BlackBerry (BB.TO)

John Chen has done a great job of keeping the company alive. They’ve totally shifted away from mobile phones and into software. It is still one of the most secure phones you can use. Thinks they will survive, but whether they will prosper or not is another question. Needs another couple of good quarters, where the revenue from the software side really starts to show.

This has gone from technology to more of a software company. In Canada, in technology in there aren’t too many options. He’s unsure how they will continue to make profits. They’re in a very competitive industry. Would prefer a major US tech player. If you own and have made some profit, he would suggest you rebalance out of that.

Sell or Hold? They’ve changed from hardware to software. The asset values he sees from the street are $16-$17, and the consensus might be $15, so you are getting pretty close. If he owned it with $10 costs, he would be tempted to take half off the table. It is getting close to full value. John Chen does a good job.

Has a model price of $4.55, a 68% downside. Earnings are coming back slowly. Believes there was another key executive that left. There is no fundamental reason to buy this. Prefers others.

Has a couple of interesting deals that it has arranged. It is now out of the woods and is a different company. It will get royalties from selling Blackberries, which seem to have some strength in places like Indonesia or Philippines, with governments who want total security, or close to it. John Chen has done a good job.

It looks like they are coming out the other side, particularly with the software side of their business. Has a market cap of $7.4 billion, so a very large company in Canada as well as globally. Have produced some significant free cash flow and is now free cash flow positive. This has a price/cash flow that is pretty attractive, at roughly around 7X or 8X.

He likes what the CEO, John Chen, is doing. They just signed new deals this month with some major players, Delphi and Timex. They are moving in the right direction. Have a tremendous amount of analysts’ coverage, and it is still in the news. When a company like this gains its legs, it can move up very quickly, and he can see how it could double. (Analysts’ price target is $10.50.)

Management has moved away from the phone business, and has been moving into the software side. A really good job has been done on restructuring. Now they have to see more growth coming from that business. You’ll have to look for them to make some acquisitions and push their software business to a new level. Business is going to be lumpier than people think. It is not going to be a smooth transition, and you will have to expect some volatility. This is one he would look to buy on dips.

(Market Call Minute) So last century. They are trying to find something to do now that they are out of the mobile handset business. They are just another software supplier and he can’t imagine why you would want to buy it.

He still likes it. GS-N just put it down to a sell. Chen seems to be hitting his targets for the most part. He bought it assuming it would be taken over, but that did not happen. He kept it because Chen had his previous company taken over. It is so big and has such a huge following that when it does well it can really shoot up.

If you own this, the most valuable parts are probably in the patent portfolio they accumulated that were necessary to make a mobile device. There may be somebody interested in these patents, but the problem is, it includes everything that goes with it such as leases on properties, potential severance, etc.

He doesn’t know the seasonality, but technicals show it has had a fantastic move this year, but is now going down. It has some strong support at around $11. The technology sector has a tendency to peak at around the middle of July, and then tends to weaken through to about the middle of October.

(Market Call Minute.) There is an interesting revival happening here. He is still doing a lot of homework on this. There is a lot of technology risk here.

He flips back and forth on it. They have a negative return on capital. He does not think it is going to be able to come back. They have not shown him enough for now. He is not there yet.

This has been through the grinder a few times. There is enough volatility that a trader could have some fun with it. Consolidated through much of last year, and broke out this year. If you get a break out, it can often roughly equal in volatility the movement of the former trading range. In this case, it actually overshot that, and has now moved back into its lower range. Technically, he would not buy this, as he thinks it could pull back to around $11.50.