BlackBerry (BB.TO)

It is difficult to evaluate. They don’t meet his criteria, but he does own FFH-T and they in turn own a lot of BB-T

Had a huge loss of over $600 million in the past quarter. Often one of the good things to do is to back a good jockey, and John Chen is a good jockey. Thinks he has the ability to turn this around. When you have a company like this that is very, very popular and very much in the news, if and when it turns, it can turn in a nanosecond. Thinks it is a worthwhile play.

This has been sort of left in the dust by Android and IOS phones. It looks like they will stop making physical phones in the next couple of years as the market keeps getting smaller and smaller. However, John Chen has done a good job increasing the software and service revenue, which is where they want to be eventually. At some point the company will be turned around and sold at a good price. There will be more bumps before that happens.

There seems to be some uncertainly. Chen thinks they can make it as a product builder, but also in other areas. There is a risk they don’t execute well. Their products are very, very good, but the business market may not do well. It is not a turnaround story any time soon. It is at the bottom of the range so consider accumulating it.

The difficult part for him is that the user base has gone down tremendously over the last little while. As they move towards trying to be more of a software company, that may help them, but that transition is going to take a fair bit of time. There are better companies to own.

(Market Call Minute.) He would own Apple (AAPL-Q) and keep it simple.

Doing their best to turn this into a mobile enterprise juggernaut, which he doesn’t think is going to happen. Most of the monetization of this story is baked into the price. The street has been downgrading this during April. Not something that will ever be on his radar.

(Market Call Minute.) The bad news is more or less baked into the stock. Execution needs to happen over the coming year.

Had bought this in the low $10 range. His premise that it was going to get taken over at $15+ was wrong. He likes the CEO John Chen, who has been hitting his targets. They have taken on a fair bit of debt. He is happy to hold it, and his initial sell target is $17+. If it starts to turn around, this has a huge following.

(Market Call Minute.) World leading technology that lost focus and is still re-imagining itself, but it is going to be awhile.

(Market Call Minute.) Prefers companies like Apple (AAPL-Q) that are growing.

It is suffering in the last cycle the way Nokia and Motorola suffered. BB-T never really got into the consumer side of things. He prefers AAPL-Q. The company is in more of a turnaround mode. They report tomorrow before market open.

It is not a Nortel disaster, which was smoke, mirrors and a lot of accounting. BB-T has stabilized their product, an android phone, with good reviews. They will never be a dominant force in the phone world again, but they have the resources to carry their own, however. He wonders where the earnings will come from down the road and he is not sure how long it will be. He admires management for stabilizing the company. They need to become more of a software company and less of a hardware company. Let the Chinese make the hardware and participate in developing the next cell phone the people are going to want to have.

Thought there would be a takeover at a higher price, but it didn’t happen. Thinks the CEO, John Chen, is overpaid, but at the same time he knows what he is doing and has been hitting his targets. There is a good chance that at some point this company might burst out. A very volatile stock. His target price is $17+.

Despite a lot of negativity, this continues to survive. The security aspects are underrated, and more attention should be paid to that. Chart shows it has been flat lining for a number of years, and maybe that is going to be its future. Thinks it will survive, and maybe grow again. Wouldn’t buy at this time as it is a risky proposition.