Sunday, October 14, 2012

Symantec (SYMC - NASDAQ) Downgraded to "Sell"

Symantec, the producer of Norton AntiVirus, has recently broken out of its longtime downward trend of lower highs and lower lows, a pattern it has repeated since it's all-time high of the low $30's which was reached all the way back in the end of 2004. Since then, Symantec has achieved the stock price of $24 only twice, once in early 2005 and now again in March of 2013. It's time to take profits from this dead horse of a company before the euphoria wears off and it plunges back into the basement, where it seems much more comfortable existing.
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When looking at the five year chart, it is easy to see that Symantec has consistently had an average valuation of around $16, on a chart that is far too erratic between its highs and lows to reliably declare it has been "basing" and is ready for a major break-out. Today, Symantec is trading at a 50% premium to this average of its five year trading range, and smart investors might want to consider taking profits before it plummets and disappoints investors once more, as it has shown a repeated tendency to do.
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Furthermore, it appears that Symantec has been experiencing somewhat of a public relations problem recently, as it has forayed into the non-profit-generating business of dictating political correctness to the lesser plebes - their customers, even going so far as to start declaring certain websites as "hate sites" and banning access to them. Now, you might think that by "hate" we are talking about Nazis and skinheads, but we are not. We are talking about people who make up slightly less than half the world's population: Men. At last count, there were some 58 websites censored by Norton AntiVirus concerning men's issues ranging from divorce and custody laws to domestic violence to prostate cancer to discussing the relentless government funded drive by professional feminists to demonize and marginalize men in our society.

They don't, however, classify any feminist sites as "hate" even though many of them actually do call for physical violence, or even death, towards males. Perhaps it is simply because the works of feminists like the following are still taught in academia that they feel these sorts of things are not hate, while the act of opposing them is:

"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." -- Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001

"The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race." -- Sally Miller Gearhart, The Future - If There Is One - Is Female 

"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig." -- Andrea Dworkin, Ice and Fire, (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987)

Keep in mind, these are women who have made fortunes either through their books or through their bloated tenured incomes at universities all across Western Civilization. (If you would like to read more of them, click here.) However, the good men of the world who stand up to this sort of lunacy, for no pay, are labelled as "haters." I have read one (unconfirmed) report that the word "anti-feminist" is classified as "hate." Go figure!

But, regardless of whether you support feminists' hatred of men ("For one of the implicit, if unadmitted, tenets of feminism has been a fundamental disrespect for men." -- Wendy Dennis), or whether you support men's right to speak out against this ideology without being labelled a "hate site," the problem with a company like Symantec's political correctness goes much, much deeper than simply defaming men and their websites on the internet like a typical cyber-bully would. Oh no, dear investor. It gets much, much worse! These kinds of politically correct policies cost you money!

Take, for example, a company such as Wal-Mart, which was recently in a high profiled court case where it was alleged there was systemic discrimination against women in their organization. They nearly won in front of the Supreme Court too, except it was thrown back to some lower courts, I believe because they couldn't prove discrimination was "systemic" but rather only individual.

What you, as an investor, should be doing in these cases is "reading between the lines," because when the Mainstream Media and companies like Symantec toe the politically correct line, they blatantly hinder you from becoming informed of the Truth and making your decisions accordingly. 

With Wal-Mart, the women were complaining that it wasn't fair that, since they were women, they could not work 70hrs a week like the men, nor could they move to undesirable locations like Anchorage, AK for five years in order to advance their careers as the men were able to, because as women, they also had children and other family to take care of. Well, this may be so, or it may not be. Quite frankly, I don't really care because as an investor, my goal is to make money with my investments, not to promote a social agenda. After I make money with my investments, I will take my profits and decide to whom my charitable dollars will be directed, as it should be. As an investor, I want the companies I own to concentrate on making money. That is their sole purpose on this earth. If the CEO wants to give his own money to the Tuktoyaktuk Polar Bear and Walrus reserve, that is his business.

But, it is companies such as Symantec who try to silence people through the label of "hate" so that you don't get all the facts. It is bad enough when the Mainstream Media believes that covering the Wal-Mart story in an unbiased manner means interviewing a feminist from the East Coast and another feminist from the West Coast, but when companies like Symantec try to squelch the noise from "hateful" people opposing such blatant biased reporting, you might never hear a headline like this:

"Court Rules that Wal-Mart Must Replace Top-Notch Management With Mediocre Employees. Longterm Outlook for Stock Valuations Appears Grim!"

I mean, after all, if you are going to take people who work 70hrs a week and replace them with people who only work 40hrs a week, you can pretty much count on management being 57% as effective as before, and you would unload that company from your portfolio in a big hurry. So... why doesn't this kind of stuff get debated more in the public sphere? It's because of the kind of politically correct censorship Symantec (as well as others) use without a second thought.
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But it gets even worse, because companies like Symantec, despite their politically correct posturing, don't even actually practice what they preach. For example, at the Symantec website, under Corporate Responsibility, they have a program called "Science Buddies":

"Science Buddies is dedicated to helping girls develop and maintain an interest in STEM learning.  In fact, 55% of Science Buddies' student-users are girls.  Science Buddies' project ideas and activities help girls to innovate, imagine, build, tinker, solve problems, and make things.

In addition, our organization helps to publicize and promote events and initiatives that encourage young female scientists and engineers, such as Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, to our audience of 15 million teachers, students, and parents."

(What they do for the 45% that are boys, I have no idea. I guess they just don't matter as much.)

Yet, when one wanders over to their Management Team, you can see that only 2 out of 16 executives are women, and of their Board of Directors, you will find that only 1 out of 8 are female, or, a mere 12.5% of high level employees are women. Hey... wait a minute here... don't women make up over 50% of the population?
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Oh! The Misogyny of the Old Boys Club at Symantec!
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They are quite clearly, according to every feminist on the planet, part of a Patriarchal Culture that discriminates against women! I would like to see those in power at Symantec explain how they have not done so without engaging in the sort of misogynistic "hate" they so quickly label others with - others from their own customer base!
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Now, they may claim the reason they are promoting the "Science Buddies" program for girls is to get more women into those positions in the future, which assumes that in the past girls did want to have these jobs but there were some big, evil men hiding behind the door who wouldn't let them in. Right? It couldn't be that women aren't attracted to the STEM subjects to the same degree as men, could it? I mean, if girls already make up over 60% of all college degrees, the only reason they don't make it in the STEM subjects must be because of the hateful people who ought to have their websites labelled and defamed! STEM subjects are the only area of academia that is not completely dominated by females. I mean, really now. Is it so bad that boys excel in one area, while leaving the rest to girls' own choices, of which STEM subjects don't appear to be high priority?  But they are right, just as in our school system, if you want more girls to succeed, the best way is to direct all resources towards girls and none towards boys. I mean, how unfair that boys could be allowed to dominate in one single field besides ditch-digging and other various jobs women wouldn't touch with a barge pole - you know, the ones that result in over 90% of workplace injuries and deaths landing on the backs of men. I don't hear the feminists, nor Symantec, advocating for Title IX participation in that area of the labour force, do you?

But, what does the management of Symantec and other large companies such as The Royal Bank of Canada, or Bell Media, actually think is going to happen to them in the future? Referring back to our failed lawsuit against Wal-Mart example, suppose that the goal at Symantec is to have those female employees who only put in 57% of the effort become represented in equal proportion to the men in executive and board positions... then just where, exactly, are those men supposed to go? The men who would work 70hrs a week would be fools to keep working like that if women could work only 40hrs a week and achieve the same promotions and pay. So, where, exactly, are all these displaced men supposed to go? Obviously, women only want to work in "nice conditions." They are screeching for corporate and government support only to make themselves represented in larger numbers in "nice" jobs such as doctor, lawyer, teacher, or anything else with prestige, an air-conditioned office, and plenty of other girls to gab and gossip with. They certainly aren't clamoring for jobs as garbage collectors or farm labourers, are they?

So, while Symantec and other corporations try to show the world how "socially responsible" they are in this "equal" nation we live in, what they are actually doing is bringing back an aristocratic class structure to society - something that America has gladly shed from European history. After all, if women only go for the cush jobs, and they get aided to the tune of billions by smug corporations trying to appear politically correct, and further enforced into those positions by the law - such as is the case in Norway where 40% of corporate boards must be female... then it is only simple math to see that women will dominate all of the good, high-paying jobs (often without merit), while the men will be far over-represented in all of the crappy jobs that women simply won't do. Talk about bringing social and class stratification back into society! Women: Upper Class Merchants and Nobles. Men: Lower Class Peasants and Scum.

And this doesn't even get into the troubles that hypergamy brings into the equation. Women "marry up," but rarely downward in social status - thus nurses marry doctors, secretaries marry lawyers, factory labourers marry waitresses... but very, very rarely does a female doctor (or executive at Symantec) marry a garbage collector or one of those "icky" auto mechanics. Way to destroy marriage, and the stable society that marriage creates, you socially responsible people at Symantec! What do you think happens to a country when there are large amounts of men, unattached to families, and with no good job prospects? Ever heard of the Middle East or the Arab Spring? Do you understand why, in those above feminist quotes, they want the number of men reduced to 10%?

Perhaps its best for Symantec to leave their moralizing out of the workplace where it not only affects their performance, but also their market value - and thus, their investor's profits. Make your investors money, like you are supposed to, and let your investors decide what to moralize about or be charitable towards.

What Symantec ought to do is hire a guy like the CEO of Cypress, T.J. Rodgers, who in 1996 responded to a nun about the immorality of political correctness in corporations. It's well worth the read - especially for those who work at Symantec.   

Disclaimer: The author of this article is not a professional investment adviser and the above information is not for trading purposes, but for entertainment only. Do your own due diligence and trade at your own risk. 


Is Symantec Anti-American?

Symantec and Censorship 

"According to this report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Chief Operating Officer of Symantec, John Schwarz, was quoted as “calling for laws to make it a criminal offense to share information and tools online which could be used by malicious hackers and virus writers”. If this is the official stance from Symantec, then I must say I am convinced John Schwarz is smoking crack. Our country has a history of censorship blunders and what I call “censorship legislation” that has mucked up our legal system long enough and crippled the responsible citizens with little-to-no effect on actual crime. What’s even scarier is that a VP from Symantec was recently named the Dept. of Homeland Defense’s Cybersecurity director, putting friends of Symantec in high places where this legislation could actually become a reality. This short article will take a look at the negative effects of the censorship legislation backed by the COO of Symantec and also a couple of recent examples of “censorship legislation” … and what little effect it has had on criminals, while having a substantial effect on responsible citizens. I can only draw one of two conclusions about Mr. Schwarz based on this stance. In my opinion, he is either completely ignorant of the effects of this type of legislation, or he is an avid supporter of weakening American infrastructure, American jobs, and the US Constitution."

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Symantec's Censorship of the Gun Debate

"Regardless of one's stance on this issue, it is intellectually dishonest to filter sites interpreting the Second Amendment as an individual right or those discussing the advantages and disadvantages of gun control policies, on the grounds that it might avoid future school shootings, or just as absurdly, that these sites in any way encourage kids to 'hose down' schools. Such associations are logical fallacies."

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One little mistake -- like failing to sign the certificate when you push out a patch for your antivirus product -- and all of a sudden you're a malware-producing, censoring spam bot. That's how it seemed for Symantec when an error spun wildly out of control.

...Symantec began deleting posts on the forum, and users began accusing it of censoring free speech and coming up with conspiracy theories.

Censorship? What censorship, asks Mark Parker, senior product manager at antivirus vendor Marshal8e6. "You are told these forums are moderated when you sign up for them," he told TechNewsWorld.

... Symantec began deleting posts in the Norton Users Forum because they were abusing the forum's terms of service, Symantec staff member Dave Cole said. "Within the first hour there were 600 new posts on this subject alone," he said.

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Symantec/Norton Censorship 

It appears that Symantec/Norton is up to their old tricks again

Censoring any person be it a paying customer or not, that asks them a direct viable question on their forums relating to one of their most recent blunders, the release of their Update V.16.5.0.134 & V.16.5.0.135.


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Symantec Supports Chinese Web Censorship

Summary: Symantec's Norton AntiVirus product has blacklisted a piece of software which enables users in China to access websites which are blocked by order of the government.


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Lol! Now here's a real hate-site!

Why Do People HATE Symantec?

"They flagged my website as dangerous and try to persuade me to buy their worthless products in exchange for whitelisting."

"It has crap antivirus software. It does more harm than good. Lot of False positives. Something called SONAR is a joke. Keep away from this software"

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