On Track (OTIV) (PATR) (USAT) (ARMH) (ARSD) (BKR) Get New Coverage

On Track Innovations Ltd (NASDAQ: OTIV), Patriot Transportation Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PATR), Usa Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: USAT), ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARMH), Arabian American Development Co. (NASDAQ: ARSD) and Michael Baker Co. (NYSE: BKR) getting new coverage from analysts.

On Track Innovations Ltd (OTIV) is now covered by Sidoti. They placed a “Neutral” rating on the company.

Patriot Transportation Holdings Inc. (PATR) is now covered by Sidoti. They placed a “Neutral” rating on the company.

Usa Technologies Inc. (USAT) is now covered by Sidoti. They placed a “Neutral” rating on the company.

ARM Holdings plc (ARMH) is now covered by Nomura (NYSE:NMR). Theys placed a “Neutral” rating on the company.

Arabian American Development Co. (ARSD) is now covered by Sidoti. They placed a “Buy” rating on the company.

Michael Baker Co. (BKR) is now covered by Sidoti. They placed a “Buy” rating on the company.

Big Movers (HOC) (NTAP) (ALXN) (ARMH) (THOR) on May 6

Among the big, positive movers on Friday, May 6, were Holly Corp. (HOC), Netapp (NTAP), Alexion Pharmaceutic (ALXN), Arm Holdings Plc (ARMH) and Thoratec Corp. (THOR).

Holly Corp. (HOC) jumped $1.81, to close at $55.55, a gain of 3.37 percent.

Netapp (NTAP) was up $1.80 on the day to close at $53.30, a gain of 3.50 percent.

Alexion Pharmaceutic (ALXN) climbed $1.76 to close at $95.89, a gain of 1.87 percent.

Arm Holdings Plc (ARMH) rose $1.76 to close the session at $29.27, a gain of 6.40 percent.

Thoratec Corp. (THOR) was up $1.76 to end the day at $33.58, a gain of 5.53 percent.

Arm Holdings (ARMH) Challenging Intel (INTC) with Smartphone Chips

There's one advantage relative upstart Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARMH) has on chip giant Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) in the smartphone segment, and that is battery life.

Since that's the name of the game for smartphones, Arm has a foothold in the fastest growing segment of the chip market, with Intel and others scrambling to catch up.

ARM Holdings PLC, is a British microprocessor firm founded 21 years ago in a turkey barn. While still relatively small, ARM is upending the chip business, posing perhaps the most nettlesome challenge yet to giant Intel Corp, says the Wall Street Journal.

"ARM's chips have become the most popular standard for cellphones and tablets and are found in hundreds of millions of other devices, from digital cameras to disk drives. Its market share in handsets is more than 90%, and its stock has tripled over the past 15 months.

"ARM's growing cachet—and the threat it poses to Intel—was on display March 2, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented the iPad 2 to journalists and technophiles. He emphasized how the tablet's processor—which is based on ARM technology—is twice as fast as the previous one, all the while keeping battery life at an impressive 10 hours."

Arm Holdings closed Wednesday at $24.40, down $0.52, or 2.09 percent. Intel closed at $19.81, falling $0.37, or 1.85 percent.

ARM Holdings (ARMH) Drops but Still Takeover Target

The share price of ARM Holdings Plc (NASDAQ:ARM)’s stock has soared so quickly that the designer of chips that help power Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone is now the most expensive takeover target in the semiconductor industry since 2006.

ARM’s shares rose 151 percent in the past 12 months through yesterday, about double the next best performance in the MSCI World Information Technology Index, as demand surged for semiconductors in mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads and speculation grew that Apple, Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) or Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) will try to buy the Cambridge, England-based company. The gains left ARM valued at 59 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, more than the multiple for any semiconductor takeover since ATI Technologies Inc. in 2006, according to data compiled by Bloomberg that includes net debt.

While increasing shipments of mobile handsets helped push ARM’s gross margin to the highest level of any global semiconductor company, a takeover would now cost at least $11.3 billion, in line with the combined total spent in all chip acquisitions in the past year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Even as technology companies sit on $276 billion in cash, ARM’s Chief Executive Officer Warren East says any deal would destroy shareholder value because the chip designer’s success stems from its neutrality.

“If anyone was interested in buying ARM, why would they have waited, when you could have had it” cheaper before, said Paul Morland, an analyst at Peel Hunt in London. “ARM has done better than people expected, but not 10 times better. The bulls on it are looking out 10 years to the growth of mobile devices.”




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Marvell (MRVL) No Longer Marvelous?

The fates can turn quickly for a high-riding company, as Marvell(Nasdaq:MRVL) has found out, as they have moved out of favor not long after it was believed they had differentiated themselves from their competitors.

Several months ago, Marvell was smokin' hot. The company was apparently setting itself apart from Broadcom (Nasdaq:BRCM), Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN), and other competitors in the markets for networking chips and mobile processors, and the storage-controller segment was doing just fine despite slow PC sales.

Marvell's stock soared 7% on the release of third-quarter numbers, moving me to exclaim: "That's what you get for delivering the right technologies at the right time, something Marvell has had a knack for in recent years," said Anders Bylund at Motley Fool.

The fourth-quarter report is in, and Marvell is singing a very different tune now. Neither the press release nor the analyst call so much as mentioned "mobile processors" or the ARM Holdings (Nasdaq:ARMH) architecture that underlies Marvell's Armada processor line. The Armada name fell from CEO Sehat Sutardja's lips exactly once, and then only with the hope that adoption would accelerate in fiscal 2012.

Largest mobile customer Research In Motion (Nasdaq:RIMM) is shifting low-end 2.5G smartphones by the boatload in markets across the developing world, where 3G networks are hard to come by and 4G remains a pipe dream. Besides being an important data point for RIM investors, that's terrible news for Marvell, which is a major chip supplier for RIM -- but doesn't have 2.5G products available. The company has 2.5G products on tap but has yet to deploy them in meaningful volume to RIM or anybody else.





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Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) Top Semi Picks Include Intel (Nasdaq:INTC), ON Semi (Nasdaq:ONNN), Broadcom (Nasdaq:BRCM), Micron (NYSE:MU), Avago Tech (Nasdaq:AVGO), Microchip Technology (Nasdaq:MCHP)

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)threw out a number of their favorite picks in the semiconductor sector, with their leaders being Broadcom (Nasdaq:BRCM), Micron (NYSE:MU), Intel (Nasdaq:INTC), Avago Tech (Nasdaq:AVGO), ON Semi (Nasdaq:ONNN) and Microchip Technology (Nasdaq:MCHP).

A second list of semiconductors based in Europe was also released, which included STMicro (NYSE:STM), ARM Holdings (Nasdaq:ARMH) and Infineon (OTC:IFNNY).

Microsoft's (Nasdaq:MSFT) Moving to ARM (Nasdaq:ARMH) a Disaster for Intel (Nasdaq:INTC)?

To say the move by Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) to run Windows with ARM (Nasdaq:ARMH) chips could hurt Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) is an understatement. There's no doubt this is a huge blow to the company with extraordinary implications, or at least, potential implications.

Canaccord Genuity noted, "Microsoft confirmed that its next release of Windows will run on chips from ARM Holdings. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Mr. Softie demonstrated a 'technology preview' by running Windows on an ARM-based device. The full windows system currently only works on Intel-based chips (including chips from Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD)). Shares of ARM rose to a ten-year high on the back of this news. The Microsoft/Intel partnership, often referred to as a 'duopoly,' is being eroded by the rapid growth of mobile devices, including smartphone and tablet computers. Both tech giants are lagging in the mobile computing market, and are working to capture the leadership they share in the non-mobile market. One analyst commented that the significance of Microsoft’s move away from Intel is 'hard to overstate.' This shift could allow ARM to get its chips into high-end tablets and low-end notebook computers, further chipping away at Intel’s dominance. ARM’s business model is different from Intel’s, as ARM sells its CPU designs and blueprints for others to build. Apple’s (Nasdaq:AAPL) iPad and iPhone use chips with core design technology from ARM."

Microsoft was trading at $28.35, down $0.47, or 1.61 percent, as of 11:40 AM EST. Arm Holdings was trading at $21.76, down $0.02, or 0.09 percent. Intel was at $20.45, down $0.32, or 1.54 percent.

Nvidia (Nasdaq:NVDA), ARM (Nasdaq:ARMH), Marvell (Nasdaq:MRVL), JDS Uniphase (Nasdaq:JDSU), Dell (Nasdaq:DELL), Ciena (Nasdaq:CIEN), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) All Up on CES Boost

The Consumer Electronics Show has given tech stocks like Nvidia (Nasdaq:NVDA), ARM (Nasdaq:ARMH), Marvell (Nasdaq:MRVL), JDS Uniphase (Nasdaq:JDSU), Dell (Nasdaq:DELL), Ciena (Nasdaq:CIEN) and Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) a nice boost, as the overall sector rose on the excitement generated from the show.

As far as some of the substance, one of those creating a lot of buzz was the announcement that Nvidia Corp. would be partnering with ARM Holdings to develop central processors for PCs, a direct challenge to Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC). While it's not a short-term play, it did generate a lot of talk.

One of the huge products of the Christmas season was Microsoft's Kinect, which CEO Steve Ballmer said in a keynote address that the company had sold about 8 million units since November. Ballmer also revealed plans to expand Windows operating system platform reach.

Ciena closed Thursday at $23.99, gaining $1.06, or 4.62 percent. Dell closed at $14.26, up $0.39, or 2.81 percent. JDS Uniphase ended the session at $16.04, increasing $1.01, or 6.72 percent. Marvell closed the day at $19.56, up $1.00, or 5.39 percent. ARM closed at $21.78 down $0.10, or 0.46 percent, plunging after opening high. Nvidia soared to $19.33, gaining $2.35, or 13.84 percent. Microsoft closed at $28.82, up $0.82, or 2.93 percent.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) Will Benefit from Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) ARM (NASDAQ:ARMH) Compatible Devices

The announcement at CES on Wednesday by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) their newest version of Windows will be compatible with ARM (NASDAQ:ARMH) devices should be a huge benefit for Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), says Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS).

They were referring to Qualcomm being able to compete against Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) in the PC sector better.

Goldman said, "This substantially increases Qualcomm’s TAM, which is currently around a $21 bn cellular chipset market. By comparison, the PC processor market is around $40 bn, with the more directly addressable notebook segment at around $19 bn. We expect ARM-based vendors as a group, and Qualcomm in particular, to be successful in gaining share in the notebook market, given the significant advantages in power usages and battery life for ARM vs. x86."

Qualcomm was trading at $52.74, gaining $0.71, or 1.36 percent, as of 1:01 PM EST.

Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) Building Operating System for Tablets

A number of media outlets reported Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) is working on a version of Windows for tablets, as the market demand explodes for the devices.

The operating system being developed by Microsoft will run on processors designed by ARM Holdings PLC (LON:ARM), based in the UK.

Tablets are predominately run by processors from ARM, as well as the majority of other handheld devices.

The timing of the release of the operating system wasn't revealed, but it is a positive move by Microsoft, especially if they are able to build a partnership with ARM which would help them gain ground they've lost in the tablet race.

Microsoft closed Tuesday at $28.07, up $0.26, or 0.93 percent.