One of the cool things about Netflix (NFLX ) CEO Reed Hastings’ regular letters to shareholders is his casual discussion of other big players in the television business.

Comcast (CMCSA ) is doing a great job for Netflix subscribers in terms of broadband performance, we’re told in Hastings’ latest missive, issued April 21 with the release of first-quarter earnings. But Hastings opposes Comcast’s proposed $70 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC ), he explains, because the combination would be too powerful, with dominion over 60% of U.S. households getting broadband.

Hastings dings the quality of AT&T (T ) broadband delivery of Netflix content and provides a link to the telephone company’s website comments board where people can, and do, weigh in on the topic. (He draws a sharp and well-reasoned retort from an AT&T executive.)

And perhaps most unusually, he openly gauges Netflix’s progress by comparing it to a specific competitor: “We are approaching 50 million global members, but that is far short of HBO’s 130 million. We are eager to close the gap.”

The sudden abundance of natural gas and tightening of coal-emission standards by the EPA has pushed U.S. coal prices down sharply over the past five years as generation plants shifted their energy preference to the cleaner and cheaper resource:

The last six months has not been kind to shareholders of companies involved in connecting consumers to local merchants, with shares of OpenTable (OPEN ), Yelp (YELP ) and Groupon (GRPN ) all hit hard, alongside other Internet and tech stocks with high valuations.

This is precisely the business model Priceline (PCLN ) has ridden to a $60 billion market cap. focusing brilliantly on the fragmented world of foreign hotels – which, unlike large domestic hotel chains, airlines and car rental companies aren’t consolidated and thus easily findable.

The fact that nearly half of Americans tote around less than $20 in cash on a daily basis is no doubt cheerful news for American Express (AXP ), Capital One Financial (COF ), Discover Financial Services (DFS ), MasterCard (MA ), and Visa (V ).

Interestingly, amid a market that is trading slightly above fair value according to Morningstar (MORN ), Capital One is at a 14% discount to fair value, MasterCard currently trades at a 10% discount to Morningstar’s estimate of fair value, and Visa is 5% below its fair value estimate. American Express and Discover trade at or above fair value. (Full disclosure: Morningstar is an investor in YCharts.)

Revenue has more than doubled over the past five years. Profit has more than quadrupled. Stock buybacks have aggressively reduced shares outstanding by more than 30%. And for all of that and more, Outerwall (OUTR )— formerly Coinstar and the parent of the ubiquitous Redbox movie rental kiosks — trades at a PE ratio less cash of less than nine.

Could be. But 45 minutes spent standing off to the side at the local supermarket, watching who rents movies from the Redbox kiosk, tells us: they’re young, not the too-old-to-figure-out-Netflix (NFLX ) types; no, they’re not wealthy in appearance, but neither are they scruffier or poorer-looking than any other bunch of under-30s. And they’re quite often couples, not loners, topping off a little grocery shopping with the treat of an under-$3 movie rental. Not a bad clientele.