television shows in America. The show airs on NBC.

For the life of me I can’t understand why “journalists”, and I use that term exteremely loosely here when considering the coverage of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI), cannot understand simple math and simple facts. If I hear the NOL’s mentioned one more time as why Liberty would take over Sirius XM, I’m going to scream and throw something. NOL’s are 100% for Sirius XM to use, will be used 100% by Sirius XM, and has no value directly to Liberty. This is from comments from Frear (CFO of Sirius XM), Mel Karamazin (CEO of Sirius XM), and Greg Maffei (CEO of LCAPA). There is NO SCENARIO PERIOD that allows Liberty to benefit from them except as an indirect 40% stakeholder in Sirius. It gives their holding more value, as profits are protected till around 2020. That’s it. That is the only benefit to the company and Liberty. LCAPA can’t spin off, spit off, crunch off, roll off, spit off, or any other form of off to make them any other way. So stop it. Stop it right now. Stop your incessant babbling and learn how to understand simple concepts. And they are not valued at 8 billion, its more, and its around 3 billion in cash value. NOT 8!!! There is no magic way to add 8 billion to the asset line. It comes in small chunks as savings on profits that would have been paid to IRS.

According to Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI), 2008 was “the merger year” for Sirius XM Radio and 2010 was the year of transitioning to profits and free cash flow growth. Then I say 2012 is the year of decisions. 2012 will hold vital decisions on the next few years and future of the companies structure and leadership. There are many important decisions coming from the Board of Directors and possibly Liberty Media (NASDAQ:LINTA). Last week we got a glipse into what that future might hold as Greg Maffei commented on such things at the UBS Global Media Conference on Monday Dec. 5th. This conference also had David Fear, CFO of Sirius XM, speak as well. Also Mel has been beating the drum on making a decision about his future as well, as his contract will expire in December of 2012. Postering is already beginning on that front as well.

Sorry get rich quickers. Liberty is not going to be making a large tender offer for the entire company anytime soon. Irresponsible journalism is running rampant again on issues we have been discussing for years now. According to Reuters, Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) CEO Mel Karmazin stated that no offer has come and he doesn’t expect it too.

The truth is well hidden in a web of lies. Best way to hide the truth is to present it daily, right in the open, and then mock it. One of the worst things anyone can do when trying to figure out facts is to be bombarded with 100 opinions, half truths, and biased comments from amateurs who don’t care about you or their integrity as an author or analyst of a stock. When Seeking Alpha began paying writers for articles depending on hits, Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) investors saw an explosion of articles on their company. Other sites offered overcoverage too, like Motely Fool and Street.com. This coverage came mostly from authors who had never covered the stock, or perhaps ever covered a stock at all. From ex Disc Jockeys, “Financial Genius’s” around every corner, to it even getting an author who promised to never write about Sirius XM again on Seeking alpha (declaring that the company changed titles and was loose with the editing) to come out of retirement to take advantage of the money Sirius XM investors and traders would create by clicking every nonesense article written. In fact, based on my and other investors observation, the more manical, creative, and hogwashish the better. It only increased your chances of being published the most contraversial article it was. Basically the best chance for hits, the more likely it was published. Not quality. I proved that time and time again when I was denied publishing of excellent 100% fact based articles giving real information, while an article writing about how Sirius XM is doomed by Pandora makes a double post that same day. I even proved it to my members by writing an article with the word Pandora in the title and was published almost instantly after been turned down on previous article attempts. It was hilarious.

Regardless of if you believe Sirius XM will succeed long term, so far bulls are more right than they even thought, the death of the truth and quality is startling. As Seeking Alpha portrayed themselves to be an editor and selector of quality, this move created the worst coverage of a stock anyone has ever seen in investing history. The amount of lies and misinformation pepetruated by these trash journalists was staggering and still continues today. It is not SA responsibility to check every fact in these articles, but certain authors that constantly lied and gave misinformation were definitely favorits, so some judiciary duty was definitely possible here. As retail investors flee the stock, good news for all Sirius XM holders, this will become less and less a factor, as less and less articles will be written. We are beginning to see that now. So if you love your stock, help it by not supporting these authors. Make them disappear into irrelevancy that they are.

On October 19th, 2011, Sirius XM filed a 8K report stating that in October, Morgan Stanley returned the borrowed shares in the 2014 convertible bond offering, issued in 2008. These shares were mostly the reason the deal was considered “toxic debt”, as their stated purpose would be to “hedge” a bond position. The shares were shorted and Sirius XM went from $2.70 a share in 2008 to .05 cents in 2009. Since then the stock has recovered to as high as $2.44 in 2011 but has been experiencing some rough trading as of late and now trades at $1.77 a share. This is now a non issue as Morgan Stanley no longer considers needing these shares to hedge. This could have been hindering forward movement of the stock. This could help stabalize the price as well as allow higher prices to be more achievable. This removes a major headwind on the mechanics of the stock trading. As for the fundamental model, it doesn’t affect anything. Here is what the filing stated.

Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) has many competitors. In this series of articles, first of which was Sirius XM vs. HD Radio, I look to find which competitors are valid and which are fiction. I was going to write individually about Pandora (NYSE:P), Spotify and I Heart Radio, but I decided there is no point. In 6 months I’d have to talk about another start up or existing internet service that is going to “crush Sirius XM”. So in lieu of rewriting this article every 2 weeks, I have decided to just include all internet services in this comparision. First we must clearly define what this segment of the competition offers.

Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) has many competitors. Some are valid, some are fiction. In this first installment of this article series discussing all Sirius XM competitors, I’d like to take a moment out of your day to try to find out which one of these HD radio falls into. Even on Sirius XM SEC filings they list HD radio as a competitor. So they are worth a look. HD Radio after all was helpful in getting the merger approved, ironically. Sirius XM simply used their own bullishness on the product against them to show how the struggling duopoly needed to be one company. But is there any fact in the argument? Let’s examine HD Radio closely to determine whether HD radio as a competitor for Sirius XM is a fact or a myth.