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Bobbie.
Those are just a few of the positive changes for March.
Most of the positions still show December 31, so there's
many more to come.
O'Dog.
I believe he meant "partially" instead of "impartially".
More than likely, a typo. LOL.
Vanguard Group increased 82,000, Old Mutual increased 74,000, RS Investment-new position, 263,000, Bank of America-new position, 29,000.
Whizzer.
Based on the 90 day passage of time since the arbitration was concluded on January 6th, most have been predicting that Sammy The Price Fixer would go to the IDCC jail in the very near future.
But you asked the critical question:
"It would be helful if someone. . . remembers when the ICC Court meets."
I casually answered "on the 25th or 30th", and went on to other things. And it was not till later that I gave it more thought, and answer began ringing in my ears.
As we know, the panel sends its preliminary decision to Paris, where it is reviewed and sent back to the panel. As I recall, the panel signs the final decision, and sends it back to Paris, who sends it to the attorneys for the parties. (Who then communicate it to their clients).
If that procedure is correct, and if the case was handled at the April meeting, we could well hear something in the coming two weeks or so.
Even if it wasn't, the prospect gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling because, given the Nokia result, Sammy should want to settle before being told what to do by a third party.
MTS.
May not be a trump card, but I hope it will play.
MTS.
Let's not forget.
Nokia and Sanyo will not only need a CDMA2000 license from IDCC, but from QCOM, as well.
Maybe IDCC has a "Going out of business" rate.
Loop. Thanks.
And what about MTS's question?
Is Nokia just pushing its harrassment to the max, by continuing the 3G suit until they (presumably) sign a 3G agreement with IDCC?
Most agree that the remaining 3G suit in the U.K. and the Delaware suit aren't worth a plug nickel, combined. But the boyz in Espoo are trying in vain to make them look like gold.
Jorma only has about three more weeks till he moves on to Big Oil. Not likely they'll cave before then, but there's always the Stock Good Fairy, right?
Magilla.
The settlement may have to be formally approved by the judge.
But I thought someone said previously that the case was marked "settled".
Magilla.
This looks like the 2G suit.
Notice, it says "adjourned to January 30 for closing speeches."
So far as I know, 3G is still underway.
Magilla.
One wonders what Judge Pumfrey is thinking.
He spent quite a bit of time on 2G lawsuit, and then it settled.
The 3G suit should not be a squeaker, given the greater number of patents.
However, what effect will forgiving Nokia's past 3G infringement have on this suit?
Whizz.
I believe they meet on the 25th or 30th.
Yes. I'm aware of that too.
So they're forming a JV that will go out of business, and they need a license to do so.
But no one has yet explained why they just don't let those sales run off, like any other technology that is superseded.
DR.
I'm aware that past 3G sales have been lost.
My point is, if Nokia and Sanyo go through with their JV plans, both should be concerned that they need a CDMA license from IDCC.
Since the settlement with Nokia did not include a paid-up license for CDMA2000, let's hope this "need" is a meaningful chip in IDCC's game to get Nokia to sign a full 3G license?
DR.
Please comment on this:
"Jim.
I'm still curious about the Nokia/Sanyo JV.
If the JV is going to produce CDMA phones, could this be why Merritt said Nokia didn't get a pass on CDMA2000?
Maybe someone could comment."
I'll drink to that.
Jim.
I'm still curious about the Nokia/Sanyo JV.
If the JV is going to produce CDMA phones, could this be why Merritt said Nokia didn't get a pass on CDMA2000?
Maybe someone could comment.
Nic.
Now you're talkin', amigo.
Merritt means it when he says we'll be in every 3G phone.
And if the SEC has been listening, he's said it at least three times.
Clarence.
Precisely. That's why it's not likely to happen.
And if you'd give the French a poke in the butt, we'd probably see another $2.00. LOL.
Yeah.
I always look for a stock to drop $2.00, after reporting record earnings and revenues.
Let's not forget.
Nokia may be playing a different tune, because it intends to launch its new JV with Sanyo next quarter.
As we all know, lincenses cannot be transferred or assigned.
If the JV is to start "clean", they will need IDCC's help.
Dave.
As I recall, the mediation service was always available in Delaware, but it didn't look like Nokia wanted to play that game.
Settling Delaware and the U.K. would clear the air a bit more.
Dave.
I'm watching Kudlow at the moment.
That guy will have to wait 17 minutes, just for Cramer's show to start.
Looks to me like Nokia saved the 3G/U.K. suit and Delaware as bargaining chips for a 3G agreement. They also know that Ericy and SNE will probably not cave on 3G until they do.
We should also keep in mind that even though the $253 million looks a little short, IDCC previously estimated that this was due through the full year 2006, which still has 8 months to go.
Although more will be known tomorrow, I don't believe IDCC will have to sue to get a 3G agreement.
Out of 10 legal actions started by Nokia, they are still batting zero, with only two to go.
Minus a few bucks for the remaining tax reserve.
Jim.
I suppose the real reason will come out in the end.
It could simply be Nokia's way of sacrificing market share for higher margins/profits.
Gamco.
The more I think about it, the more this JV "rat" smells like financial engineering. And any wind coming out of Espoo blows no good.
However, Nokia will have to replace CDMA losses with WCDMA sales. And it could be some time before it regains its 35% market share.
Do you believe this will spark any "moves" by Motorola?
Mschere.
Thanks.
But, Eric's analysis begs the question:
If CDMA is toast and we are in transition, why doesn't Nokia just blow with the wind, and let the newer technologies slowly take the place of CDMA?
Since when do companies spin off declining businesses into a JV, if the JV seems destined to go broke?
Jim.
I'm surprised I haven't seen more discussion about the coming JV between Nokia and Sanyo on CDMA handsets.
Seems like this is a huge move by the Espoo Skunkworks:
1. The JV will have to sign a new license with QCOM, among others.
2. Nokia will not longer be able to report these unit sales, which may significantly affect its worldwide share. (Some analysts may chose to SWAG the numbers, so as not to distort their position).
3. Margins should go up, as well as earnings. But sales will obviously decline.
Is this a move to (a) break with CDMA and make a virtual commitment to WCDMA and its extensions, and (b) spike margins and profitability for next generation phones?
I haven't the slightest idea how many units are involved, and wonder whether this could be premature.
I'd appreciate hearing from those who have better insight into this move.
Mschere.
What is a kingofen gland?
Jim.
There has been no change in FACT's positions, which it took at 9:46 this morning.
Buy 100 @ $22.52.
Sell 100 @ $22.87.
Jim.
FACT is bidding 100 at 22.52.
Quartz.
I'm surprised and deeply disappointed at Fidelity's cop-out in taking responsibility for what THEY publish.
How cute! They characterize shoddy reporting as a "service" to customers, and then run out the back door, waving disclaimers as long as your arm.
One would think they'd be happy to investigate the charges, and change "suppliers" if necessary. After all, no one forced them to use the BIR reports. But, by using them, and hiding behind flimsy escuses, they have severaly tarnished their reputation. Unfortunately, no one will fight back, because Fidelity has excellent lawyers. (BTW, we've had accounts at Fidelity for longer than I can remember.)
Consider this: General Motors can blame Delphi for supplying inferior parts till they're blue in the face. But GM produced the car, just as Fidelity produced the report. However, GM has no choice but to pay for warranted parts and labor.
Delphi cannot escape either, and often foots a big part of the bill. So, in a normal world, everything is OK, because taking responsibility is basic to doing business.
In this case, things are totally reversed. We paid the cost. And Fidelity sits back, hangs up the phone, looks approvingly at its disclaimers, and shrugs its shoulders.
Unbelievably, they got off scott free, and so did their suppliers.
Five minutes later, it's business as usual, as Fidelity's Service Department regains momentum, and takes the next call.
Like Home Depot, "Hello. YOU can pay for it. We can help!"
Rusty.
Steven Cohen of SAC is reported to have more than a few enemies.
Beats me why.
We don't know much about his recent success, but he used to make a minimum of 40% return. (1996-2001).
During that period, I believe he had assets of about $4 billion, so making $2 billion before tax ain't peanuts.
He would then take 50% off the top (versus 20%-30% for most others), and his investors then paid the bill for fees and expenses.
Nice work if you can get it. But being on the receiving end of his Shorting was apparently the wrong place to be.
MO.
From Sam Stevens, in answer to a question about the technical qualifications of U.K. judges in patent cases, versus Markman Hearings in the U.S.:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"The Judges who hear Patents cases are specialists in various different technical fields, for example some have a Scientific background and others have a more computer based background.
When Patents trials are heard, the Judge has the benefit of Counsel for both sides making their submissions as well as witnesses giving their evidence, and Expert witnesses in the various fields giving their evidence.
After hearing all the evidence the Judge will take all aspects of the case into consideration when making his Judgment.
There is no set answer that I can give you in relation to your question "how do they determine whether a patent is valid or essential?".
Thank you for your interest
Sam Stevens
Thanks Reg.
I looked all over Google for such a ranking.
The numbers look a little low, since none of the big boyz are showing $17B in assets, as shown by the 2005 data.
But they've probably all moved up the ladder.
Why the hostility, Sinnet?
Songioan doesn't have the power of a hedgefund. And he doesn't have their kind of bullets in his gun.
Hedgefunds are famous for shorting stocks, because it's far easier than waiting for prices to go up, especially if you write your own research reports.
O'Dog.
The article I read about SAC said they had about $4 billion in assets. But the amount seems to vary.
Here's some more info. on the largest funds, from an article by CNN money:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>...
America's biggest hedge funds
Assets invested keep growing despite a tough year for industry; keeping tabs on $743 billion.
September 8, 2005: 3:50 PM EDT
By Amanda Cantrell, CNN/Money staff writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Debates about the merits of hedge funds may never end, but one fact remains undisputed: Their coffers are swelling.
In its annual survey of hedge funds with $1 billion or more in assets, the hedge fund industry publication Absolute Return magazine found 196 hedge funds in that group with a combined $743 billion under management -- the vast majority of the industry's estimated $1 trillion in assets.
Westport, Conn.-based Bridgewater Associates topped the list, with $17.7 billion in assets,
followed closely by New York-based D.E. Shaw, with $17.1 billion.
Goldman Sachs took third place with $15.3 billion in assets, shattering the notion that hedge funds are strictly entrepreneurial and demonstrating how serious Wall Street's biggest investment banks and brokerage firms are about these funds.
Barclays Global Investors also made the list, coming in sixth place at $12.2 billion.
Other funds in the survey's top 10 include
Farallon Capital Management, with $13.8 billion;
Citadel Investment Group, with $12 billion;
Och Ziff Capital, with $12 billion and
Maverick Capital, with $11.5 billion.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A quick read reveals nothing about SAC.
The whistle blowers' version of SAC's tactics:
True or False: A Hedge Fund Plotted to Hurt a Drug Maker?
By JENNY ANDERSON
Published: March 26, 2006
Jeff Topping for The New York Times
Scotsdale, Ariz.
AS they tell the story, it seemed like just an office turf war.
Three summers ago, Daryl Smith, a sales representative for Gradient Analytics, a small independent research firm here, says he participated in a conference call with his biggest prospective client, a unit of SAC Capital Advisors, a powerful hedge fund on Wall Street.
Mr. Smith listened eagerly, he says, but was troubled by what he heard:
His boss was agreeing to delay the release of a report that was largely negative about a pharmaceutical company, Biovail, in order to allow SAC to build a position to profit should that report then cause the stock to fall. Even worse: that report, he contends, was essentially created by SAC.
He dashed down the hall to tell his friend Robert Ballash, another salesman at the firm, about the call. Mr. Ballash was incensed. "I have clients, too," he recalls yelling at Mr. Smith, apparently with some envy at the advantage his colleague's client seemed to be about to enjoy. "Why are you getting a three-day advance?"
That intraoffice turf war — if it took place, which Gradient adamantly denies — has metastasized into an ugly legal war. The company that was the subject of the report is not only taking on the $8 billion SAC hedge fund and the research firm, Gradient, but also a Bank of America analyst and others.
At the heart of Biovail's racketeering lawsuit, filed last month in New Jersey Superior Court in Newark, is an audacious claim: that some of the nation's biggest hedge funds colluded with independent research firms and analysts at big banks to produce purposely misleading research with the sole object of driving down a company's stock price. Hedge funds do so, the suit contends, to profit from their huge short positions on these companies, essentially bets that the stocks will drop.
SAC, Bank of America and Gradient vehemently deny the accusations. Carr Bettis, a founder of Gradient, says the lawsuit reads like a "fiction novel," and his business partner and co-founder, Donn W. Vickrey, says the conference call that Mr. Smith cites never took place. Mr. Vickrey further said that the practices alleged by Mr. Smith did not occur.
Daniel J. Kramer, a lawyer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison who represents SAC, says Biovail's allegations of manipulation are "false and implausible." He adds that the company's stock dropped in 2003 because of its publicly disclosed earnings disappointments and regulatory problems, not because of any supposed conspiracy.
Biovail's lawsuit does have a familiar plot line: it aims at analysts who write negative research — something that regulators have tried to encourage, because too-positive research has historically been a problem.
The suit also takes aim at some familiar targets. Whenever companies are in trouble or there is panic in the market — from the bursting of the South Sea bubble in London in 1720 to the plunge in markets after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — critics are often quick to vilify short-sellers as market manipulators. Recently, companies have even hired public-relations firms to spread the contentions.
In a short sale, an investor borrows shares and then sells them, hoping to buy them back at a lower price before having to return them, and aiming to profit from the difference. If buying a stock — going long — represents faith in the future of a company, then going short signals skepticism about those prospects. Short-sellers recognized Enron's problems long before investigators issued any subpoenas.
"Short-selling makes the market more efficient and more liquid," said Owen A. Lamont, a professor of finance at the Yale School of Management who has studied short-selling. "It helps get the opinions of the pessimists into the market so that prices can be more accurate."
Biovail's chief executive, the Canadian billionaire Eugene N. Melnyk, says that the suit is not about short-selling. "We are talking about misinformation put into the marketplace," he said. (Mr. Melnyk has sued a short-seller in the past.)
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating some of the allegations made by Biovail and Overstock.com, which has filed a similar lawsuit against short-sellers and analysts. At the same time, the S.E.C. is investigating Biovail for its own accounting practices, one further twist in a knot of a case.
Surrounding these claims about short-selling and market manipulation is an anxiety about the growing power of hedge funds. These funds, private investment pools for institutions and the wealthy, have increased sharply in number, size and effect on the market: according to New York Stock Exchange officials, they constitute from one-quarter to one-half of all trading on that exchange every day.
Hedge funds operate with a fair amount of secrecy, which naturally shrouds them in mystery and, often, suspicion. Combine that with the veiled practice of shorting and the devaluation of stock research since the market collapse, and it becomes a recipe for concern — if not paranoia.
Rox.
SAC is not a huge hedgefund. In fact, it's one of the smaller ones.
As I also said on Yahoo, Steven Cohen, who owns SAC, earned almost $500 million last year. He showed a return of 40% or more from 1996 to 2001, and put 50% of that return (before fees) in his already huge pocket.
You don't do that by buying Proctor and Gamble. And, IMO, Cohen doesn't short a stock unless he has a gun which is already loaded with the right bullets.
Aside from Ghost-Writing research reports, one of those bullets is allegedly obtained by spreading a few bucks around to make sure you get information ahead of your competition.
When Ken Grant is interviewed by Real World Trading, you can bet he won't have those four former employees of Gradient by his side.
MO.
GAB.
SAC owned 500,000 shares of IDCC on 12/31/05?
Couldn't find it on the major holders list.