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.

A key issue, he contends, is increase supply from China.; as they have ramped up, ASPs have dropped to $1.80 per watt, from $4.05 in Q3 2008. And he expects the trend to continue, with more capacity coming on line as manufacturers seek

There are hints in Thursday’s stock action.

Both Skyworks (SWKS) and RF Micro Devices (RFMD) have made nice moves Thursday; so has Nokia (NOK), the leading handset company by global market share. Nokia is holding a conference this week in Stuttgart, and announced some new phone models; next week Motorola (MOT) provides a first glimpse at their new Android phones. Apple is

“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

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.

Kaiser writes in a research notes that comp store sales are improving: he now sees FY Q2 comps down 4.8%, while the Street sees a 6.1% drop. He expects August

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.

Eller adds that “with the Palm’s fade,” takeover talk is also likely to evaporate. As the world realizes that the WebOS is “good but not mature enough

• The company set

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.

In a statement, iSuppli analyst Danny Kim notes that smart phones were not previously seen as a threat to the PND market due to poor phone battery life, unclear pricing structure and inferior interface design. But he says that as the smart-phone market evolves, those issues are being resolved. New smart phones, he says, offer better GPS

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.

Sarkar also says that the company is getting push back from regulators on the proposed sale of 4.8 million rural access likes to Frontier (FTR). He says the troubled results of the

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.

Garcha says the quality of Motorola’s soon-to-be-announced Android-based handsets are getting “mixed reviews,” and he says they will get only modest carrier support initially. But he says the sheer number of new smart phones from Motorola - he expects 10 or

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

Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet Monday morning added Cablevision (CVC) to the firm’s Top Picks Live list, asserting that there is

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.

Dorfman writes that he has obtained copies of SEC documents that show the

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.

He maintains a Buy rating on the stocks.

Meanwhile, Susquehana Financial analyst Jeffrey

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

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.

He says the N900 gives the company “good potential to complete effectively in the smart phone market against Apple, Research in Motion (RIMM) and new handsets powered by Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system.” Certainly, it has impressive specs: touch screen, slide-out keyboard, 5 MP camera, GPS, Mozilla browser, up to 48 GB of storage. The N900 can run up to 12 applications at once;

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.”

Kuittinen ticks off a list of signs that the handset market is in trouble:

• HTC revenue warning.
• “Tepid” early demand for Android handsets.
• Palm Pre “softness.”
• European demand shift from luxury phones to cheap touch-screen devices.

“We believe the barbell growth theory - the low and high ends of the phone market poised to expand simultaneously

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.”

What the Times implies, but doesn’t quite say,

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.

As has been widely reported, Apple last week said it is still reviewing an application for Google Voice, which so far is not available through the App Store. The status of Google Voice triggered an FCC inquiry; Apple posted a detailed response to the FCC’s questions late last week on Apple.com. In the response, Apple notes that it has approved a number of voice over IP applications that use WiFi -