Neonode Is This Week’s One New Buy

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If you don’t have touch-screen technology in your new gadgets, you don’t stand a chance with today’s consumers—and that’s where Sweden’s Neonode (NASDAQ:NEON) comes in. The company is a leading provider of optical touch-screen solutions for smartphones, ebooks and tablets via its zForce patented touch technology. This company is, quite simply, winning on multiple fronts:

  • Analyst coverage. Neonode just scored its first analyst coverage, with Cantor Fitzgerald initiating coverage with a $9 per share target.
  • Easier to trade. Neonode was previously listed as an over-the-counter stock, and just recently upgraded to the NASDAQ exchange.
  • Patent lawsuits. The company’s valuable patents could be critical in the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) vs. Samsung (PINK:SSNLF) smartphone war.
  • Ebook market. The company has signed deals with every major manufacturer of electronic books.

And if you’ve been a Global Growth subscriber for a while, the name might be familiar to you—we sold the stock for modest 7% gains in March. Since then, the stock has been on a wild ride, making multiple 20%+ swings in both directions within days of each other. But with the company’s announcement that it would be listing on the NASDAQ, some of this volatility should even out, and we should see a clearer uptrend begin to emerge.

More recently, the company has been the subject of acquisition speculation because of the patent war in the mobile phone space. In fact, the company’s “slide to unlock” patent was held up in a recent Dutch court decision between Apple and Samsung as an example of prior art—Neonode applied for its patent a full three years before Apple.

On top of the company’s smartphone upside, Neonode has a near monopoly on touch in the ebook market—they’ve signed deals with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) and Sony (NYSE:SNE).

Plus, the company has made a major effort to broaden applications for its touch technology, and the company announced that it secured a whopping 17 new design wins in the first quarter.

In the first quarter, the company’s sales rose 122.6% to $1.2 million compared with $539,000 in the same quarter a year ago. During the same period, Neonode posted a loss of $1.6 million or 5 cents per share compared with a loss of $9.7 million or 43 cents per share in the same quarter a year ago.

Looking forward, the company expects 2012 sales of $18 million to $20 million, so there is a lot of optimism for its upcoming quarterly results.

Neonode is a thinly traded company, and spikes in investor interest can mean that shares might pop before you can fully initiate a position. So rather than chase the stock if it surges, just place a limit order and get in on a pullback.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2012/06/neonode-is-this-weeks-one-new-buy/.

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