Wall Street was busy analyzing wireless stocks this week, resulting in adjusted ratings for several major wireless equipment vendors.
Qualcomm Inc. was upgraded to “buy” by Merrill Lynch, which cited the eminent rollout of third-generation networks as motivation for the upgrade. “Although we questioned the economics of such deployment and expected delays over the last several months, we now believe that we are fast reaching ‘the point of no return’ towards 3G deployment with deployments in Japan, the U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and France,” said analyst Tal Liani in a research note. The company’s stock was trading at $42.16 Friday.
Lucent Technologies Inc. was also upgraded from “underperform” to “neutral” by Soundview Technologies, which noted an uptick in wireless infrastructure spending. Lucent was trading at $2.23 per share Friday after gaining almost 7 percent Thursday.
Nortel Networks Ltd. on the other hand was downgraded to “underperform” by Smith Barney based on concerns that the wireless carrier capital expenditure expectations for the latter half of the year will not be met. “With vendor top-line forecasts still fairly flattish, we continue to believe there is a disconnect between revenue forecasts and [capital expenditure] expectations,” explained Alex Hendersen, Smith Barney telecommunications equipment analyst. “Although we have seen far fewer budget cuts in 2003 than in the last two years and are in a period of better relative stability, we would expect some carrier budgets to continue to edge down.” Shares of Nortel were trading at $4.04 Friday following a dip to $3.87 the day before.
Smith Barney also cut its rating on IBM to “underperform.” Shares of IBM were trading down slightly at $87.82 Friday.
