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Thread: Motorola... a deal if under $5?

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    Veteran Member XxAmber89xX's Avatar
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    Default Motorola... a deal if under $5?

    right now Motorola shares are fluctuating between 5.30-5.50/share.

    I had this stock on my 'watchlist' for a possible entry point at around $6, though I didn't enter any recent limit orders on any stocks to avoid 'catching a falling knife' as the momentum carries all of the world indices downwards.

    anyways, my considerations of Motorola:

    Carl Icahn, who owns 6.4 percent, and has been pushing hard for change, including the naming of one of his cohorts last spring to the BOD. He naturally is not at all pleased as his investment in this enterprise has dropped in value,having opened his position in March of 2007 when the stock was trading in the high teens. He kept buying more on the way down.

    Overall, the fact that Carl believes in a vision for a successful reconstructing of the company and he has called for this company to be divided into pieces, which will likely happen in the next six months.

    This outfit is huge with revenues of better than $30 billion. Unfortunately it is shrinking somewhat, which is always a concern as that can indicate a further cut of labour with all of the associated costs. Add in a debtload that needs to be serviced and refinanced, plus the fact that the company is only on the margin of profitability, and one can see why the shares have dropped. Oh yes, and there is that nagging cell phone division, which is bleeding money. Oh, and the economy?

    A wild card of sorts is also the management team, recently expanded with Dr. Sanjay K. Jha joining the team. This means there are two co-chief executive officers, often the kind of arrangement that does not work well, even if their lines of responsibility are clearly delineated.

    Technology is changing all the time in this field. The competition is fierce. MOT will have to continue to spend lots of money on research and development to keep up and needs another hit like Razr. Will they find it?
    Given the long history of this organization, I think it is a real possibility.


    If they don't, a small and nominal investment here will not pan out. I'll let you know if I decide to 'jump in' or not... probably not until November, though, as I'm putting all of my resources into the closing of my 1st house.

    Quite a contrarian play right now, though. I'd expect to put a target on this share of about $24.
    Oh Canada, we stand on cars and freeze...

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    Default Re: Motorola... a deal if under $5?

    Quote Originally Posted by XxAmber89xX View Post
    right now Motorola shares are fluctuating between 5.30-5.50/share.

    I had this stock on my 'watchlist' for a possible entry point at around $6, though I didn't enter any recent limit orders on any stocks to avoid 'catching a falling knife' as the momentum carries all of the world indices downwards.

    anyways, my considerations of Motorola:

    Carl Icahn, who owns 6.4 percent, and has been pushing hard for change, including the naming of one of his cohorts last spring to the BOD. He naturally is not at all pleased as his investment in this enterprise has dropped in value,having opened his position in March of 2007 when the stock was trading in the high teens. He kept buying more on the way down.

    Overall, the fact that Carl believes in a vision for a successful reconstructing of the company and he has called for this company to be divided into pieces, which will likely happen in the next six months.

    This outfit is huge with revenues of better than $30 billion. Unfortunately it is shrinking somewhat, which is always a concern as that can indicate a further cut of labour with all of the associated costs. Add in a debtload that needs to be serviced and refinanced, plus the fact that the company is only on the margin of profitability, and one can see why the shares have dropped. Oh yes, and there is that nagging cell phone division, which is bleeding money. Oh, and the economy?

    A wild card of sorts is also the management team, recently expanded with Dr. Sanjay K. Jha joining the team. This means there are two co-chief executive officers, often the kind of arrangement that does not work well, even if their lines of responsibility are clearly delineated.

    Technology is changing all the time in this field. The competition is fierce. MOT will have to continue to spend lots of money on research and development to keep up and needs another hit like Razr. Will they find it?
    Given the long history of this organization, I think it is a real possibility.


    If they don't, a small and nominal investment here will not pan out. I'll let you know if I decide to 'jump in' or not... probably not until November, though, as I'm putting all of my resources into the closing of my 1st house.

    Quite a contrarian play right now, though. I'd expect to put a target on this share of about $24.
    You do what you want and think best but I am waiting for the Dow to bottom BEFORE buying anything. ( And my broker thought I was crazy when I started cashing out last year.) It's probably going to stop dropping around 8500.

    As for Motorola, what is their market share of cell phones. Didn't it drop radically over the years ? What is their new product ? Their version of a Blackberry ? Without that, I wouldn't buy it no matter how they rearrange the mgt. furniture.

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    Default Re: Motorola... a deal if under $5?

    I'll put in my crystal ball vision for a DOW 8000 bottom.

    In regard to MOT, at the moment (with the Razr now a mature product) they are definitely in the back seat re top line cell phone (or cell phone plus) manufacturers. This is not a good place to be. Apple and Blackberry can afford to overprice their products because they have 'leading edge' appeal. Samsung and whatever name happens to be stuck on Chinese cell phones enjoy a much lower cost structure by manufacturing in Korea and China. Thus unless MOT unveils another 'leading edge' product pretty quickly ...

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    Veteran Member XxAmber89xX's Avatar
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    Default Re: Motorola... a deal if under $5?

    as said in my post- I'm not quite ready to make a contribution to MOT as my money is tied up for the closing of my house.

    another thing too, I add a stock to my stockwatchlist and leave it there for atleast 6 months before deciding on buying or not. There's alot you can learn in 6 or more months of focusing in on a company. I also order the last 5 annual reports to read the CEO's visions of the corresponding upcoming years to see how 'spot on' (s)he is or isn't.

    as of now, MOT is currently sitting at $4.89 so, I'll currently avoid the falling knife and keep watch.

    even if MOT has the next hot new development, which is quite a challeng in itself, I don't expect it to make up too much ground against Apple and RIM under the current environment. whatever comes of MOT's R&D department, it has to be outside the box and change the direction of technology.
    Oh Canada, we stand on cars and freeze...

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    Default Re: Motorola... a deal if under $5?

    I used to work as a service technician for a wireless company in the early 00's

    Motorola is an overall good company. throught he 90's were pretty much the cell phone to buy, from car phones to bag phones the first generation bricks and several generations of flip phones. The did loose a lot of market share starting in the late 90's. THe fact was that the bulk of the sales they had were from them being the sole provider for NEXTEL (pre Sprint)

    Nokia was NR. 1 mainly due to huge sales in asia and the EU. My company sold a lot of them but I never thought especailly starting about 2002 that they were in the league quality wise. EVERY new phone they came out with no sooneer than it was out in the public always proved to have some kind of "software problem"

    When Motorola came out with the razor it was the NR. selling cell phone for a long time, wheter they ever made it past Nokia I don't know. My understanding is that the Razors were/are made in China. They do have a "blackberry" type of phone, have for a while. Blackberry was first and they have a huge and loyal following that is hard to get people to change from. The I phone benefited greatly from the fact that it was made by Apple, Apple has a huge and loyal following as well and much of the initail demand for the I phone was because of this. I think that if the exact same phone had been made by Samgsung or whoever it would not have had near the demand.

    What can be that "next big thing" I don't know there is not much more that a cell phone can do. It may be to recapture the market for simple reliable phones that just make calls, simply, easily and reliably and that you don't need to be Bill Gates to figure out how to use.

    Also remember that Motorola DOES NOT just make cell phones. Look at just about any cop on the beat, other type of "first responder or "security guard" and odds are really good he will have a Motorola Radio. First responder type vehicles install two way radios as well. The dominate this market and pretty much always have.

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    Default Re: Motorola... a deal if under $5?

    ^^^ good point about Motorola's 'other' business segments. They are also a huge defense contractor, supplying comm equipment to the military. Thus the upcoming election results could have a significant impact on MOT's future profitability !

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