Investors who realize this fact early could cash in on a brand new tech boom that could produce a new generation of high-tech millionaires not seen since the 1990s.

Comcast, Verizon and other government-protected duopolies won’t be around for your grandchildren to enjoy — at least not in their current forms. You see, companies like these are selling outdated services. And they’re more than reluctant to change their business models.

First, consider the home telephone. This beast is becoming scarcer by the day. In fact, mobile phone-only households are becoming the norm. Yet despite huge increases in wireless sales by traditional telecoms, it’s the wireline segment that keeps these blue chips in the black. More than half of Verizon and (NYSE:T) AT&T’s revenue comes directly from wireline sales.

For the old-school telecom giants, it’s all about infrastructure. They want to milk the cable and phone lines for all they’re worth. After all, it took decades — and millions upon millions of dollars—to create these vast systems that pump TV and telephone service into our homes.

But the communications landscape has changed. We don’t need separate wires to connect our homes to world. Now, it all comes back to bandwidth.

The technology is ready. Wireless dominates the landscape, and the old-fashioned telecoms and cable providers can only desperately hang on to their antiquated services. Even the government—which normally favors any out-of-date and/or irrational business model — is coming around.

We’ve said before that the Federal Communication Commission’s stranglehold on our nation’s airwaves is not only hopelessly out of date — it’s downright counterproductive to the agency’s goals.

However, the FCC is slowly stumbling toward opening up the airwaves once and for all.

Earlier this year, the president dedicated billions of dollars toward rural broadband development in the economic stimulus package. There’s also a mandate that requires the FCC to create a national plan to bring broadband to everyone in the country.

The FCC has also approved proposals to use white space devices to provide broadband access. These devices would utilize analogue television frequencies recently freed up during the digital television conversion.

Of course, telecom giants aren’t going down without a fight. The National Association of Broadcasters has already filed suit in federal court regarding the white space decision, claiming it could interfere with television signals.

It’s a desperate move to save its empire. But in the end, it won’t work. Technology will win, and media convergence will open the door to new data service packages for customers that will provide phone, television, gaming and internet service through lightening-fast, reliable wireless connections.

It will be the beginning of a new tech boom. Companies such as Limelight Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: LLNW), a content delivery network (CDN) provider provides a variety of services, including live Internet video feeds for major events such as the U.S. Open, Oprah’s book tour and the Beijing Olympics, will thrive.  In fact, Limelight’s lucrative contracts with heavy hitters like MSNBC have helped the company grow its revenue more than 500% over the past three years.

More small companies like Limelight will surely emerge in the near future, providing ample opportunities for early investors to cash in on a new age of content convergence.

Best,
Greg Guenthner

Source: How the Death of Big Telecom Will Reignite the Tech Boom

Motorola’s stock is up nearly 12% since the announcement, as investors are hoping the new phone will be enough to win back some of the company’s lost market share.

However, saving Motorola’s mobile division – which the company plans to spin off – is a daunting task. The company – which invented the cell phone, as well as a plethora of other communication devices used by police and military – has seen its global market share of wireless phones fall to 2% in its second quarter this year from 31% in 1995. Mobile phone sales accounted for 33% of Motorola’s second-quarter revenue, down from 41% a year ago.

Motorola had enjoyed some success in 2004 when it released its popular Razr clamshell-style phone, which was viewed as a fashionable and useful high-tech gadget. During its four-year run, more than 110 million Razrs were sold.

However, Motorola failed to respond to innovation in the mobile phone market that was pioneered by its fiercest competitors. Apple and RIMM have whittled away at Motorola’s market share over the past five years.

With the Cliq, Motorola is trying to separate from the competition by angling its device toward a younger, less professional base. The Cliq’s biggest draw will be its quick access to social networking content from Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and News Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace.

“Our initial take is favorable, and it seems that Motorola is carving out a niche in the crowded smartphone market by focusing on socially minded demographics as opposed to enterprise users or pro-sumers,” RBC Capital Markets Corp. analyst Mark Sue told Reuters. Sue upped his share target for Motorola from $8 to $10 a share.

Aside from that distinction, the Cliq includes features typically found in most any smartphone: A touch screen, slide-out keyboard, and access to an application store. It runs on Google Inc.’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android mobile operating system, already found on two other T-Mobile Phones.

However, if Motorola’s Android-based phones are going to take off, they’ll need bigger wireless carriers. The phones currently function on Deutsche Telecom AG’s (NYSE ADR: DT) T-Mobile USA Inc. network. But with just 34 million users, T-Mobile is the fourth-largest carrier in the United States.

For that reason, a second Android phone will be offered for Verizon Communications Inc.’s (NYSE: VZ) mobile network, which is nearly three times as large. Verizon Wireless has about 88 million subscribers and is the largest carrier in the United States.

Wall Street may be underestimating the boost in profit Motorola will get from its smartphone line in 2010, UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) analyst Maynard Um said in a note to investors. Um has upgraded the communications firm’s stock to “buy” from “neutral.” Um attributed the upgrade to the expected holiday release of the Cliq, as well as additional deals with mobile carriers in the fourth quarter.

Pricing for the Cliq was not announced, but Um anticipates recession-friendly pricing.

“We do not expect new competitor handset announcements to have a materially negative sentiment impact on Motorola, as the company is not defending share, likely only has share upside, and is likely to be an aggressor on price,” he wrote.

A sizeable boost in profit could come from the Android phones’ access to the Android Market, Google’s application store. Apple’s App Store for its iPhone and iPod Touch devices have proven to be a boon for the company, with more than 1.8 billion paid and free apps downloaded since its debut in July 2008. While many of the apps, such as those from The New York Times are free, they present consumers a strong value proposition when buying a smartphone.

However, Apple’s App Store has more than 75,000 applications available, while Google’s Android Market offers just 10,000 apps.

Motorola will add more Android-based phones next year, Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha said at a conference last week in San Francisco, and Avian Securities LLC analyst Matt Thornton expects Android phones to represent 30% of the total handsets it sells in 2010, Bloomberg News reported.

“It’s the first step in a long journey,” said Jha, who insists the Cliq will not make or break his company.

In March 2008, Motorola to split its core business from its mobile division after pressure from billionaire investor Carl Ichan mounted. At the time, analysts said the split would put the company in a better position to sell assets or negotiate a joint venture.

A week later, Videocon Industries Ltd., the largest electronics maker in India, said it was interested in buying Motorola’s mobile business. However, neither a sale nor split of Motorola has happened.

Motorola shares closed at $8.79 in trading yesterday (Monday), up 11 cents or 1.27%.

Source: Hot Stocks: Motorola Throws Hat Into Smartphone Ring

Below is a breakdown of S&P 500 yields by sectors:

As you can see, the biggest loser on the list is financials, which shouldn’t be a surprise. The segment’s dividend yield fell 300 basis points (right-hand column) from last year to now.

The sector that pays the most is doing so under the radar: telecommunication services. This is a favorite of ours. That 14 basis point increase is primarily due to AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ) — both paying out around 6%.

These dividends aren’t nearly as safe as we’d like, though. Instead of gunning for the U.S. telecom industry, we like to play that game in emerging markets. We already have a Pacific Rim telecom in the Lifetime Income Report portfolio, and we’ll be adding another this week. Even after that, we’ll continue to keep our eyes peeled and noses to the ground in case something else pops up in that industry.

Going back to that table, you can see the next two best-paying sectors are utilities and consumer staples. Our portfolio is already loaded with these, and we’ll continue looking in these directions as well.

Source: Best Sectors for Income Seekers

Don’t look now, but history tends to repeat itself.

Also, consider the fundamental picture. We have rallied 48% from the March lows on the back of what? Good earnings? Good employment figures? Good spending figures? Expanding GDP? No.

We have rallied based on one of the largest and most concerted propaganda campaigns ever waged, supported by government stimulus. But no government can stimulate forever. The bottom line is this, if Americans do not return to work, THERE IS NO RECOVERY. Memorize this line. Post it on your refrigerator, your mirror, your dashboard – wherever!

So maybe now you’re asking yourself, “Aren’t the unemployment numbers getting better?”

Well, let’s see…

Verizon (NYSE:VZ) – 8,000 jobs cut
Motorola (NYSE:MOT) – 7,000
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) – 5,000
Untied Technologies (NYSE:UTX) – 8,000
HSBC (NYSE:HBC) – 6,100
Anglo American (LON:AAL) – 19,000
Avon (LON:AVON) – 2,500
Goodyear Tire (NYSE:GT) – 5,000
GM (NYSE:GRM) – 10,000
Nissan Motors – 20,000
Panasonic (NYSE:PC) – 15,000
PNC Bank (NYSE:PNC) – 5,800

Many of these will be released in the third and fourth quarters. No doubt there are plenty more we haven’t heard from yet. Frankly, I couldn’t list the thousands of companies and millions of jobs lost in this write-up. That’s just a sampling. But let’s get to some hard and fast figures.

According to Seeking Alpha, 13 million Americans will lose their benefits by years’ end. So if unemployment claims are falling, people must be getting back to work. Right?

WRONG!

They are exhausting their benefits. There are 30 million people in the United States on food stamps. There are only 200 million working-age Americans (age 15-64). Is there any wonder why the Administration is NOW saying they will have to raise taxes on the middle class to fund their programs?

Unemployment has been estimated by many good economists as being around 20%. Unfortunately for these people, their nanny-government lifeboats are slowly running out of air.

Those 3 million people who lost their jobs in the second half of last year? Once you factor in their dependants, that equals 10 million people who have no income and no savings.

And how about the other 4 million others who lost their jobs in the first half of this year? They will be next. The numbers get so depressing, I hate to even count them up.

As I have said before, unemployed people don’t spend money. They don’t buy technologies, or durables, or even pay their mortgage. Bankruptcies are up 600% in this recent downturn. And that includes the time after Congress affected new rules to make bankruptcy harder.

So who is going to pay for anything when they are struggling to buy groceries?

If the equity averages are already rallying on the back of these horrible stats, there is nowhere to go but down when the real truth sets in.

And we have seen this corollary frequently in recent months. When stocks and risk assets fall, so do the currencies, and the dollar rises. We are a long way from being out of the woods on this retracement.

So why do I cite all this doom and gloom about the United States? Believe me, there’s plenty more to go around. Because the fact of the matter is this: When these chickens do come home to roost, we will see another gut-wrenching breathtaking sell-off in equities, which will be followed by currencies. We have not seen the end of this yet.

While some are talking of a recovery, others are talking about a possible double-dip recession – and I’m reasonably sure we are in for a “multi-dip.” It is hard to be bullish on the dollar for any reason, but if the market drops again, which I believe it will, funds will rush right back to the dollar (and the yen).

So far, we have seen range-bound trading in the recent months as currencies search for direction. This week the big news was the US GDP. Risk currencies rallied on the back of it, but for 24 hours they have remained flat as there were no buyers to move it higher.

Also, the market got awfully jittery on the release of the consumer spending news yesterday. The manufacturing euphoria expended itself, and now we find out that personal income has dropped 1.4%, the biggest fall in four years. Inflation-adjusted spending fell 0.1%. The real dark spots in the economy have started showing back up. The stimulus has worked its way and done its best, but its effects are now negligible. Even though there are signs of a “recovery,” it isn’t going to be one without the consumer. If he’s exhausted his means of spending, or is just afraid to put out any money, the recovery trade will be doomed. And that means dollar strength once again.

But for now, we will have to trade with what we have. It is hard to argue with the markets, even with the most compelling of reasons. A person may as well try to stop an ocean wave from breaking onshore.

And as we look ahead, we must always be mindful of what may be. As numerous talking heads were saying on Tuesday of this week, “We have turned the corner… things are going to get better – if they don’t get worse!”

Regards,

Bill Jenkins

Source: Illogical Optimisim

• Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) representatives are yesterday (Tuesday) defended their commodities trading business on Capitol Hill, where regulators may set limits on speculators in the sector. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said that the energy trading community may have played a major role in the volatility of energy prices over the last few years, and may need to expand its oversight of the practice. “The American people are tired of excessive speculation and bubble economies caused by Wall Street greed,” Senator Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said at the hearing, according to The New York Times. “They are tired of hedge fund managers and firms like Goldman Sachs making a fortune betting that the subprime mortgage market will continue to get worse or that more companies will go bankrupt.”

• Consumer confidence in the United States continues to wane: The Conference Board’s confidence index fell to 46.6 this month following a 49.3 reading in June. The key factor affecting confidence is unemployment. “Folks are still concerned about their jobs,” Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC told Bloomberg News.

• Month-to-month U.S. home prices in May grew 0.5% in May, the first increase in nearly three years according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indicies. Year-on-year prices continue to decline on the 20-city index, falling 17.1%. “The pace of descent in home price values appears to be slowing,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P in a prepared statement. “While many indicators are showing signs of life in the U.S. housing market, we should remember that on a year-over-year basis home prices are still down about 17% on average across all metro areas, so we likely do have a way to go before we see sustained home price appreciation.”

• In a move that should appease public outrage over Wall Street pay, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved legislation that would enable regulators to ban incentive pay at banks and give shareholders a vote on bonuses, Bloomberg News reported. The bill, adopted 40-28 yesterday (Tuesday),would allow agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to prohibit compensation that encourages financial companies to take “inappropriate risks.” The House of Representatives and Senate must pass the bill before U.S. President Barack Obama signs it into law. The House could vote as soon as Friday.

• International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) acquired Chicago-based predictive analytics firm SPSS Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSS) for $1.2 billion in cash, or $50 per share. The deal was valued at 40% above SPSS’ closing price of $35.09 on Monday. SPSS’ shares soared on the news yesterday (Tuesday), closing at $49.45, up 40.92% or $14.36. The worldwide market for business analytics software will swell to $25 billion this year, growing 4% over 2008, IBM said, citing Interactive Data Corp. (NYSE: IDC) information.

• Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA) suffered a 32% drop in its second quarter bottom line, citing a challenging global economy. The media giant’s profit fell to $277 million, or 46 cents a share on revenue of $3.29 million for the quarter ended June 30. That compares to a net income of $406 million, or 64 cents a share on revenue of $3.85 billion in the same period last year. The company was encouraged that its premium movie channel, Epix, coming this fall, will appear in the lineup for subscribers of Verizon Communications Inc.’s (NYSE: VZ) FiOS television service. “While we view this as an encouraging sign, we note that Verizon FiOS has a very limited base of TV subscribers,” Spencer Wang said in a Reuters report. “We continue to believe securing distribution from larger operators [such as major cable companies] will be challenging.”

Source: Investment News Briefs Wednesday, July 29, 2009

• Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) will lay off 8,000 full-time and contract workers following a 21% profit drop in its second quarter, The Wall Street Journal reported. All of the job cuts will come from Verizon’s wireline business, which was hit by 630,000 residential phone subscribers canceling their service. This was offset by a rise in its fledgling fiber-optic television and Internet service called FiOS, which saw subscriber gains of 300,000 and 303,000, respectively. For the quarter ended June 30, Verizon posted a net income of $1.48 billion, or 52 cents a share on revenue of $26.86 billion. That compares to a net income of $1.88 billion, or 66 cents a share on revenue of $24.12 billion in the same quarter last year. The company’s wireless division, which is the No. 1 carrier in the United States, saw its revenue increase 28% thanks to its acquisition of Alltel Corp.

• The bulls were out in force on Wall Street yesterday (Monday) after all three markets posted gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15.27 points, or 0.2% to close at 9108.51, theStandard & Poor’s 500 climbed 2.92 points, or 0.3% to close at 982.18 and the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index increased 1.93, or 0.1% to 1967.89. “The bottom line is that there are signs of life, and the market doesn’t want to go down. Buying late in the day and closing near the high of the day is more proof that the bulls are in control,” Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research told TheStreet.com.

• The Securities and Exchange Commission made permanent a temporary rule that seeks to limit “naked shorting” by requiring broker dealers to promptly purchase or borrow securities that they would use to deliver on a short sale, MarketWatch.com reported. “Until the SEC actually toughens its rules so that abusive short selling can be stopped effectively with enforceable standards, I am concerned that the abuses that took place last year that hastened the demise of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns could happen again,” said Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del. “Instead of proposing action today to deal with the problem, the SEC apparently is content to let potential solutions sit on the shelf for another two months,” he added.

• New single-family home sales rose 11% in June over the previous month to a seasonally adjusted rate of 384,000, the Commerce Department said yesterday (Monday). Still, year-over-year sales were down 21.3%. The Midwest saw 43% growth in the category, the sharpest increase in the category. Sales in the west were also strong, up 23%.

• Crude oil for September delivery rose 94 cents yesterday (Monday) to $68.99 a barrel in after-hours trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), thanks to expectations thatgains in Asian equity markets will spur fuel demand, Bloomberg News reported. The rise was also spurred by investors seeking commodities as a hedge against inflation, as the dollar traded near a seven-week low against the euro. “Investors see the equity markets as a good lead for what you can expect oil demand to be going forward,” Ben Westmore, an energy and minerals economist at National Australia Bank Ltd. told Bloomberg. “At times when you’ve got high inflation expectations, investors tend to move toward real assets such as commodities.”

• Thirty-four percent of corporate chief information officers plan on upgrading their companies to Microsoft Corp.’s (NYSE: MSFT) Windows 7, and 75% also plan on refreshing their hardware investments according to MarketWatch.com, citing a Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) survey. The investment bank says the Oct. 22 release of its new operating system “could trigger significant new investment across the technology value chain.”

• A strong value proposition can’t stop the video game industry from suffering the wrath of the worst recession in more than 60 years.Software sales fell 29% from a year earlier, while console sales dropped 38%, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing data from market research firm The NPD Group Inc. The decline of the industry, which until the market’s March lows was thought of as recession-proof, has ripped to retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), which blamed its weak quarterly results from its media business on falling game sales.

Source: Investment News Briefs Tuesday, July 28, 2009

• World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned in a letter to the Group of Eight nations that the global economy is not out of the woods yet and they should be cautious about pulling back on stimulus programs.  Dated July 1, the letter was addressed to G8 host Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and said interventions by central banks and governments appeared to have “broken the fall in the global economy” by stabilizing financial markets and boosting demand. “Yet 2009 remains a dangerous year. Recent gains could be reversed easily, and the pace of recovery in 2010 is far from certain,” Zoellick wrote in the letter obtained byReuters on Monday.  The G8 heads of government are expected to issue a statement on the situation of the world economy during their meeting in the central Italian city of L’Aquila.

• The Institute for Supply Management’s index of U.S. service industries contracted last month at the slowest pace in nine months, as measures of new orders and employment improved.  The survey of non-manufacturing firms, which make up almost 90% of the economy, rose to 47 — higher than forecast — from 44 in May, according to data from the Tempe, Ariz.-based group. Readings of less than 50 signal contraction.  The index’s third straight monthly improvement reflects signs of stabilization in housing and consumer spending. That combined with leaner inventories means companies may start expanding output again in coming months, Bloomberg News reported.

• Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto PLC (ADR NYSE: RTP) has agreed to sell its U.S. packaging business to Wisconsin-basedBemis Co. Inc. (NYSE: BMS) for $1.2 billion in cash and stock.   Bemis, a food-and-beverage packager, will acquire 23 operations spread across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America and New Zealand that package and wrap such things as meats, cheese, bagged lettuce and snack foods, the Wall Street Journalreported.  The deal should push its sales from $3.8 billion to $5.3 billion annually and significantly boosts Bemis’s role in many foods and beverages purchased in U.S. grocery stores.

• Economic worries pushed crude oil prices below $65 a barrel Monday for the first time since May 27 as investor doubts over a potential rebound in the global economy increased, Reutersreported.  Prices fell more than 3% to $64 a barrel, after touching a five-week low of $63.40 in overnight trading.  London Brent crude fell $1.29 from Friday’s close to trade at $64.32 a barrel.  Crude has fallen more than 13% after reaching nearly $74 a barrel on June 11 on optimism that an economic recovery could bolster demand.  But recent weak economic data — including a poor U.S. jobs report last week — has weighed on markets.

• Writeoffs for Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) may rise as much as 10% to $7.6 billion when it reports its second quarter results on July 17, according to a Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE ADR: CS) report obtained by Bloomberg News. Among the bad debts was $1.9 billion related to home equities, and 10.4% of credit card loans. Stress tests conducted by the U.S. government in May estimated the lender may face $136 billion in loan losses through next year.

• Moody’s Investors Service put Brazil’s credit ratings on review for an increase to investment grade, citing the country’s “demonstrated resilience to shocks” in the global economy, Bloomberg News reported. “Confronted with a wide array of adverse conditions, the Brazilian authorities’ policy response has been effective in containing the impact of the global crisis, thus providing evidence of increased resilience to shocks, a characteristic integral to an investment-grade credit profile,” Moody’s said.

• Justice Department officials have begun an initial review of the largest telecom companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) are anti-competitive,The Wall Street Journal reports. While no company is being singled out at this point, the investigation could explore whether wireless carriers hurt smaller competitors by signing exclusivity deals with phone handset makers, such as AT&T’s deal with Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) that makes it the sole carrier of Apple’s popular iPhone. Together, Verizon and AT&T control 60% of the 270 million wireless subscribers.

• Marc Andreessen, co-author of the first web browser, has started a venture capital fund with longtime business associate Ben Horowitz for new companies with new technology ideas, The New York Times reported. The duo’s company, called Andreessen Horowitz, has raised $300 million for tech-related investments, and will risk as little as $50,000 on new ideas. Any successful ideas will get up to $50 million for the companies to grow globally. Five-year returns in the venture capital industry were just 6% last year, a far cry from 2000’s 48% at the dot-com bubble’s peak. Andreessen is a director at Facebook Inc., which started with just $500,000 but has since raised $600 million.

Investment News Briefs Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Two months later I recommended it to my readers. In the following six months its shares rose 15 percent. On February 25, 2009 utility company, FPL Group (NYSE:FPL), made a similar announcement. I began looking into the company right away. This time it only took me two weeks to recommend the company to my readers. In the following four months its shares rose 33 percent.

On March 11 Coke (NYSE:KO) made the same announcement. On April 1st, 2009 I recommended it. In just three months it’s gone up nine percent.

These three companies are members of a class of companies I call the “Group of 88.” They all love to please their shareholders.

So, what is this Group of 88?

Many of the companies belonging to the Group of 88 you know: Not only Coke, but also companies like Johnson and Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), IBM, Verizon (NYSE:VZ), McDonalds (NYSE:MCD) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX).

Many of them you don’t know. You probably haven’t heard of companies like VSE Corporation (NASDAQ:VSEC), W.P. Carey & Company (NYSE:WPC) and National Fuel Gas Company (NYSE:NFG).

These companies come in all sizes and from all kinds of sectors. And, since the beginning of the year, they all have one thing in common. All of them have raised their dividend.

Increasing dividends has always been a surefire way to please shareholders. So why have dividend hikers increased in popularity?

•    They’re now in the minority. For the first time in decades more companies are cutting rather than raising dividends.
•    They’re the ultimate “show-me-the-cash” companies. Dividends can’t be faked or staged. They must be paid for by real cash earnings.
•    They’ve become the alternative safe-haven group of companies to triple-A rated companies. The rating agencies – S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch – had given triple-A status to junk assets that crashed the global economy. Their grades aren’t taken nearly as seriously anymore.

Many of these dividend-paying companies give you interest payments of 4, 5, 6 percent and more. Compare that with 2-year U.S. government bonds giving 2 percent interest … or 10-year bonds giving 3.66 percent interest … or Canadian 10-years giving 3.43 percent and Germany’s giving 3.5 percent.

This is the perfect time to invest in recent dividend hikers. Several have been raising dividends not just over, say, the past 10-20 quarters but over the past 10-20 years!  Think about it. Many of them have raised dividends during oil embargoes, dotcom busts, and stagflation. They’ve proven themselves many times over.

And by recently raising their dividends, they’re showing investors once again that they’re the companies you can trust … they’re the ones generating real cash earnings … and that they’re the ones which will make it through these treacherous times and lead the market back up on the other side of the recession.

Invest well,
Andy

Source: Investors Are Flocking to a New Group of Companies

Palm Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) can’t seem to catch a break. Just days after its stock hit a 52-week high and its new Pre smartphone sold out in its Saturday debut, Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) stole Palm’s thunder by announcing a new iPhone, the iPhone 3G S, and more importantly, cut the price on its existing 8 gigabyte model to $99-half the price of the Pre.

The move was a very shrewd one that will allow Apple and its iPhone to stay ahead of the pack in the smartphone industry. But Palm’s attempt to win a share of the market by releasing a smartphone that is compatible with Apple’s iTunes computer software shows that it is determined to give Apple a run for its money.

Pre had an impressive launch, but gauging just how impressive will be difficult until Palm actually reveals the numbers. Analysts’ estimatesrange between 50,000 and 200,000 Pres sold this past weekend. Apple’s first-generation iPhone sold 146,000 units on its launch day alone back in 2007.

Shortages of Pre may be to blame for a cooling of investor interest Palm reached its 52-week high of $14.14 on Friday: The shares had fallen 10% by Tuesday’s close and were down another 5.5% in mid-afternoon trading yesterday (Wednesday). And it isn’t likely that a Pre shortage-artificial or not-would produce the feverish demand that’s sometimes seen with electronic products … demand that can send the product-maker’s stock into a stratospheric climb.

Palm’s Pre is billed as an “iPhone killer” by some, but it really isn’t and probably never will be unless it can rival Apple’s impressive arsenal of iPhone software applications – known as “apps” in the technology lexicon.

Apple’s “App Store” – an online store that sells added features for the iPhone like access to Google Earth, the Weather Channel, and social-networking site Facebook – is a big reason for the iPhone’s popularity.More than 1 billion apps were downloaded to iPhones since the App Store’s launch last July.

To date, there are 50,000 applications available for iPhone. The closest competitor, Google Inc.’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android cell phone operating system, has only 5,000 apps available for HTC Corp.’s G1. Pre had only18 apps at launch.

Apple takes 30% of the revenue generated by the App Store. Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs says the App Store generates $1 million in revenue daily, which would mean his company makes about $300,000 from the App Store daily.

Lightspeed Venture Partners‘ Managing Director Jeremy Liew said Applemade $45 million from the App Store in its first nine months.

Apple’s exclusivity with AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is due to end next year, and iPhones may become an option on the largest U.S. wireless  carrier – Verizon Communications Inc.’s (NYSE: VZ) Verizon Wireless unit – as soon as next year, according to a USA Today report. That would expose a whole new customer base to the iPhone and its popular applications. Sources told The Wall Street JournalPre is set to debut with Verizon in January.

While it remains to be seen if iPhone can be toppled, the one safe bet is that the smartphone market will get more crowded. In addition to Apple’s iPhone and Palm’s Pre, Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), which makes the Blackberry, are all jockeying for market share.

Blackberry’s biggest advantage over the iPhone and the Pre is that it isn’t subject to limiting exclusivity agreements: The Blackberry is available to customers of all major U.S. wireless carriers. Currently, anyone who wants an iPhone has to be a part of – or switch to – AT&T’s network, and anyone who wants a Pre must be a to be a Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) customer.

Analysts are mixed on RIMM’s outlook, but the consensus estimate among analysts is that the Waterloo, Ontario (Canada)-based company will earn $3.96 per share for the current fiscal year, and will see its profits advance to $4.70 per share in 2010. That would push the Price/Earnings (P/E) ratio – currently 25 – down to 17.5 on a company whose earnings are projected to grow at an average annual rate of 20% for the next several years.

Source: Hot Stocks: Palm Pre Is No ‘iPhone Killer’ ]]> http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/hot-stocks-palm-pre-is-no-%e2%80%98iphone-killer%e2%80%99/17787/feed 0 http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/smart-phones-smart-investments/17669 http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/smart-phones-smart-investments/17669#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:07:22 +0000 Andrew Snyder http://www.contrarianprofits.com/?p=17669 The cell phone industry is making big moves today. Palm’s (NASDAQ:PPL) new phone release is taking its share price down. While speculation over Steve Jobs and the iPhone is creating its own problems for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).

It is a pretty dismal day on Wall Street. With thoughts of surging interest rates, an unstoppable rise in unemployment levels and bank fears remaining high, plenty of investors are taking their recent gains and heading back to the sidelines.

With the S&P plunging below the 930 level today and volatility on the rise, it is not a day to put a news release on the Street, especially if it contains less-than-stellar news.

Palm (NASDAQ:PALM) is learning the lesson the hard way today. After releasing its highly anticipated…