The piece said Information Network chief Robert Castellano believes “massive inventory buildup and huge overcapacity” are having a serious impact on solar panel manufacturers. The industry is up to 122 days of inventory, from an average 71 days in 2008, he reports. Capacity utilization in the industry is down to 27.9%, from 48% last year.

• Dreamworks Animation (DWA): Would add Shrek to the fold.
• MGM: Large film library to feed the company’s cable channels.
• Scripps Network Interactive (SNI): Parent of Food Network and HGTV channels.
• NBC Universal: Not the broadcast piece, but the rest of the General Electric (GE) unit, which includes Bravo, USA and Syfy, plus the movie studio.
• Electronic Arts (ERTS): Video game company has big sports franchises.
• Take-Two (TTWO): Would give them the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Original post

There are hints in Thursday’s stock action.

“Our investment thesis is that once consumers buy an Apple media or smartphone product - (i.e., iPhone or iPod) or use its iTunes digital media service, they are more likely to purchase Mac computers or other Apple products,” he writes. “We believe the closed Apple digital content ecosystem, or walled garden, entices consumers to purchase Apple devices for a complete digital entertainment experience.”

Back in July, I wrote a post based on a Bernstein Research report which considered the question of whether the Apple (AAPL) iPhone has been a blessing or a curse for AT&T (T), citing among other factors the strain the data-happy iPhone users are placing on the company’s 3G network. The theme cropped up again earlier this week, in a Heard on the Street column in the Wall Street Journal, which asserted that AT&T is not getting much out of its position as the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier.

Kaiser Wednesday repeated his Overweight rating on the stock, lifting his price target to $50, from $42. He also raised his EPS estimate for the February 2010 fiscal year to $2.94, from $2.80; for FY 2011 he goes to $3.30, from $3.13.

The reduced estimates, Eller contends, is less a failure on the part of Palm as “overly ambitious expectations in the face of a weak retail spending environment, competition from the iPhone 3Gs” and the slowing development of the Palm rival to the Apple App Store.

• The company set a price of 500 Euros - about $711 - for the new top-end N900 phone. (That also seems kind of pricey, no?)
• Nokia announced a deal to link location information from Facebook to maps, allowing people to update location information on the social networking site on the fly. That would be good news for anyone into “lifecasting.” (And who isn’t?) The service will launch on a new phone called the N97 Mini.
• Nokia also unveiled two music oriented phones, the X3 and X6.

Nokia made the announcements at the Nokia World conference in Stuttgart.

By 2014, according to research firm iSuppli, the market for PNDs will be eclipsed by GPS-equipped smart phones. In 2009, the firm says, there will be 114 million PNDs in use, compared to 57.8 million smart phones. But by 2014, the numbers will flip: 305 million smart phones will be in use, versus 128 million PNDs, according to a forecast by iSuppli.

Auriga USA analyst Chandan Sarkar Tuesday morning cut his rating on Verizon (VZ) to Hold from Buy, chopping his price target to $40, from $34. Sarkar cut his Q3 EPS estimate to 60 cents from 63 cents; for Q4 he similarly goes to 60 cents, from 63 cents. For 2010 he goes to $2.58, from $2.67.

“Although we think it is possible and even likely that the recession that has gripped the U.S. for the past several quarters has likely passed and the economy is in the early stages of a rebound, the continuing climb in the unemployment rate appears to be further pressuring Verizon’s enterprise-related businesses,” Sarkar writes in a research note.

Motorola (MOT) shares are getting a boost Tuesday from Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha, who raised his rating on the company to Outperform from Neutral. He raised his price target to $9.50, from $7; the stock closed Monday at $7.21.

Garcha sees the company posting profits of 4 cents a share this year and 37 cents in 2010, well ahead of the Street at a loss of 3 cents for this year and a profit of 27 cents for next year. He thinks the company’s mobile devices unit will approach break-even by the end of 2010, and that margins in the non-handset segments will expand in 2010.

Apple (AAPL) is likely to add new U.S. carriers for the iPhone within a year, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster asserts in a research note Monday. He sees the end of the exclusive relationship with AT&T (T) coming in connection with a new product launch next summer. Munster says that in countries where the phone is sold through multiple carriers, the company gets much higher market share than in those with exclusive deals - and that the higher sell-through more than offsets the weaker economics of non-exclusive agreements.

There has been repeated speculation that the company will add Verizon (VZ) next year once the exclusive arrangement with Apple ends; back in June, Bernstein Research speculated that the company could double the number of iPhones sold in the U.S. is it cuts a deal with Verizon, though with a smaller profit per phones.

Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet Monday morning added Cablevision (CVC) to the firm’s Top Picks Live list, asserting that there is little downside risk given a 10% free cash yield, and a potential catalyst in the proposed spin-off of the company’s MSG unit. His price target on the stock is $25, about 10% above Friday’s close at $22.25.

Meanwhile, the analyst removed EchoStar (SATS) from the Top Picks list to reflect recent performance, and likewise pulled Time Warner (TWX) from the list, again on a valuation basis. But both stocks hang on to their Buy ratings.

The source of the report is almost as interesting: the news comes from Dan Dorfman, the long-time financial columnist, who now appears to be plying his trading for the Huffington Post.

Standard & Poor’s analyst Clyde Montevirgen Friday raised his target price on Apple (AAPL) to $200 from $175, while lifting his EPS estimate for the September 2010 fiscal year to $6.78, from $6.65. The moves were triggered by today’s news that the company has cut a deal to distribute the phone in China with China Unicom (CHU).

Montevirgen thinks the company can sell more than 4 million iPhones in China in calendar 2010.

Finally.

After months of speculation, China Unicom (CHU) has finally announced a deal to sell the Apple (AAPL) iPhone in China. The wireless carrier said it reached a three-year deal to sell the phone, starting in the fourth quarter. The company will sell both 2G and 3G versiosns of the iPhone; pricing was not announced. As the Wall Street Journal notes, China Unicom said it will subsidize the phone, but it gave no details. The China version of the iPhone will have WiFi disabled, to comply with local law.

Thursday morning, the company launched a new model called the N900 which is based on the company’s Linux-based Maemo 5 operating system. Not everyone is going to be convinced, but Davenport & Co. analyst F. Drake Johnstone is. Late Thursday afternoon, he raised his rating on Nokia to Buy from Hold, setting a price target of $18.

MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen Thursday morning launched coverage of Motorola (MOT) and Nokia (NOK), both with sell ratings.

Kuittinen’s broad view is that the handset market is likely to continue to produce disappointing financial results. While he says smart phones can continue to grow units at 25%-30%, consumer spending will remain :”challenged,” leading to “a tepid rebound in overall handset sales.” He says ASPs are “likely to disappoint, leading to meager revenue growth at best in 2010,” and asserts that “investors have yet to price this risk into their models.”

In a story this morning, the Times now reports that Suntech’s prices more than cover production costs, but that administrative costs for the company’s U.S. unit are fairly high since it is still building sales here. He confirmed that the company has been losing money in its U.S. operations since they started in 2005, but blamed the high operating expenses. (As opposed to, say, a concerted effort to dump panels below cost to gain market share.) The newspaper notes that the Suntech execs “speaks fluent English and conducts interviews in that language.”

Approval of a request by Vonage (VG) to distribute a mobile VOIP application through the Apple (AAPL) App Store has been delayed by technical issues, a spokesperson for Apple said in an interview Wednesday afternoon.

“They submitted an application for review,” said Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris told Tech Trader Daily. “There are some technical issues that hopefully we can resolve.” Kerris did not elaborate on the nature of the issues with Vonage’s application.