Gold Prices In Limbo, BlackBerry BBRY Gradual Trend Upwards, Heinz Takeover A Foreign Acquisition HNZ

A lot has happened since my last post so I'll be brief. 
Gold and silver price shows weakness despite a surge in demand.
The price of gold (and even moreso silver) has been weak despite

1) Record sales of silver eagles during the months of January and February
2) Increasing demand on the comex for both precious metals
3) Russia and China continuing their buying spree
4) Growing evidence that some of the popular gold and silver ETFs have only paper claims - which they can't physically backup.

Though I maintain that over the long run, you're safest investment route is in physical gold and silver, over the short term, prices might trend lower ... much lower.
In fact Goldman Sachs thinks that gold is on its way down to $1200 an ounce - a fall of almost 30% from current levels, pushed down by US interest rates which are on their way up (whether the economy stabilizes or not, interest rates can't get any lower than they are now).

I can both agree and disagree with their assessment.  Higher interest rates can depress prices but I think that other factors will eventually come into play that will counteract the effect.  The fiscal cliff is just starting to kick in which will eventually create a need for more quantitative easing: QE3, followed by QE4, QE5, ... etc.  The US trade deficit remains only marginally lower than it was in 2011 ($540.4b vs $559.9b) despite big jumps in fuel sales to overseas buyers/crude output reaching 766,000 bpd which is a 15 year high, so imagine what would happen if oil production and fuel sales declined, which John Kerry's policies appear to favor.

But with the Chinese yuan renminbi continuing to depreciate against the American dollar, there's no reason to expect the trade gap with China to alter significantly anytime soon.
What about China ?  The world's second largest economy and key purchaser of US and European debt (electric grid in Portugal now owned by Chinese company) is facing new problems of its own some geopolitical others domestic.  Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) which is the leading supplier of components for America's biggest company Apple Inc (AAPL), has stopped hiring new workers - a stock selloff ensued as investors took that to mean that sales of Apple's products are falling off.  However, at the same time Foxconn expressed an interest in opening new manufacturing centers overseas (suggesting that perhaps the problem is with China/ Apple wants more American workers).
For January 2013, foreign direct investment (FDI) into China was down 7.3% to $9.3 billion which is a four year low, in fact it's the largest decline since November 2009 (-9.9%)

Interest in BlackBerry is Growing and it's not just from Business Clients

                    This month, BlackBerry launched the first in a line of QNX powered smartphones running on the totally redesigned blackberry 10 platform.  I spent a lot of time last year defending RIM's strategy, technology and reputation and so it's refreshing to finally see the company get credit for all the R&D that went into developing their current products (the Z10 is groundbreaking and that's just what RIM needed to keep detractors at bay, otherwise, attacking them would be very easy to do considering BlackBerry's US market share remains quite low). 

The company took quite a beating the last two years for sticking to its own platform (and apps) while remaining steadfast in their dedication to security and to serving the needs of corporate clients.  Though the PlayBook remains a work in progress (sales steady but only because the market is growing) the new line of handheld devices are proving popular among both business and non business clients, giving shareholders more reason to be optistic.  Investors take note ! - The new BlackBerry Z10 was first released in the UK followed by Canada (February) then finally the United States (March) meaning that sales figures won't fully show up in quarterly reports until the summer (next results will be released in March followed by June).  Over the last 3 months BlackBerry (Nasdaq : BBRY) is up +23.6% which outperforms other techstocks Nokia (+18.93%), Apple (-23.96%) and even Google (+19.24%). 

Demand for the BlackBerry Z10 must be solid given that RIM has already increased  production capacity.

According to CEO Thorsten Heins

"we still have an installed base of 79 million subscribers. And BlackBerry 10 offers something that Windows Phone cannot, namely, the strict separation of business and personal information. The Microsoft operating system cannot imitate times just between evening news and weather reports". 

Heinz Gets Acquired But Who's Really In Control ? Brazil's 3G Capital or Omaha's Buffet ?

                   And finally, Heinz Ketchup gets taken over by investment firms Berkshire Hathaway, 3G Capital.  It's $23 billion in cash with the rest of the $28 billion figure stemming from Heinz's $5 billion debt load ($4.1 billion long term).  What's notable about this takeover is that 3G Capital, the foreign company involved is actually the company receiving a controlling interest not Berkshire Hathaway.  Former shareholders are obviously happy with the 20% premium they received but what about the employees in Pittsburgh, who will now have to accept that most important decisions concerning the company will be made in Brazil.

Research in Motion (RIMM) Down But Definitely Not Out (undervalued techstocks, competition, blackberry 10)

      Research In Motion sold 260,000 playbooks between March 3 and June 2 of 2012 which though down quarter to quarter, is still one of the best quarters for tablet sales since their launch one year ago (500,000 in 4q12, 150,000 in 3q12, 200,000 in 2q12 & don't forget that playbook now owns 15% of the Canadian tablet market up from 5% in early 2011); Also, keep in mind that the less popular 16 GB playbook is being discontinued. RIM has yet to unveil the rumoured 10 inch model meaning that the company literally had NOTHING NEW to offer last quarter but still did reasonably well on the sales front. Only recently has the company allowed blackberry messenger users to view facebook and twitter updates so the full impact of that on sales won't be realized until another quarter. Remeber also that earlier this year sales of BlackBerry phones rebounded strongly after one of the worst quarters in company history.
Signs pointing to a recovery in stock price: July 2, 2012 Hudson Square upgrades RIMM to buy from hold consequently establishing a price target of $10 or 33.9% higher than now (July 3 start of trading). Also note that Lazaridis, one of RIM's biggest shareholders with 30M shares or 5.6% of the company (last major purchase was for 3.1M shares back in February) has not been a seller, indicating his confidence in a recovery.  Oct 31 through Nov 4 share price up +14.5% to $8.71 giving it a market value of $4.56 billion (Nokia up +3.0% to $2.80).

September 2012 Update:  For the three months ended September 1, 2012 Research In Motion posted better than expected results.  Although the company's bottom line remains in the red at -$235 million or -$147 million adjusted (27c/share) the loss is 43% lower than the expected -47c/sh.  In the two quarters prior RIM lost $518m (-99c/sh) and -$125m (-24c/sh) respectively.  Despite not releasing any new products, RIM's quarterly revenue was up +2.10% from the previous quarter at US $2.873 billion.  Negatives : 2013 second quarter cash flow was only $432 million $278 million less than in the previous quarter.  Shipping volume for smartphones was 7.4 million down -5.1% from the previous quarter.  As of September 2012 BlackBerry subscriber base is 80 million (+2 million last three months).

Financials : The Good News
$2.2B in cash equivalents + short & long term investments = $100M more than it was at the end of the previous quarter. That means that in the short term, RIM does not have to part out portions of its business (like Nokia is doing with Microsoft) to survive (why I especially don't think the company will give up either of its two core units, hardware or services, afterall it didn't consider selling either six months ago when the stock was worth 60% more).
The adjusted earnings loss in this first quarter of 2013 is actually a first for RIM (-$192M or -37 cents a share). In the prior quarter adjusted net income was actually $418 million which isn't bad considering Nokia went through a number of quarterly losses before investors punished the stock.

Subscriber base up +1M to 78 million giving RIM's cash flow a stronger foundation.
The last two quarters provided a combined unadjusted net loss of $643M only about a third as much as Nokia ($2.01b) even though RIM launched NO new products but Nokia had its Lumia 900 (2 million units sold up from 1 million last year).
Research and Development spending was almost identical to the November quarter of 2011 ($368m) but down only slightly q2q from $386m (March 2012 quarter), not bad considering it had 33% less revenue to work with ($2.8b vs $4.2b). Services (bbm, etc) accounted for 36% of revenue up from 27% in the previous quarter.

Research In Motion is trimming its workforce by about 5000 but that includes job cuts through to the end of 2013 (the quarter BB10 is released) so the good news here is that this is rock bottom ! Job cuts will save the company one billion dollars a year.
BlackBerry Jam (began last month, May 2012) aims to improve blackberry app world by bringing together industry leading application developers in order to help them innovate and get their products to market faster (one of the attractions for app developers is the fact that the top 10% of vendors are making more money at BB app world than at Android or even Windows).

RIM vs Nokia
Including the half a billion dollar loss in this quarter, RIM profited +$556 million over the last 4 quarters, so operating losses are still relatively new (by contrast Nokia lost -2.437b in 52 wks ending March 2012).
RIM sold $1.6 billion worth of devices (7.8M/260th playbooks); Nokia sold $4.2 billion worth of devices (83M cellphones, 12M smartphones). Nokia avg selling price for devices: €51, RIM avg selling price: ~ $200.

RIM's enterprise server/security platform (playbook first to be approved by the US government) basically makes it a major player in the corporate market regardless of how well developed or freely accessible its app market is (BlackBerry used by 90% of fortune 500 companies, on June 26,2012 the UK government approved use of blackberry security software important since the blackberries now offer mobile voice solutions; this is just one of many such approvals the long term positive effects of which are enormous).
In the latest quarter RIM shipped 7.8 million smartphones which is only 3.1 million less than Nokia (by contrast at this point last year the difference was closer to 10 million). 7.8 million is low but not THAT bad considering sales weren't that much higher at 10.6 million in the quarter nine months ago (and recovered in the following quarter when sales improved to a near record high of 14 million). It made $1.652 billion from the sale of 7.8 million phones and 260,000 playbooks. Comparing that to the $3.066 billion it made in 2q12 from the sale of 10.6 million phones and 200,000 playbooks indicates that the average selling price of a BlackBerry went down since then. I'd put the average playbook price at about the same as the phone (remember, the company now sells playbooks at $199-$299 down from over $500 earlier last year). That comes out to around $206 per device or 29% lower than the average selling price of a blackberry 7 phone earlier in the year according to Abramsky. You have to think, how much profit can RIM make from the next generation phones ? especially considering the vast amounts of features they're going to have.

Refering to the BB10 phones CEO Thorsten Heins said that he's confident they'll provide "a ground-breaking next generation smartphone user experience". The delay in launch is due to the time consuming process of integrating key features which RIM has had success developing (main carriers of the BB are more than satisfied with the platform).

Financials : The Bad News

If you're an investor then be prepared for a wild ride over the entire fiscal 2013 period, and it's only the 2nd quarter ! Operating losses, though still new at RIM, won't end until after we witness the consumer markets response to BlackBerry 10 qnx phones. That's quite a risk to take considering you're going to have to support a company bleeding money for the next nine months and then you have to hope that BB10 (aka BBX) will be THE gamechanger (by that time a slew of new android phones will have already hit the market, each better than the last).
If it were me, I'd take the risk. You see, it was only last month that the US military committed to buying more blackberry devices, which instantly validates the company's security, platform and features. The military, among other DoD and enterprise customers, was particulary impressed with enhanced features on the newest model 7 phones (near field communication technology/voice activated search) and with mobile payments facing increasing scrutiny from government lawmakers, blackberry's devices are already government approved (security) and that could mean a lot in the future.