Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, electronics giant Sony
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Sony's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
Sony facts
| Headquarters (founded) | Tokyo (1946) |
| Market Cap | $22.3 billion |
| Industry | Consumer electronics |
| Trailing-12-Month Revenue | $79.9 billion |
| Management | Chairman/CEO Howard Stringer CFO Masaru Kato |
| Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) | (5.9%) |
| Cash/Debt | $17.5 billion / $13.5 billion |
| Dividend Yield | 1.3% |
| Competitors |
Panasonic
Koninklijke Philips Electronics SANYO Electric |
Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 28% of the 1,646 members who have rated Sony believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.
Just last week, one of those bears, All-Star jwray01, listed several of Sony's negatives:
A dying has-been with consistently negative earnings (and falling). ...
Their business encompasses:
1. Dinosaurs of the music/movie industry that are likely to wither away over the next 20 years.
2. Some crappy games and consoles whose lunch will be eaten by Valve, [Activision] Blizzard, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Apple.
3. Commodity consumer electronics that can be made cheaper and better by others.
4. A huge random amalgamation of other crap that evidently isn't very profitable.
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