surur

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/1...browserdb9.jpg

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PALM&t=1d

There seems to be a major crash going on, the volume of trading is high, and the stock is close to its 52 week low. The message board on Yahoo has disappeared. Has there been a major piece of news that I missed (or is this still the IPhone effect).

Surur

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detective

pfft down ten cents.

Tastypeppers

I went and looked at this. So interesting. Using Google's charts you can see this is a company that over time loses value. Pick any of the time frames and the stock price is down.

Does this mean that Palm is one of the walking dead?

I mean, it is POSSIBLE for Palm to bring itself back to growth, but the market has spoken--this is a company that is slowly, slowly bleeding to death.

I want another Treo. Better. Fun. Functional. I am rooting for Palm.

The company will churn out new products. Some might be really cool. But I am more and more dubious that this company will ever be able to turn itself around. Here's why. Let's say that on February 1 the new Treo 800 launches to as much gushing enthusiasm as we've seen with the iPhone announcement.

The market is now bigger. There are more players in the market with competing product and/or vapor. This means a new Treo can't make a dominant splash in the smartphone market. Palm simply can't sell enough of them to make a different to its long term corporate health -- it can't re-establish dominance against the likes of Moto (they're STILL trying to learn how to make a smartphone--remind me of the MPx-220 and I'll puke), Nokia, HTC, Apple, etc.

And don't forget that Samsung or LG could decide to become a new low-cost HTC, just as Hyundai will try to slowly eat Honda's lunch.

What I'm saying is that a world-beating, company-saving product 4 years ago will barely make a dent in the long term viability of Palm.

I predict LBO in 18 months or less.

Buy the phones. Don't buy the stock. I'll buy the 750 unlocked when they put it out. I hope they put it out in colors.

surur

Palm's share price is very reactive. Look at the huge drop at the IPhone announcement, and whenever they announce their earnings. I was just wondering if there has been any bad news today (e.g. an analyst downgrading) or EC being indicted for options fraud etc.

Surur

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Tastypeppers

Surer, yes the stock price is reactive but not that much. Use the Google chart. They flag major events directly onto the stock price so you can see what happened when.

If you look at a 1 year or 3 year time horizon everything tends to flatten out and you see a relentless decline in stock price. It is that secular trend that I think is the problem. An iPhone announcement alone won't kill Palm.

surur

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/4...browserts4.jpg

I think the period around 2001 when they lost their share-holder's shirts still weights heavily on their reputation. I believe some-one said their share price is less than 1% of what it was then (taking into account reverse splits etc).

Surur

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rambo47

They took a hit to the share price back when they announce delays with the new Treo models (750, 680), and earnings have been lack-luster. Plus Blackberry has been eating their lunch since the Pearl came out, if one listens to all the analyst chatter. Couple all this with a weak tech sector and you get Palm share prices in the toilet, almost 50% off thier highs. Glad I bought AAPL instead!

theog

Seems about the same since mid-2004. Considering the fact they are still using frankengarnet I'm surprised it is not down further....

If they release one "hot" product, they would bounce, easy....

rambo47... yea, I remember back in 2001 or 2002 I was looking at apple's stock at $8... I remember that oh, so clearly... I had $3000.... then again, I thought about getting google as well I think too much....

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Bronxboy

See what No WI-Fi can do. If palm put wi-fi along with upgradeable memory chips they would be the King.. They can do it too! It’s so easy to change the memory board. I am wondering if it’s possible to take the board that the 650 uses and swap it with one from a 680 or 750. Has anybody tried this?

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Treo 650, 4GB SD card

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Tastypeppers

One product will at best give the stock price a temporary bounce. It will only have a permanent positive effect if the market as a whole believes that the new product will be followed by another, and another, and another.

A product is not a business. A business is an assemblage of humans + capital intelligently configured to generate cash.

Palm's stock price reflect's the market's common consensus about Palm's prospects for growth. If the market collectively believes Palm will grow (meaning greater revenues and greater profit and greater cash flow back to the shareholders) then the stock price will move up.

In fact the stock price has decayed steadily over any time frame you care to look at.

Thus the consensus is that Palm's management cannot make this company's revenue/profit/cash flow grow.

Palm, Inc. is a zombie. Walking dead.

But I'm still going to buy a 750 unlocked when it comes out.

The 750 won't save Palm. The rumored Linux-based Treo won't save Palm. Look what brought Apple back from zombie-hood: new management, and a whole series of new products, one after the other. New/better Macs. The iPod. Etc. Palm needs to do something like that.

Palm's best thinking and hardest work got them to this precise spot. They have extracted every ounce of intelligence, sweat, creativity, and value out of the people they have now. Keep doing what you're doing and you keep getting what you're getting. Want something new? You don't get "new" with the same ingredients.

Memo to Board of Directors. Call Pat Sajak and buy a clue.

I still predict LBO in 18 months. Ed Colligan and crew will think they're smart enough to make this go without being a public company. Good luck with that.

whmurray

The iPhone happened to Palm's share price. It also happened to RIMM's Share price. It was not good for Nokia's.

surur

Ouch! If they read that you are going to make them cry.

Surur

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Tastypeppers

Yeah well someone was suitably blunt with me once and it literally meant that I am alive instead of dead.

surur

Thats may be true, but huge companies like Nokia who ship 250 million phones per year should not really see their stock prices moved by a little upstart like Apple. Its emotional movement. If this was true I and I was Nokia I would make it my number one job to kill Apple. And they could do it easily by making their low-end phones good Ipod shuffle competitors.

Surur

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Tastypeppers

Yes. Stock price moves in response to an announcement of vaporware? = ****** and stock pimps reacting emotionally. It has no meaning in the long term ability of Palm to generate cash for its shareholders.

And THAT -- generating cash for Palm's shareholders -- is Ed Colligan's job. His job is not to make phones that TC members like. His job is not to keep the phone companies happy. His job is to make CASH.

Right now every phone he sells sucks a little bit of cash out of the shareholders' pockets.

whmurray

If you already knew the answer, why did you raise the question?

surur

Do you mean the original question, or another question? If the original question then its because it was some days after the IPhone crash, and I thought the worst was over already. The latest drop seemed to be something on top of this, and anyone who watches Palm's stock knows they regularly release bad news (delayed products, earning warnings etc). The stock market often knows about bad news before everyone else, which makes for a neat little story on PDA247.

Surur

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whmurray

I was watching both Apple and Palm prices while Jobs was talking. I kind of liked it because the value of my Palm stocked had long since dropped to pennies while Apple has been good.

Needless to say, I thought that was what you were refering to. Sorry to have misunderstood and restated the obvious.