SBM MAKES IT A HAT TRICK ON TRADING BUY CALLS – NOKIA UP 10% TODAY

Following our “balls to the wall” Trading Buy call yesterday on Nokia (see post), Nokia today reported better than expect results, with an adjusted loss per share of 8 euro cents, compared with the market’s average forecast of 9 euro cents, and held net cash of 4.2 billion euros ($5.2 billion), compared with the market’s estimate of 3.7 billion.

Once the world’s dominant mobile phone maker, Nokia was late to embrace smartphones and has lost out to Apple and Samsung in the most profitable part of the market.

It’s fighting back with its new Lumia range phones running Microsoft software, but they have had relatively little success among consumers, who are choosing Apple’s iPhones and phones running Google’s Android software instead.

Nokia sold 4 million Windows phones in the second quarter – roughly doubling from the first quarter – but still only a fraction of Apple’s expected sales of 30 million iPhones or Samsung’s 50 million smartphones.

We expect Microsoft to make a move before the year is out and remain resolutely long Nokia shares.