Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Palm Slaps Investors Insiders Selling Out

Palm (Nasdaq:PALM) slapped investors in the face by announcing large Q2 07 guidance which according to the press release “The revenue shortfall is due primarily to a delay in completing the certification process for a product that the company had previously expected to ship within the quarter.”

The mystery continues for several more paragraphs until Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executive officer is quoted saying. "However, our Q2 FY07 revenue will be constrained by a delay in certification of a key product. We now expect to start shipping the Treo 750 for the U.S. market early in Q3 FY07”.

There is only one week left in Q2 and they finally came clean. How long have they been sitting on this one? Does early Q3 mean sometime in Dec? Or when exactly? What do you mean by certification process. You could drive a truck through that one and the market probably will when trading resumes on Tuesday.

Full results will be reported Dec 19. Watch for a few more tidbits of marginally material disclosure items all wrapped up in a very disappointing 10-q. Investors need to know when the product will be shipped? The market does not want to die a death by a thousand cuts.

The stock has been trading near its 52 week low. This should drive it down for tax loss selling. But executive options may be priced more advantageously making 2007 a great year. Insider trading has been a net selling proposition for the past six months. As a matter of fact we do not believe any insiders have purchased. The President has even been exercising options at $0.29 and selling directly in the open market, moving approximately 120,000 shares since early June. Several transactions occurred in Nov when problem reports should have been covering his desk. Yet the selling continued. Is this inappropriate?

Usually you think maybe the company will be a take-over target. But with the officers unloading maybe the conversations that are not supposed to be happening are really not happening.