| There can be only one reason for the accelerated earnings announcement, in my speculation. The news and outlook will be very positive and, given current market conditions, management has decided that it is worthwhile to get it out there to turn the stem in the share price. Also, they know that Ericsson's mobile handset results will be poor and prefer not to let the market wait a week to worry, worry, worry about Nokia's results in light of Motorola's and Ericssons. Now we can put an end to all this nonsense about handsets being a slowing and increasingly unprofitable industry. I can think of no other realistic reason why the earnings resport would be accelerated other than that management has great confidence that what they say will be greeted well. In my decade as an investor, I have only seen this occur when the company in question had good news it wanted out in turbulent markets, not bad news--that can always be put off. I imagine the share price slide could be distracting to Nokia's employees, which would be a primary reason of management to dispell rumors of mobile communication's demise. Could I be very wrong? Yes, but I doubt it. |
