Richard Moore's 15 Minutes of Fame

Yesterday morning, CNBC's guest host was Richard Moore, Treasurer of the State of North Carolina.

I'm not really sure what the financial officer of a non-profit entity has to offer viewers of the network. Perhaps he is one of those aggressive, 'proactive' State Treasurers who feel they must assume the role of Chief Market and Investment Guru for their state. But he did provide some interesting information from an investor standpoint.

For instance, he referred many times to the portfolio he manages for the State, and some of its larger holdings. One was either Wal-Mart or some other retailer-ish company which has been in a slump for several years. Moore cheerily assured the CNBC on-air staff that the company in question was 'a fine company, we're not worried, they'll do just fine over time. We're long term investors.' Things like that.

His next pronouncement really took me by surprise. Asked about Microsoft, one of his portfolio's major equity holding, he professed complete faith in keeping the position for the next several years. When asked why, he rambled on in the following sort of vein,

'Well, it's just a great company. It's been down for a while, but it's great. It will be back. They have that X-box, and it's great. My kids tell me they love it, so don't count Microsoft out. They'll do fine, and we're a long term investor."

My own view, based upon my proprietary research and portfolio history, is decidedly different. I wrote here about how no technology companies have ever reappeared, years apart, among my selections, as of the date of the November, 2005 post. Since then, Apple has reappeared in the portfolio, after an absence of more than 10 years. However, it's arguably not the "same" Apple at all. And the reason it is back is not computers, but special-purpose, application-specific digital processing hardware and software combinations, a/k/a, "iPods."

However, for all other technology companies to date, the rule seems to be that their deep commitment to their original technologies prohibits them from taking advantage of opportunities spawned by the very success of those technologies. They learn to work 'one way,' with one legacy technology orientation, and pretty much die with it. If Microsoft has any second act whatsoever, and I doubt that it does, it will be reinventing itself as a niche hardware vendor, rather than a resurgent software titan. Its 'software in a box' approach is dead, Ballmer is still in charge, and the company's arguably too big to be sufficiently nimble now. In fact, on this last point, see yesterday's piece about GE.

So here we have the Treasurer of what I would guess to be a multi-billion dollar portfolio, making stock picks on the advice of his pre-teen children. I'm sure Tarheels throughout the state will be thrilled.

So much for Mr. Moore's 15 minutes of fame.

As for me, I'm actually pretty happy. If this is the competition in the marketplace of investors, I'm sleeping more easily tonight.