Short Interest Rises as Nokia Battles Interdigital, Apple

Nokia announced losses last week. This sector is attracting a lot of attention - Nokia has been unsuccessfully challenged by Interdigital (IDCC) over patent infringement; and Nokia (NOK) in turn is mounting a legal IP challenge to Apple (AAPL). Market interest has also been sparked by the new Google (GOOG) Android phone. The short base in Nokia stands at 3.8%, up from 2.5% a week ago. The proportion of lendable currently being utilized is 15%. For the full report click here.

Interdigital has seen a sharp rise in short seller interest following the ITC ruling that Nokia did not infringe its patents. The short base currently stands at 8%, and 38% of the available inventory is being utilized. For the full report click here.

Comments

[Ben Around]

I thought the Nokia patent issue is not even factored into the earnings projections of IDCC. So it seems premature for the shorts to sell this down to these levels. I can't understand the concern, so I bought at 19.

2009 Oct 28 09:50 AM

[User 466217]

The Heartland Fund Mgr.hit the nail on the head in the conference call today.

A first time for me to hear a fund mgr telling IDCC they could do a better job for the stockholder with IDCC sitting on 400 Million cash and generating only 1/2 % return for the company which is about 50% of the cap value. And he is right!
For example:
A stock buy back with 200 MM =50% and 200MM cash still on hand and a bright future in the hopper would be buying 25% of the company right now from the total stocks outstanding based on an undervalued stock price of $18.51 trading on Wednesday.
The other options you threw out made sense as well
I believe the fund Mgr made an excellent point and sent a strong message for all of us being loyal investors to the President and his right hand man CFO Mr. Scott!

Thanks Bill for an exellent job well done.

2009 Oct 30 02:33 AM