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PR speculation cycle in full effect with RIM?

It looks like the speculation trend I was predicting for RIM has finally arrived. Too bad I sold my RIM shares a week ago, probably should have held on a little longer.

Unfortunately, that's the problem with RIM as a stock now, everything seems to be 'late' with them. I would have expected this speculation cycle to have ramped up a few weeks ago.

Anyway, RIM has bounced up a good 10+ per cent in the past week on rumors that:

IBM may be interested in acquiring their enterprise services business.
Samsung may be interested in acquiring RIM

But then, as quick as the Samsung rumor appeared, it disappeared.

Samsung not interested in RIM

If I were still holding RIM stock I'd take the recent up swing as a chance to sell.

While the above stories clearly support a speculative PR trend emerging, unfortunately, both the stories were odd-ball stories to me.

Heinz has said that RIM is not looking to be acquired and is committed to BB10.

So if we take him at his word, all this chatter really doesn't carry any weight to it. Which is also why RIM continues to give back any gains it makes on these rumors, relegating the stock to range of 6.50-8.50 give or take.

Realistically, RIM has put all its chips on BB10 and no one is going to buy RIM until we know whether BB10 rocks or sucks. If it sucks, people will buy pieces of RIM for pennies on the dollar. If it rocks, who knows, maybe a Samsung does come in and pays 20 bucks a share to acquire it.

But regardless of which is the case, RIM is range bound (at best) for the next six months as rumors of acquisition have to be tempered with the fact that Heinz has said he has no interest in being acquired.

Had Heinz not used that language and outright rejected any and all acquisition possibilities, the Samsung and IBM rumors may have brought RIM back up to the 10-12 range as the market realizes there is intrinsic value in RIM.

But alas, Heinz rejected all acquisition possibilities and as such I won't be surprised to see RIM fall back down to the low seven-dollar range next week.

As is the pattern with RIM, I think the real danger will be at the end of this quarter when they report. I think it could get ugly and as is RIM's pattern for the past few years, it's been the norm to see a 15-20 per cent drop in the stock at quarter end.




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