While no longer the uber growth story of the '90s, MSFT's last seven years have been a walk through the desert. While the stock was basically stagnate, the internal numbers kept on. The various ratios people look at now reflect that of a more mature company. Some ratio are the same as they were in '02, and the environment is much different from then. The strategy for this slothful giant if you want good return numbers is to us Call LEAPS as a stock substitute. With each call representing 100shares, buy no more calls than you'd buy shares (i.e. if you are a 500 share buyer, buy 5 calls). As a stock substitute, do not go out of the money on the purchase, either do at or in the money... The idea isn't to go hyperbolic, but to gain more than 2x leverage on the invested $ and to minimize capital tied up in a slow mover... risks: in a prolonged crappy market, I suppose this could trade down to mid-20's. This could be as good as it gets is the other risk, so then your premium slowly fritters away...
$31.08 (10/18/07)
