Rande Is: Three plays for consideration
Here are three ideas for short-term plays (and, eventually, long-term holds), prior to the summer/early Fall correction:
1) CNBC has just announced that US West will accept Quest's merger offer. While the GBLX/QWST/US West melodrama was going on, both Quest and GBLX lost 30-35% of their value. This deal plays out particularly well for GBLX; Frontier is an excellent merger with several synergies for GBLX while US West was nothing but an albatross and made no strategic sense. GBLX should quickly climb back into the 60-65 range at which it started. In fact, it spiked nearly 2 1/2 points immediately after the deal was announced in the late afternoon.
While I'm still scratching my head trying to understand how US West fits with QWST, Joe Nacchio has a stellar track record regarding strategic acquisitions. He just might be on his way to creating a telecom juggernaut a la MCI/Worldcom. At any rate, QWST should also being to regain some of its value, albeit more slowly.
2) Gemstar (GMST): Keith Benjamin, the internet analyst at Robertson Stephens reports on his website (http://www.internetstocks.com) that Gemstar is near (within days-to-weeks) settling its legal battles regarding its proprietary technology. This will unlock its value in much the same way as Qualcomm's deal with Ericsson sent QCOM soaring. Additionally, GMST has just concluded a large deal with Microsoft (see K. Benjamin's site for details). The stock has spiked from high 50's to close of 74 over the past two weeks over anticipation of a favorable settlement. Might be time to jump aboard this one. Incidentally, search Keith Benjamins's archives on his website for prior weekly reports in which he elaborates further on all this.
3) Qualcomm (QCOM): Qualcomm has moved its earnings reporting day up one day to after the close on Monday (7/19). The buzz on the SI Qualcomm board is that they've done this prior to a secondary offering of an additional 4,000,000(?) shares to institutional investors, first available for purchase on Tuesday (7/20), after the market closes. It only makes sense that they have blow-out numbers to announce which will send the stock rocketing on Tuesday, thus getting the highest possible price for their secondary. For more info, see the SI Qualcomm board and SI Gorilla and Kings Board message #3851. Buying QCOM at the open on Monday and selling later in the week (assuming earnings are indeed stellar) might be a nice quick-hitter.
As always, please do your own due diligence! |
