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"How comes there has been so little comment about the two million share buyback. Everyone goes nuts when HG sells 5000 shs. I think that this is a great vote of confidence."
First, to be clear, IDCC did not obligate themselves to buy any shares back, it's up to future market conditions, revised company goals, etc. There will not be any vote of confidence unless and until the shares are actually purchased. This may or may not happen.
I remember the last share buyback, they could only buy shares if they were priced under $10, and even then, they took their sweet time. It was almost as if they knew the price would remain in the single digits for some time even though most IDCC board participants were preparing for the Houston $100.
I wonder if they have revised the share buyback maximum price limit so they can buy shares at costs higher than $10/share?
Finally, I don't know why you relate this to insider selling. There is a world of difference between an insider cashing out his personal holdings and the management deciding to use company funds to buy back company shares. Actually, maybe since shareholders defeated proposition 2 (which would have allowed the creation of more shares to offer to insiders as options) maybe the share buyback will achieve the same thing (provide more shares for insider options).
Slurp, slurp!
Funny how management can get around the shareholder voters and yet shareholders think it's a bullish sign.
Once
I was a little surprised at Howards answer when asked what technology the newly acquired Melbourne facility would focus on. He said they are still working on figuring out what they will be doing. He sounded sheepishly reluctant to admit this.
I would have thought IDCC would have a plan for it since they have already stated they would keep it running. It will cost millions to keep it running, I'm surprised they don't know what they will use it for.
Once
Insider selling question:
"The person asking the question about the timing of the sales could have been anyone. Does anyone know who he was? It was a good question and caused Howard to dance around alittle but so what."
Phonetically, it sounded like he was introduced as "Robert Steadman w/ Ben Lee" but it was difficult to hear as it was mumbled/garbled.
His question was a good one and it was stated with a certain presence and clarity, especially when compared to Howards bumbling answer.
He asked, "During the months of May, June, July, the top four members of management all sold substantial share of their stock holdings in the company and this was in the mid-latter part of negotiations with Nokia, the most critical period probably in the companies history.
Could you explain two things:
Number one, how the window could have been open for insider selling at that stage of the most important part of these negotiations, and how, even as of July 6th when Howard Goldberg sold stock, the management had no idea that these talks were not going well and were going to come to a very unhappy conclusion?"
Howard bumbled out some answer about how general council is involved in insider sales and the current state of affairs is discussed with general council but how he couldn't answer the question without getting into confidential issues and what not.
Then he continued on to answer a question that was NOT asked by saying, "The answer then to the generic question of Why does management sell at any point in time..."and proceeded to waste time talking about diversification, narrow sell windows under SEC rules and periodic personal needs for cash.
The analyst then continued to press on:
"To follow up on that, this process theoretically with Nokia was triggered in mid-march. Is it your contention then that from mid march to july 6th, members of management, including yourself, had absolutely no conception that these talks were not going well and that arbitration might be a likely outcome?"
Howard bumbled some more and said he couldn't characterize the talks as "well" or "not well". After he finished the analyst concluded with a lump in his throat and saying;
"OK, then, let me congratulate you with your timing then."
My thoughts exactly!
Once
Yup, Teecee already ran over to RB and is trying to revive the old board. What he doesn't realize is most of the people on the IDCC board are GLAD he left!
He and his buddies will be back as soon as they realize how slow and awful the RB board is. Also, Raging Bull recently flushed out their archives. This has removed a lot of historical posts in which the IDCC'ers were certain it was going to $1000/share, LOL!
I can't for the life of me figure out why half of them are so opposed to a contrary view (or, looked at another way, a view that actually jibes with the known facts).
Once
The IDCC mantra has been all about 3G, how 3G is IDCC's expertise. Now we hear management say this:
"Management indicated their expected rate for 3G was somewhat below the 1%-3% they wanted for 2G. "
If IDCC IS 3G, then why would they get a substantially lower rate than what they expected for 2G? O.K. so management only expects to get less than 1% royalties for 3G? And they have precious few 3G licenses signed up (remember the indemnifier). Recent Nokia action will not help accelerate licensing either.
Plus, a royalty on most devices is far from given. My guess is they will be shut out of much of the 3G market and have to settle on small royalties from a manufacturer or two who use IDCC's protocol stack or some other minor contribution. But protocol stacks have a relatively short life, IDCC will need to aggressively market their wares to maintain break-even profitability.
I'm sorry if I paint a bleak scenario but I'm not going to conform to the norm around here and paint a rosy picture when so many important clues point in the other direction.
Once
Orientbull, I was under the impression I had helped stomp out the most objectionable lies and inaccurate info surrounding IDCC. If you know of some that is still being posted, that I have missed, please point it out for discussion purposes. For heavens sakes, that's what discussion boards are for!
I certainly haven't seen GE_Jim put out anything that I could identify as a lie or as inaccurate. What the heck are you talking about. Please provide specific links so we can identify the lies and the inaccurate info!
Orientbull wrote:
"It is sad to see some people cheat, lie, and put out inaccurate info to achieve one's finanical gains."
Once
Orientbull, millionaires are ordinary people also.
"If I were a millionaire, I'd not spend any time on this board and if I were a trader, I'd find other stocks that have more volatility and make my money that way."
More volatility? Did you know that MSN stock screener returns 1878 public companies with a market cap of over 3/4 billion dollars and of all those companies, only two (2) have more volatility than IDCC!
Once
"GE, I think your focus on IDCC is narrow."
Redbarn, how narrow could it be? He's the one making all the money! Are you saying he's just been lucky?
Once
My comment below:
"I am not a techie..but I imagine that IDCC will benefit financially from the sale of these chips by Altmel..Perhaps some one can provide us with a copy of this license agreement? Does any one in the Industry know if these chips are available today or even if this old contract has been voided in the interim?"
There are no I-CDMA chips. Another bad idea that bit the dust. I-CDMA wouldn't have even worked in a mobile environment.
Reminds me of B-CDMA, another standard cobbled together that no one wanted. Despite all the B-CDMA hoopla from IDCC, all that technology ever did was fizzle. I still can't understand why so many people claim IDCC's technology is so great but that they just have trouble getting paid for it. Wouldn't others want to use it if it were that great? And if people were using it and not paying, wouldn't IDCC request a court injunction to get them to either pay up or stop selling the product?
IMO, the reason IDCC doesn't get injunctions is because no one is infringing their IPR. I don't buy the story about IDCC needing to play nice to build respect. Respect of your competitors is not needed to get a court injunction. The boosters have been blowing hot air again. If it doesn't pass the rationality test it's probably just more hype.
Once
My comments below:
"My answer to you is "SO WHAT?" At least M is cranking out thoughtful, provocative posts while you sit on your pessimistic fanny. Are you the board's devil's advocate?"
There's nothing wrong with being pessimistic. In the world of stocks and making a profit the only thing that matters is accuracy. Optimism is not better than pessimism, this isn't a popularity contest, it's about being one step ahead of the game. That's awfully hard to do if all your thoughts are optimistic. Especially so if your optimism stems from distortion and hype.
Once
Absolutely!
"And if you held during that time, well the core I bought around 9/30/2001 at 5 sold in May for 27. That's still a pretty good return during a recession."
And, if you recall, I was recommending IDCC as a buy around that price for more speculative investors. Of course I didn't hold mine until the recent high of $29 as I never dreamed management would be able to spin the price so high after the IDCC story was shattered so completely, they deserve credit for that.
Once
My comments below:
"I would welcome any input from any Qualcomm "cultists" or even IDCC "bashers" regarding the difference between EV-DV and EV-DO..and how either version will impact IDCC financially?"
I don't know why you would actively solicit the input of IDCC "bashers" regarding anything. It's been my experience that bashers don't contibute anything useful. I just don't know why you would ask for their input.
As for Qualcomm "cultists", are there any left? I'm always surprised at how many IDCC "cultists" their still are but where are the Qualcomm "cultists"? I hope you are not speaking of such highly regarded participants as Rich Bloem?
As to the value of Tantivy's IPR which was recently acquired by IDCC, well, I would say IDCC thought it was worth more than $10 million to them and Tantivy thought it was worth less than $10 million to them or they wouldn't have sold it for $10 million.
But the above assumes IDCC management was acting responsibly and not just purchasing Tantivity for more selfish reasons because, as we all know, management did not have to deplete their personal funds to purchase Tantivy.
Once
I don't see it that way:
"Nok, in crafting the 1999 deal, essentially dared Idcc to get paid by another EOM. They said, "We don't think you can do it but, if you do, we'll pay you". To Nok's surprise, Idcc did it. They got Ericy to pay. Now Nok wants to reneg on the deal."
First of all, Nokia doesn't want to renegotiate the deal, they want IDCC to abide by the original terms of the agreement. Apparently, IDCC is interpreting the terms differently than Nokia. The claim that Nokia wants to reneg on the original deal is absurd. Arbitration is not set up so parties can re-write the deals, it's there to help iron out differences of opinion of what the agreement means.
With that ridiculousness out of the way, we can contemplate the original deal. Unfortunately, none of us are privy to the language of that deal and our only clues about it come from IDCC's management and their cryptic comments about the deal. The agreement happened at a time that Nokia needed engineers and technical expertise in order to hasten their CDMA chip development efforts. It's also true that IDCC had some CDMA test data that could be useful to Nokia in order to help shorten their development cycle. So this was the leverage I can see that IDCC had with Nokia to get them to sign anything in the first place.
What did they actually sign? We aren't privy but, IMO, it was a general loose-knit sort of thing that essentially said Nokia would pay a rate commensurate with whatever their peers are paying. The specific terms we may never know. Now we have the IDCC/Ericy agreement (which again, we don't know the specific terms of) but apparently IDCC thinks it defines Nokia's royalty obligations to IDCC. However, Nokia disagrees. IMO, Nokia is likely saying "wait a minute, there are certain inconsistencies with the structure of the IDCC/Ericy agreement, things that are not standard in the industry, specific contract terms which appear to be designed solely in an attempt to increase our royalty to IDCC under the 1999 agreement. We think this is just sneaky lawyering that violates the spirit of our 1999 agreement. We think IDCC is trying to extract payment from us when none is due.
The above is my read of the situation, you can argue till your blue in the face and it won't change the fact that we don't have access to the pertinent documents. And the biggest unknown of all with my scenario is, how good is IDCC's legal case? It doesn't have to be very good at all for IDCC lawyers to cover their butts and claim they were acting in good faith.
My guess is all this bad news will come out around the time for new stock options to be issued. Remember, it's just as valuable for management to get a low strike price as it is to get a high exercise price! The profit is the difference between the two. And does anyone want to guess which is easier to achieve?
Once
Fair enough GE_Jim, it sounds like your expectations are not what they used to be.
Once
A few comments:
"I don't recall anything about cut and dry. I DO recall some statements with the word "could" result and we believe."
You are right, management never said the Nokia agreement was cut and dried but what they did say DID get a lot of shareholders to believe as much. Remember, IDCC has no shortage of lawyers running the company, they know how to get the message across without actually saying anything illegal or technically misleading. However, historically, IDCC shareholders have been very easy to mislead. That's a fact and I can back it up with specific examples if you like.
"I think your getting confused between contract agreement which is signed and rate finalization which is in the push and shove stage. As far As being the same, all I can say is hardly."
Well you can't have it both ways. It was only a year or two ago that I was arguing strongly that the Nokia agreement is no better than no agreement at all because it didn't have a rate. The IDCC "gurus" informed me that the agreement was as good as a done deal because there was a rate, it was defined by certain future events which were not uncertain or vague and how Nokia wasn't like Ericsson, Nokia was an upstanding company, etc. etc. Now you backtrack and agree with my original characterization.
"Re: Anything can happen in arbitration
Sounds good considering IDCC is currently not being paid. Nowhere to go but up right?"
No, I think there is a lot of room to the downside over the next year or two. Remember, for years the IDCC longs have been saying Nokia is in the bag. I think that belief is what allowed IDCC shares to climb so high recently. Management even encouraged these beliefs with their comments. Now that we know that Nokia is NOT in the bag, the price is declining. If arbitration turns out less than favorable for IDCC, shares will fall much lower than they are today. Don't try to fool me that there is no downside to failed arbitration!
"Re: Management has lost more credibility here by leading the boosters to believe Nokia was in the bag.
I've never given management much credibility for them to lose. The question than is why have you. If you believe everything ANY company says , expect to get surprised often."
I've never assigned any credibility to management either. When I speak of credibility I am speaking of the credibility that others assign to management, not myself. By reading IDCC posts over the last couple of years you must admit that a significant amount of posters have placed a certain amount of trust in management. All I'm saying is that trust or credibility is even further diminished with each passing event.
"re Whatever happened to hitting that key 3G market window? I haven't heard much about IDCC's chip (ASIC) development efforts lately.
Release has been stated for spring 2004 with IFX"
I can't believe you are still furthering this charade. Please inform us, exactly what is slated to be released in 2004 and what part will IDCC play in it?
Once
Matt, when I am shown to be wrong I freely admit it. The record supports this. Why do you claim otherwise? Can you show me one example where I proven wrong and didn't admit it? Please don't use a difference of opinion as an example. When it comes to opinion, there is no right and wrong, it's just an opinion. I'm talking about making a claim that is shown to be false and then not admitting I was wrong. I'm always careful not to spead inncorrect information in the first place but when I accidentally make a mistake I always issue a correction and an apology because the truth is important to me.
Once
Arbitration is a big problem for the following reason:
Management led us to believe the terms of the Nokia contract were cut and dried. I have said all along that I didn't believe this, a license agreement without a royalty rate is no better than no license agreement at all. Now we find that the contract terms are sufficiently vague that IDCC and Nokia management both disagree on just what their agreement means. This is evidenced by the fact that they need to arbitrate. I would tend to believe Nokia.
Anything can happen in arbitration, why do you think it's no big deal? Plenty of boosters here shrug it off saying "Nokia just wants a better rate". I don't think that excuse holds water. Of course they want a better rate, no rate is better than a low rate and Nokia will get the lowest rate they can, if not zero.
Management has lost more credibility here by leading the boosters to believe Nokia was in the bag. My experience said otherwise. How can anyone trust management ever again after so many disappointments?
Personally, I think management is doing the best job they can with as little ammunition as they have. Problem is the disparity between what ammunition people think they have and what they actually have. This explains IDCC's "poor" performance all these years. Actually, they have done slightly better than I anticipated (revenue wise). I think management deserves credit for that. But, recent revenue may not continue. It seems management has a preference for license agreements that produce money right away but then fall apart when it comes to long-term revenue stream. This is consistent with my characterization of IDCC as a nuisance company. A company that has filed for patents surrounding wireless innovations. They use the ambiguity of these patents to try to leverage nuisance settlements out of manufacturers. Currently, they are trying to lever the weak Ericsson agreement into royalties that Nokia is calling them on. This is pattern and never ends up with solid long-term revenues, just enough to boost the share price when it's time for insiders to dump their free shares and to depress the price when it's time for more options to be issued.
Whatever happened to hitting that key 3G market window? I haven't heard much about IDCC's chip (ASIC) development efforts lately. How irresponsible of management to even pretend they were a player in the highly complex ASIC market!
Enough for now.
Once
I should probably add that the one year chart does not look good at this point in time.
Once
Looks like we have finally filled the gap created back in the middle of March. We should see some support around $14 (at least for a couple of days or more). After it stabilizes around this level it will take some good news to move it much higher. Lacking that, I must agree with Laundry Guy, we will see even lower prices.
Nimble traders can make a little money here but only for the most risk tolerant.
JMO,
Once
Easy. To hide replies to people on ignore, go to your tools menu, then filters, then click on "replies to filtered people not filtered".
That will filter all replies to anyone you have on ignore.
I hope this helps.
Once
I don't think he said 3G licensing was growing, the last thing we heard from management was the indemnification issue was making it difficult to get new 3G licensees. You can bet if the indemnification issue had gone away IDCC would let shareholders know about it.
Once
Ok, I didn't know if you were aware of that or not. It looked like you thought it was significant to individual investors, as if we should be buying now since the institutions were buying. Not recommended yet.
Once
Eli, the numbers you linked to show institutional holdings reported in March and June (mostly march). Those numbers don't tell us whether institutions have been net buyers or net sellers over the last 5 weeks. Based on the share price direction I would say they have most recently been net sellers of IDCC.
Therefore, it's not really correct to say "Institutional Holdings now up to 34.7%" because we don't know what the institutional holdings are doing now or last week or last month.
Once
I've pretty much been staying out of this "much ado about nothing", preferring to let it settle down on it's own, but I have to weigh in on this:
"What do you think would happen if you guys stopped responding to Once? He'd stop responding to you."
No, I wouldn't. I post when I see factual misstatements or unsubstantiated IDCC hype passed off as fact. There is way too much hype surrounding IDCC that is already proven to be false and yet it is repeated over and over again. I will post to correct it whenever I see fit and I don't require two-way dialogue in order to do this. The longs who have already tried to silence me by not responding will confirm that won't prevent me from providing corrections and analysis based on real facts.
For example, Mr. Telecom Tech Stocks himself, Bill Dalglish, recently tried to represent increased institutional holdings in IDCC that were last reported back in June as evidence that institutions were increasing their holdings last week. In reality, the institutions were increasing their holdings during the runup, not last week when the price was collapsing. I don't know why people like Bill continually misrepresent the plain and simple facts but it comes with the IDCC territory. Personally, I think individual investors face enough of a zoo out there without this kind of purposeful misleading, I find it disgraceful.
The fact that many gullible and inexperienced investors have their retirements and life savings tied up in this stock only makes the situation more appalling. But don't make the mistake of thinking I will just look the other way if no one responds to my posts, my history says otherwise as I know I will still be reaching the newbies that much of this misinformation is designed to impress.
Once
Jai, I've never sold IDCC short in any form, ever. I just try to bring a little reason and insight to the IDCC board. I don't know where you came up with that lie.
"The ragging bull board was a pleasure because we didn't have to deal with short sellers like once..."
Once
He's in jail because he couldn't control himself and you probably didn't see the offensive post, it was only up for a short while. We are here to discuss IDCC, not attack one another over differences of opinion.
Once
Now I've heard it all:
"This indemnification augument seems like a bit of nonsense,the only loser will be qualcomm."
Qualcomm does not have a history of losing which is much more than I can say about a certain little "me too" company in KOP.
Why is reality such a scarce commodity around here?
Once
Thanks Alley:
"God bless all of you for who have had the strength ,patience, and now the faith that the JUST shall prevail."
I've always not only believed that the just shall prevail, I have been certain of it. But don't assume that if justice prevails IDCC will become a major wireless player. I don't see that happening ever. Is this incompatible with justice prevailing? I think not. There is precious little data to support the notion that IDCC has been a major contributor to any of the wireless standards, hot air aside.
Would IDCC like to portray themselves as major contributors? Of course, that's how they make their living. Does it make it true? Of course not, the true innovators are the movers and shakers, the ones actually bringing new technology to the market, not those who try to ride on the coat tails of the real inventors.
Once
I'm not going to speak for Data but that's not what IDCC management said. The story from potential licensees is "we have a licensing with company A and company A indemnify us from having to license with you."
Clearly this is speaking to an across the board CDMA indemnification. This has all been hashed out before right on this board. You can start here:
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=923933
Once
Data, with all due respect, I think you are making the indemnification issue more complicated than it is. It's really quite simple, the indemnifier has researched IDCC's patents and determined that their licensees do not need to sign a CDMA license with IDCC. It doesn't matter if it's because IDCC has already cross-licensed the applicable patents to the indemnifier or because IDCC simply doesn't have any necessary IPR for CDMA. Which it is doesn't matter, as long as the indemnifier is willing to put his money where his mouth is, it's all the same.
Like you, I believe the only logical indemnifier is QCOM, after all, they ARE cdma. QCOM has some of the best patent attorneys in the world and you can bet they would not be willing to indemnify anyone if they didn't have a defensible case. This CDMA indemnification issue is something that has not fully sunk in with holders of IDCC. It is much bigger than anyone is admitting. Unless the indemnifier backs down or 3G turns completely away from a CDMA solution, well, IDCC is essentially dead in the water.
End of story.
Once
No, I think that's just a coincidence.
"SIDOTI, If you turn it upside down and inside out, it spells idiots.
Something wrong."
If they were really idiots they wouldn't have come out with a neutral rating on IDCC, it would have been a screaming BUY! LOL!
Once
Increased institutional holdings? Before you get too excited it would be good to note that the most recent report date for institutional holdings that triggered the MSN alert that Bill is so excited about is 6/30/03. This means the institutions increased their holdings before that date. That's the same month that IDCC peaked around $28/share and it didn't begin it's dramatic fall below $25 until the middle of July.
Do I need to tell you when the institutions were probably selling? The links you provided do not indicate a net increase in institutional ownership last week as you claim. Those numbers won't be out for some time. Only institutions holding more than 5% of the company need to report within 10 days and only one institution held over 5% as of 6/30/03. If you want to know if they were buying or selling 10 days ago you can research the SEC filings but they won't tell you even what that one institution was doing last week unless they filed early.
Your claim that "Institutions were buying big time last week as individuals were selling." is not credible.
The picture painted by the institutional figures you linked to is one of pump-n-dump, not one of increasing institutional ownership last week. Give us a break!
Once
"...but a 100 pct increase to 34% in the past year in institutional ownership hasnt yet reduced the volatility of this stock..."
IMO the volatility is caused by institutional trading. The institutions which hold IDCC appear to trade it more than anything, playing the individuals for fools.
I think there may be some hanky-pank going on between IDCC and some of the institutions.
Once
You have it wrong. I don't slam IDCC so much as I slam the idea that they are the next QCOM, LOL! There's no good evidence to support this and yet that's how so many like to read the story. Let's see, IDCC was supposed to be to $500 (split adjusted) by now....Nokia was in the bag (I clearly said they weren't), Ericsson was going to pay a few hundred million to a couple of billion, (I said 30-40 million), and it goes on and on.
The people who manufacture this dream story have been at it since at least 1994 and yet the promises never come to pass. It seems more people would wake up and smell the coffee.
Once
Oh yes!
"Perhaps IDCC would have far more 2G and 3G licensees..if , rather than directing potential licensee inquiries to their Web Site or IR..they would be directed to contact Wm. Merritt!!!"
I bet everyone and their brother would probably be begging for a license with IDCC if only William Merritt would talk to them!
It amazes me what passes for analysis around here...
Once
Holy smokes! I just realized that 18% drop didn't include the big drop that happened the preceding week for a two week loss of 38%!
Wasn't the prevailing "wisdom" here that the drop on Tuesday was actually a buying opportunity? It's amazing how much bad advice people seem to have regarding IDCC.
Once
IDCC makes the list!
Market Report -- In Play (PCLE, HTRN, ACAI, SONO, RNAI, AKSY, SYNA, NTRT, ESPR, NWL, OIIM, GNSS, ACLS, IDCC, ARTS, KROL, SCLN, XJT, GRMN, CHKR, PCTI, SSYS, BSG)
August 01, 2003 3:40:00 PM ET
Weekly Losers List: Stocks over $5 posting the largest percentage loss this week include:
PCLE -35%, HTRN -34%, ACAI -29%, SONO -27%, RNAI -25%, AKSY -24%, SYNA -24%, NTRT -23%, ESPR -22%, NWL -20%, PEGA -20%, OIIM -18%, GNSS -18%, ACLS -18%, IDCC -18%, MGAM -17%, ARTS -17%, LGND -17%, KROL -17%, SCLN -17%, BLTI -16%, CHPC -15%, XJT -15%, GRMN -15%, CHKR -15%, PCTI -15%, AMKR -15%, SSYS -14%, BSG -14%.
Briefing.com is the leading Internet provider of live market analysis for U.S. Stock, U.S. Bond, and world FX market participants.
Once
I think we might get a dead cat bounce here. Unfortunately, dead cats are not known for their bouncing qualities. A little electro-shock therapy may be in order.
Once
One more question, What does 2x 2010 ebitda from marsalas report mean? Also is he saying .04 cents is all we make for the rest of the year? Mschere is guessing we beat that this quarter.
Once again TIA
Jzman You're very welcome in advance,
ebitda stands for "Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization". So that would be two times 2010 ebitda.
Once
Yep, that's the trouble with those bikes where your feet go in front of your bum:
"My back is killing me, but it was worth the trip."
Did it take you 12 hours to go 275 miles? I'm planning a 3900 mile motorcycle trip. I wonder if I need to allot more time? I was planning on doing it in 8 easy/fun riding days but maybe I need 14 days of 12 hours each, LOL!
Once