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 5.4% to close at $9.46 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 0.7% to close at 4,273. The
Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index(MSH) and the Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index (SOX) were each up a fraction.
Other gains came from Twitter Inc. (TWTR) , which rose 1.3% to
close at $58.18 and Apple Inc.(AAPL), which added 0.4% to close at
$545.99.
On the downside, shares of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) were down 1.5%
to close at $29.58, while Amazon.com (AMZN) slipped 1% to close at
$353.65.
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