Mike,
My opinion on the price is: 1) It was oversold from $14+ to $11- in late June because of the earnings announcement, and a claim made by internet.com that CheckPoint had creeped ahead in market share. 2) When it started to climb back, the market got sacked the past four days across the board, short-term investors sold, and the price is back to $10 3/4.
IMO, today's report confirmed by independent IDC should squash market share concerns on the NT front, which is where the growth market is. Also, their products and customer list is growing impressively which should increase earnings next quarter. As a software developer/network engineer for a small company, I felt they absolutely needed the Eagle product, a low priced NT firewall, for entry level shops. The internet is still at an infancy stage with many small companies, and many small companies cannot justify spending more than $5K on firewall security at startup time. It's just not an option. As these companies internet needs grow, they will graduate to bigger and better firewalls. But upfront to get and keep the market share the key is to bate small companies with a low cost product, hook 'em and then bring 'em in your bigger products in the future. The Eagle product is aimed at doing that, priced at $3,995.
I confess I like their chart too. The bollinger bands are starting to sqeeze which is usually a good sign. I could be wrong, but I think that with a little patience, the stock price will steadily increase. |
