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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 07:08 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Investors should take a long, hard look at Apple (AAPL) shares before jumping into the stock, writes Brett Arends of The Wall Street Journal.
A better investment in smartphones might be in network operators, which are cheap, he writes. Those include Verizon Communications (VZ), AT&T (T) and Vodafone (VOD), which have dividend yields in the 5% to 6% range. Arends lists a number of reasons why, even after Apple's impressive earnings report this week, investors should tread carefully. "The case for or against investing in Apple has little to do with whether it's a good company (it is) or whether it makes good products (it does)," he writes. "It isn't even about whether the company can beat expectations. It's about whether the shares, priced at these levels, make for a sound investment."
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Posted
Oct 19 2009, 03:44 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Wall Street believes that Apple (AAPL) will make $1.42 a share for the quarter that just ended on $9.2 billion in revenue. Both figures would be well over 10% higher than a year ago. Apple would have to sell about of 2.9 million Macs, 10.5 million iPods and 6.9 million iPhones to hit those numbers.
Fulfilling those expectations will be a tall order. iPod sales dropped 7% in the June quarter. Mac sales were only up 4% to 2.6 million, and iPhone sales reached 5.2 million.
Wall Street's iPhone sales estimates may be too conservative. The handset has been a hit for AT&T (T), especially after the introduction of the 3GS model, and there is some evidence that sales in Europe are rising quickly due to price cuts in the UK, Germany, and France.
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Posted
Sep 23 2009, 04:06 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon (AMZN), is known for being eccentric, but his new handset offer may be taking that act a bit too far. Cell phones using the AT&T (T) wireless network were selling on Amazon yesterday for one penny each. If the program is a success it is likely to come back.
The only product not available at the remarkable price is the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
The purchase of the phone must be made with a two-year AT&T wireless subscription. The phones also come with free two-day shipping.
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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 10:26 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
My sister wanted to get Apple's iPhone, but the service was so bad in Tucson, Ariz., that she decided against it. And Cnet's Elinor Mills writes that iPhone calls from her San
Francisco apartment are dropping or are garbled. While the iPhone itself draws raves from adoring fans, AT&T's (T) wireless service leaves much to be desired for some. Mills says her iPhone service is so bad it's often easier to have a Web video conference than make a simple voice call. She called AT&T to ask why, and was told that maybe the thickness of her walls or the network demand were to blame. AT&T insisted the issue was not newsworthy. And presto: That's the fastest way to make sure a reporter treats something as newsworthy. Bing: How people deal with iPhone dropped calls
Mills' story seems to be touching a nerve,
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Posted
Sep 11 2009, 03:53 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Apple (AAPL) has a deal with China Unicom (CHU) to sell its iPhone on the mainland. The deal, however, is not exclusive. The head of China Mobile (CHL), which has 500 million subscribers and is the world’s largest cellular company, says his firm is in talks with Apple about selling the iPhone, which would give the U.S. company a second partner in the world’s most populous nation.
A deal with China Mobile could transform Apple’s already successful handset business. Apple sold just over 5.2 million iPhones in its last quarter. The distribution of the product in Asia is almost non-existent.
Revenue from the iPhone was nearly 20% of Apple’s total sales in the period that ended June 27. This does not include some deferred revenue attached to sales through AT&T (T). The iPhone is by far Apple’s fastest-selling product. The company’s ability to continue double-digit sales growth almost certainly hinges on the iPhone’s future, as the sales growth of the iPod and Mac slow.
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Posted
Aug 31 2009, 04:04 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There are two ways to look at the economic relationship between Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T), and both may be accurate. AT&T says it has signed up 10 million iPhone owners for its long-term calling and data plans. Many of those customers have come from other cellular providers. AT&T is thus adding new, and perhaps profitable, business.
On the other hand, AT&T pays Apple an estimated $400 a phone. AT&T probably has to hold onto its iPhone customers for the full two years of their subscription plan to make a lot of money.
The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out that AT&T has other smartphones that it does not have to pay handset companies like Samsung and Nokia (NOK) as much as $400 to acquire.
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Posted
Aug 26 2009, 04:03 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 American Internet speeds are slow, very slow, by international standards. That may be one reason the $787 billion economic stimulus package has a large financial commitment to building broadband infrastructure.
The U.S. ranks 28th among large countries in Internet connection speeds, according to new data from the Communications Workers of America. The organization has a reason to track the information. Many of the union members’ jobs rely on cable and telecom firms continuing to invest to build larger broadband systems, particularly the communications giants Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ).
The Internet speed champions are led by South Korea, Japan, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
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Posted
Aug 19 2009, 02:47 PM
by
CAPS Editor
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 This post comes from Rich Duprey at partner site The Motley Fool.
Some companies are obviously great investments -- in hindsight. Yet for every stock screaming "Buy me!" others simply give us a nudge and a nod.
How can we isolate tomorrow's great investments from the thousands of pretenders? At MSN CAPS, these opportunities are frequently found among four-star stocks.
Top-rated five-star stocks obviously have bullish consensus, but we've found that stocks moving up from three stars to four are likely being driven by "smart money." By getting in early, investors may be able to eke out a few extra percentage points of gain from these equities.
That's why it's worthwhile to sift through the CAPS database to find four-star companies that could be on the cusp of achieving a bullish consensus among investors.
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Posted
Jul 30 2009, 01:21 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Certainly a lot of Sprint executives and shareholders hoped the launch of the new Palm (PALM) Pre smartphone in June would give Sprint (S) a revenue boost. As the exclusive wireless carrier for the Pre, Sprint was poised to reap big rewards if the Pre took off big.
Sprint still claims the Pre launch was succesful, but when the company released its earnings for the second quarter yesterday, it was clear the Pre wasn't successful enough to give Sprint the boost it so desperately needs.
Sprint reported a loss of $384 million, or 13 cents per share in the three months ending June 30. That was an even bigger loss than the $344 million it lost in the same quarter of 2008.
A big culprit was a drop in wireless revenues of 9%. Sprint saw 991,000 annual contract-signing customers disappear. In the same quarter, Verizon (VZ) added 1.1 million subscribers and AT&T (T) added 1.4 million
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Posted
Jul 28 2009, 07:34 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Analysts have hoped that the rate at which Americans become unemployed will slow in the second half of 2009. There has been some evidence that the period in which the economy would lose 600,000 or more jobs a month is over. That may not be the case.
The press has observed that layoffs are one of the main reasons behind improved earnings in the second quarter. Sales at many companies are not up, but expenses are down, in many cases considerably. But, second quarter results may not only be the result of jobs cuts; they may be the cause for more, which will mean that the period in which the economy faces rapidly rising unemployment is not over.
Verizon (VZ) announced that it will cut 8,000 jobs. Its results for the last reporting period were below par. The recession is one reason for that. Another is that customers are canceling their landline phones and using cellular phones or VoIP instead. The poor economy and new technology are overwhelming Verizon’s old way of doing business. The same thing has happened to AT&T (T).
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