Qualcomm or Motorola

Yesterday a sizable chunk of money was paid into our current account from the cashing in of our endowment policy. Yes! No more unnecessary monthly charges. No more paying for life insurance that I don't need. No more letters saying that the policy is underperforming and needs more money. The cash is firmly under my control now and it is going to stay that way. Let me see if I can do better than the 6% annual rise that the endowment company predicted.

One quarter of the amount will be invested in a US company. I could quite happily invest all of it in US companies but that would leave me very exposed to movements of the Dollar. Why are they so many global US brands and so few UK ones? Our one cell phone manufacturer has now gone bankrupt (Sendo.) Maybe it is our work ethic or maybe a corporate lack of ambition. All I know is that when I try to think of US companies I would like a slice of I can instantly think of at least ten. eBay, Google, WalMart, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Motorola, Disney, Continental Airlines, Comcast, Intel, Texas Instruments. That was 11 without even trying. When it comes to UK companies I struggle to think of more than 3. Vodafone (world leader in wireless communications), British Airways (well managed), Glaxo SmithKline (lots of drugs coming through), Big Yellow (well managed, growing, nice margins.) There are others but very few have the sort of competitive advantage that the US ones have.

Anyway I have narrowed down the choice of US company to Motorola or Qualcomm. Lets look at Motorola:

P/E: 29 - just inside the limit of 30 which I have set for this account
Yield: 0.82% - hmmm under the 1% minimum. The limit could be stretched I guess...
Market Cap: $47 - well over the £2 billion minimum.
Projected Growth: 12%

A bit dodgy on the yield but MOT just about squeezes in. My time is up but I love Motorola's broad product portfolio. It seems well placed to benefit from the boom in wireless communications.

Current favourites for mortgage portfolio:

US: Motorola
UK: BAA, Tesco, Vodafone.

Other options: Qualcomm, WalMart, Lloyds TSB, RBS, O2, Scottish Power.

Bye bye.