BlackBerry (BB.TO)

Had bought this when he thought the company was going to be taken over, and is now underwater. The company has had all kinds of difficulties. Their revenue has gone way down and the debt load has gone up a lot. However, they have deep pockets behind them. Thinks they are going to turn around, but this is a huge ship to turn around. He is happy to hold this.

A lot of people had this dead and buried years ago, and they survived. They are shifting their emphasis and are going to be more into apps and the electronic side, than just producing phones, etc. They still have a lot of good patents. That they survived makes him think the company has a future. It is still a potential takeover. The longer they survive, the more likely they are going to get back into growth or be taken out.

He is thinking this is dead money. The pillars that are driving this company aren’t. The remaining assets are the remaining contracts with governments. He thinks they should have been bought out. This thing is not working out. Mr. Chan has been dealt a hand he cannot win at.

John Chen is doing a great job trying to transition from hardware/software to a strictly software and selling it. Integrating their security systems into the automotive business, it is almost a commodity software business these days. He tries to stick with the real leaders that have all the real cash flow and capital to be investing in artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality and cloud computing.

Trump announced a security strategy that included a BB-T partner. But BB-T has been a short for him for a while and they don’t have positive cash flow. They are still in the process of right sizing. He wants to see earnings.

One of those “Hail Mary” stocks. You can see where the deep value is in this name and there are a lot of changes going on. Looking at their last quarter and some of the moves they’ve made over the last few quarters, it is definitely encouraging. But you really have to see that translate into numbers. He is still a little skeptical.

Has been a big fan of this company and has supported them through some of the downturn, but they cannot seem to turn it around. Very speculative. It is hard to run this company with negative cash flows quarter after quarter after quarter.

This definitely has a base in the $8 range, but looks like it is struggling mightily to stay above that right now, and looks like it might head down to that area again. To him, it is a trading stock. You buy it somewhere near the support level, and probably end up selling it in the low $11 area.

John Chen moved the needle a little bit. It hit a low of about $8 this year and reached about $9.50. There is some support at around $9.10. It looks pretty good. The chart shows a downtrend, and the stock is trying to break through that.

They released numbers this week. The revenue was weak. The turnaround portion is done and now they will look at growth. He has confidence in management. Once you turn around a big company the analysts are all over it and the stock price can move up quickly. It is Canadian. (Analysts’ Target: $10.25).

This is in a major transition. They have gone from being a hardware company, trying to be a software company and still not earnings positive yet. These transformations can take years. The autonomous vehicle sector is going to be an extremely competitive field going forward. Whether this ends up being one of the dominant players is going to be a guessing game at this point. Not sure he would consider this as an investment, because you can’t analyse what is going to happen going forward. It is more speculation.

Feels this is still pretty speculative in terms of their transition from hardware to software. They are not making any money. There is a very little visibility as to what this company is going to look like a couple of years out.

It is a small short for him. They no longer produce handsets. They have a patent portfolio and cash. Competitors aren’t buying them out, but just hire their best employees away from them.

Tech tends to do well from October into December and often into January. We have seen an uptick. It looks in pretty good shape. Not a bad place to buy but not a long term hold.

He has a couple of clients who insist on owning this, but it is not something he would recommend. Thinks management has slimmed-down. They had some very smart people. By surviving and changing its emphasis to software, it is interesting, but doesn’t see it racing up at any particular point in time. They have to come in with a couple of good quarters to show that the strategy is working.