Stocks and Sectors

Stockopedia submits:

Verizon (NYSE:VZ) is the US’s largest mobile telecoms provider, through its 55% held subsidiary Verizon Wireless. It’s also one of the bellwethers of US fixed line telecoms – it was formed through the merger of GTW and Bell Atlantic, back in 2000.

But the share price has had a tough time in the last year or so. That reflects high capex as Verizon builds its fiber-to-the-home network, which so far hasn’t started paying for itself, together with the impact of the economic slowdown. Only recently have the shares started to bounce back as speculation grows that Verizon will get rights to sell the iPhone next year (starting January 2010), bringing to an end AT&T’s (T) exclusivity on the Apple product (AAPL)

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Jeffrey Saut submits:

Excerpt from Raymond James strategist Jeffrey Saut’s latest essay (published Monday, July 26th):

…I think we are approaching a point where rebalancing portfolios may be in order. To wit, the June “closing highs” for the DJIA (INDU/10424.62) and the DJTA (TRAN/4369.71) were 10450.64 and 4467.25, respectively. Currently, both averages are approaching those levels. Either both averages will break out above their June highs (a Dow Theory buy-signal), one will break out and the other won’t (an upside non-confirmation), or both will fail to close above their June highs (trouble). Meanwhile, my proprietary intermediate-term trading indicator is still flashing caution, as are the stochastic and 12-month moving average indicators.

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Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call Transcript

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Socket Mobile, Inc. (SCKT)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call

July 22, 2010 5:00 pm ET

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Westell Technologies Inc. (WSTL)

F1Q11 (Qtr End 06/30/2010) Earnings Call

July 22, 2010 09:30 pm ET

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Trefis submits:

Motorola (MOT) recently announced the sale of most of its wireless networking equipment businesses to Nokia (NOK) for $1.2 billion in cash. This transaction is expected to close by the end of 2010.

We think this was a smart move by Motorola. The company’s wireless network equipment sales declined from $6.2 billion in 2005 to $4.1 billion in 2009, and seemed unlikely to recover. The sale leaves Motorola with a healthy stockpile of cash that it can invest in its core mobile phone business, where it faces fierce competition from Apple (AAPL), Nokia and others. Our analysis follows below.

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Stockerblog submits:

You own electric utilities, you own natural gas utilities, you own water utilities, but you still want more diversification for your income portfolio. How about telecommunication stocks, which could be considered semi-utilities?

There are some disadvantages; land lines are decreasing, cell phone usage is increasing, and more and more households are now using cell phones as their primary if not their only phone. The phone companies aren’t standing still; they are pushing plenty of other services besides the usual telecommunications. Plus, the negative news has already been built into the price of many of these stocks, and then some.

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Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits:

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Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call

July 23, 2010 8:30 am ET

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Research Recap submits:

NERA Economic Consulting questions the popular notion that mobile phone users will rapidly upgrade to faster networks such as 3G and the upcoming 4G.

In the paper, NERA Vice President Christian Dippon examines the widely-held belief that faster is better when it comes to mobile telephony. Most countries around the world have allocated 3G spectrum and are eagerly moving forward to allocate advanced wireless services and 4G spectrum, both of which promise subscribers broadband Internet access with faster download speeds.

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