Altucher's Stockpickr Answers

On Stockpickr Answers today and late yesterday, market commentator and fund manager James Altucher responded to a new batch of questions posed by members of the Stockpickr community. Anybody can ask, respond, comment, etc., at Stockpickr Answers, and the top responders get ranked in our "Top Analysts" section. Here are a few of the questions Altucher responded to:

• Everybody knows that hedge funds, as a group, have underperformed a broad index for the last few years. What, if anything, does the underperformance of hedge funds say about market efficiency? What, if anything, does it say about the ability of the individual investor to pick stocks that beat the market over time?
• The forward P/Es of Amazon (AMZN) - Get Report, Google (GOOG) - Get Report and NYSE Euronext (NYX) , respectively, are 54.0, 26.5 and 23.2, and theirEPS growth rates are 29.3%, 26.7% and 34.5%, respectively. Why are growth stocks out of favor and do you believe they will be in favor by the end of the year?
• Apple (AAPL) - Get Report says it will allow YouTube downloads onto its phone/platform. What software/backbone will benefit from this? Is this a DivX (DIVX) , Qualcomm (QCOM) - Get Report or Broadcom (BRCM) play?
• Who, if anyone, could buy JPMorgan Chase (JPM) - Get Report out? And would they want them at this stage? Or could they partner up ... 50/50 with someone, say Bank of America (BAC) - Get Report? Would Eddie Lampert consider them?
• What would be your take on a trade on Accenture (ACN) - Get Report before its earnings conference call the 28th? I have a nice gain on this core position, and would like to make some mad money on a trade. Thanks!
• Now that Yahoo! (YHOO) has a new CEO, does ValueClick (VCLK) become a takeover candidate again?
• Sun Microsystems (SUNW) - Get Report trades on such heavy volume. It's been stuck at $5 and change forever. Who is doing all this trading of Sun Microsystems and why?

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