By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch
Shares of BlackBerry Ltd. rallied Tuesday on news that hedge
fund Third Point, led by investor Dan Loeb, has acquired a huge
stake in the struggling handset maker which also scored an upgrade
from FBR Capital.
BlackBerry (RIMM) was up more than 6% at $9.52 after Third Point
disclosed Friday that it has taken a 10-million-share stake in the
mobile computing company.
On Tuesday, FBR Capital analyst Scott Thompson upgraded
BlackBerry to market perform from underperform based on recent
changes at the company, including "a refreshed management team that
appears focused on forging a reasonably direct path to
profitability" and "a slow, yet decisive and strategic shift away
from the competitive consumer smartphone business into four more
promising divisions."
The BlackBerry rally helped lift tech stocks as the Nasdaq
Composite Index (RIXF) edged higher by a fraction to 4,264. The
Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index(MSH) was up 0.1%, while the
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) shed 0.1%.
Other gains from Twitter Inc. (TWTR) and Apple Inc.(AAPL), which
were each up 1%.
On the downside, shares of Facebook Inc.(FB) , Hewlett-Packard
(HPQ) and Intel Corp. (INTC) were each down a fraction.
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