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Posted
Oct 08 2009, 01:26 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There’s no doubt about it. The fiercest battle in the corporate world today is being fought over smartphones. The latest salvo in this war comes from Google (GOOG) via its new Android mobile operating system. In recent weeks, Google has confirmed no less than nine new devices set to use Android. The pipeline for new Android-equipped smart phones is bursting, with handset makers Motorola (MOT) and Samsung firmly on board. Verizon Wireless (VZ) will be coming out with two new Google Android phones in the weeks ahead. Bing: More on Smart Phones
Hey, I’m a big fan of competition, and I love a heated fight for market share. And while I will be keeping a close eye on the impact Android is sure to have, according to the ChangeWave Alliance Research Network surveys, the really interesting battle in the smart phone wars still is being waged by industry titans Research In Motion (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL).
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 11:04 AM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Earnings for Research In Motion (RIMM), makers of the iconic BlackBerry smart phone, are just a few hours away, and it will be interesting to see what the numbers look like.
Wall Street expects a bottom line number at $1 per share on $3.62 billion in sales. Certainly, if RIM is able to dial up an earnings beat, it will be great news for the world’s leading smart phone maker. But regardless of whether RIM fills analysts' expectations up to the brim this quarter, our ChangeWave Alliance Research Network tells us that RIM remains the undisputed heavyweight smart phone champion.
According to a corporate spending survey conducted in August, Research In Motion maintains its huge market share dominance in the corporate smart phone market -- and remember, that it’s the corporate market that provides the lion’s share of RIM’s smart phone revenue.
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Posted
Aug 05 2009, 07:32 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Research In Motion (RIMM) has come up with a way to take market share from Apple (AAPL) and Palm (PALM) in the smartphone market. It is launching the BlackBerry 8520 (pictured), a handset that will be available for $48 at Wal-Mart (WMT) and $129 from T-Mobile.
Investors have been very concerned that lower prices on some iPhones and the new Palm Pre will lure away BlackBerry users. The device is widely used among businesses, but competitors have new features making their latest products more “enterprise friendly”. A number of iPhone applications, for example, are aimed at professionals.
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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
Jun 25 2009, 03:18 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The smartphone wars continue raging with ferocity reminiscent of the new Transformers film. The battle of the machines is here folks, and today Palm (PALM) fired the latest salvo.
The company reported a loss of 40 cents per share in its fiscal fourth quarter, excluding one-time items. Sales for the most recent period hit $113.2 million on a non-GAAP basis. Industry analysts expected the company to post a quarterly loss of 62 cents a share on sales of $81 million. The Street liked what it heard, as the shares surged in after-hours trading immediately following the news.
The interesting thing about Palm is that despite the better-than-expected earnings and revenue numbers, I really don’t think this quarter’s results matter all that much. The real ordinance from the Sunnyvale, Calif., tech firm will likely come next quarter, and the data from our latest ChangeWave Alliance Research Network smartphone survey suggests just that
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Posted
Jun 25 2009, 10:13 AM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Largely thanks to its much-anticipated Pre smartphone (pictured), Palm's (PALM) stock has been on fire this year, and shares of the Pre's exclusive carrier, Sprint (S), have also shot through the roof. For the year, Palm is up about 350%, with Sprint up about 150%.
But while Sprint brass described initial Pre sales as excellent, they've come nowhere near the sales figures for Apple's (AAPL) newly released iPhone 3GS. Reviews of the two devices are mixed, and the "which is better" question may well come down to personal taste and preference.
For investors, however, the key question isn't how you feel personally about the iPhone or the Pre, or what the stocks of the companies involved have already done; rather, it is which companies have the better balance sheets and the more attractive stocks moving forward -- Sprint and Palm, or Apple and its exclusive iPhone carrier, AT&T (T)? That's a question I asked of my Validea.com Guru Strategy computer models recently, and they gave me a pretty overwhelming verdict.
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Posted
Jun 19 2009, 12:20 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post was written by Minyanville Executive Editor Kevin Depew.
1) What really caused the debt crisis
I ran across a recent interview with the Financial Times' Gillian Tett that appeared in Newsweek. Tett has a new book out that looks interesting, "Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe."
In the interview, Tett was asked, "Once things started to go bad, there were a lot of mistakes made by managers but also by policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic. What, in your mind, were some of the crucial ones?"
"One of the biggest policy mistakes was made by the American officials who repeatedly said that the subprime problem was contained and that there was no reason to worry about it at all," Tett said. "That represented a considerable misunderstanding of how the financial system had changed. They failed to calculate the enormous quantity of derivatives written . . . nobody knew how big they were."
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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 04:03 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
I’m a big professional basketball fan, and one of my favorite players is Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics. In a now-famous quote, Pierce once described what it felt like when a player is in the zone, “The rim is looking bigger and bigger every game.”
Now, being in the zone when it comes to diagnosing the trends in specific market sectors is a feeling I’ve been fortunate to experience for many years, thanks to the ChangeWave Alliance Research Network. By conducting targeted surveys of experts in specific industries, the ChangeWave survey results have accurately called many of the biggest secular growth trends of the past decade.
One of the sectors we’ve been able to dial-in the best is smart phones.
The most recent ChangeWave surveys show big demand for smart phones (as opposed to ordinary cell phones) going forward. In fact, demand has never been bigger, and we’re actually seeing that demand accelerate. So which smart-phone manufacturers are set to make the biggest splash
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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 11:42 AM
by
Catherine Holahan
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
If you complain -- loudly -- Steve Jobs and friends will listen.
In response to online tirades from existing Apple iPhone owners, iPhone service provider AT&T changed its upgrade policy today to allow more users to buy new phones at introductory prices. IPhone 3G owners who would be eligible to upgrade in July, August or September can now purchase the recently released iPhone 3G S for the same $199 price as new customers. The new upgrade policy takes effect today, Thursday, June 18.
"We've been listening to our customers. And since many of our iPhone 3G customers are early adopters and literally weeks shy of being upgrade eligible due to iPhone 3G S launching 11 months after iPhone 3G, we're extending the window of upgrade eligibility for a limited time," said AT&T in a statement on the corporate Web site.
IPhone owners have lobbied for the change since Apple unveiled the latest version of the phone on June 8. The new 16GB iPhone 3G S is faster, has longer battery life and more storage than the earlier Apple 3G (no S). It is also about $200 cheaper, with a price tag of $199 instead of $399. Apple is now offering the older 8GB iPhone 3G for just $99.
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Posted
Jun 12 2009, 03:10 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Any big plans for the weekend? Mine will be spent at 5 different sporting events: a gymnastics show, a softball game, and 3 soccer games. Oh, and toss a play in there for good measure. Busy parents out there can appreciate what I’m talking about.
Asian stocks rose overnight. The Hang Seng was up 0.52% and the Nikkei was up 1.55%. Meanwhile, European stocks were in negative territory early this morning. And here in the US, we're currently trading lower.
Here’s what I’m focused on this morning (besides my busy weekend plans):
Progressive Corp (PGR):
I think the Ohio-based auto-insurance company deserves a mention. Here’s why I like it:
1. According to a release last night, its board of directors “approved a new authorization for the Company to repurchase up to 50 million of its Common Shares commencing on July 1, 2009.” It’s no accident (get it?) I dig this because it wouldn’t have done it unless it thought the company had the financial means to do it or the stock was a good value.
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