Globalstar Falls Amid Concern About Handset Prices (Update1)
--From AtHome News. Sorry, no link-- Cooters
Globalstar Falls Amid Concern About Handset Prices (Update1) (Updates with closing share prices in the 2nd paragraph.)
New York, Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Globalstar Telecommunications Ltd. fell 13 percent after a Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst lowered his recommendation on concern that the satellite-telephone company's handset prices are too high.
Globalstar fell 6 1/8 to 41 5/8 on the Nasdaq Stock Market in composite trading of 12.24 million, more than quadruple the three-month daily average. Loral Space & Communications Ltd., which owns 45 percent of Globalstar, fell 1 11/16 to 20 7/16 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Globalstar, which rose more than 56 percent last week after a newsletter recommended the stock, fell today after Merrill's Tom Watts cut his near-term rating on Globalstar to ``neutral' from ``accumulate' and cut his long-term rating to ``accumulate' from ``buy.' ``The price points for Globalstar are still too high, and given the planned emergence of regional competitors offering less expensive service, demand for the company's service may not materialize in line with its estimates,' said Watts in a report.
New York-based Globalstar, which is charging about $1,500 for phones and about $1.50 a minute for service, said in December it expects to ship 200,000 handsets by the end of the first quarter. The company has said it's working to meet its target of 1 million subscribers by the end of 2000. |
