Even during the worldwide recession it seems consumers continue to abandon ‘dumb’ phones when, for just a little bit more money, they can get a pocket-sized computer – a smartphone – instead. According to research firm Gartner, overall handset sales are expected to shrink by 4 percent this year compared to last year. Meanwhile, smartphone sales are forecast to grow by more than 20 percent.

Smartphones account for only 14 percent of the mobile phone market today, but this segment has doubled its share of the global mobile phone business over the past three years. More than 500 million smartphones are expected to be sold in 2012 when they are forecasted to make up half the market. Revenues from smartphones are expected to double to half the industry total by 2014.

With the smartphone market being really the only game in town, the intensity of the battle for the smartphone market is

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span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"h3 class="post-title" style="color: rgb(253, 102, 51); text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal bold 150%/1.4em Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; "span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 76px; text-transform: none; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"Add seconds to the Time column display on your Trade-Ideas Alert window./span/span/h3h3 class="post-title" style="color: rgb(253, 102, 51); text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal bold 150%/1.4em Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; "span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 76px; text-transform: none; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large; "span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"One from the vault (link): /spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-size:13px;"a href="http://marketmovers.blogspot.com/2008/04/tooltip-spank-father-time-while.html"http://marketmovers.blogspot.com/2008/04/tooltip-spank-father-time-while.html/a/span/span/span/span/h3/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9446784-3494233802056624000?l=marketmovers.blogspot.com'//div

Newport Digital Technologies Inc. brings world-class technological expertise and creativity to the design and implementation of customized solutions for wireless broadband applications for customers. The company has competencies in five fast growing area of technology – RFID, WiMAX, LED signage, security and surveillance, and eLearning.

The management team at Newport Digital Technologies brings to the table a wealth of knowledge and experience from within the technology industry as well as the corporate world. They also have a strong track record of delivering results to both customers and investors. Here are the team members:

Mr. Richard Damion founded Newport Digital Technologies and is chairman of the company. He has over 40 years of experience developing, operating and ultimately selling numerous enterprises.

Mr. Gary DeMel is a 28-year veteran of the semiconductor and hi-tech industries. He has held several senior management positions within major technology

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3 Roadsigns popped up today from 3 different people whose opinion and calls on the market activity I respect.divbr //divdivThese people aren't market timers - if anything they're probably early with their calls, but when I hear or read people I respect offering these types of market forecasts, I pay attention and start to pull up previous strategies I think might be appropriate - in this case Bearish./divdivbr //divdivHere's the evidence:/divdivdiva href="http://twitter.com/steenbab/status/5176586766"/a/divblockquotediva href="http://twitter.com/steenbab/status/5176586766"@steenbab/a 11:25 AM CT - Midday briefing shows significant selling pressure in the wake of USD strength: http://rurl.org/223v/divdivabout 6 hours ago from web/div/blockquotediv/divdivblockquotediva href="http://twitter.com/AnneMarie2006/status/5179835022"@AnnMaries2006/a So many failed breakouts...sure sign of resolution to the downside for now $$/divdivabout 3 hours ago from Seesmic/div/blockquotediv/divdivblockquotediva href="http://twitter.com/TradeIdeas1/status/5179797762"@TradeIdeas1/a a href="http://chart.ly/2ang29"http://chart.ly/2ang29/a $SPX - One of the ways that helps me know which way I should be trading is illustrated in this picture/divdivabout 3 hours ago from Chart.ly/div/blockquotediv/divdivbr //divdivSignposts can come from anywhere. The reason ...

By Willem Thorbecke

Today, we're fortunate to have Willem Thorbecke, Senior Research Fellow at Asian Development Bank Institute and a Consulting Fellow at Japan's Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, as a guest contributor.

Asia's role in the propagation of the global recession has been a subject of study, but relatively little attention has been devoted to the interaction of exchange rates and production chains. The structure of East Asian production networks and the severity of the recession places a premium on policy coordination in the region.

Multinational corporations in East Asia have established value chains by slicing up production processes and allocating the production blocks across countries in the region based on relative endowments of capital, skill, labor, and infrastructure. As MNCs increase their tenure in developing Asia, they procure more from local firms. This leads to the formation of industrial clusters, and

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Companies featured in this edition of the newsletter: CHIP, ENZ, GERS, IWEB, OMCM, ONEZ, XSNX

Markets hit fresh highs for ‘09 yet again last week, as the first round of earnings helped to assuage investor concerns that operating results would underpin robust gains in equities this year. All told, the Dow gained 130 points to end the week at 9995 after briefly cracking the 10,000 mark, gaining 1.3% on the week and extending its gains to 13.9% on the year. The Nasdaq gained 0.8% on the week to close at 2156, up 36.8% on the year, while the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 gained 1.5% and 0.2% respectively, bringing their YTD totals to 20.4% and 23.4%.

Earnings stole the spotlight last week as things got off to a strong start early with JP Morgan handily beating expectations calling for $0.51 per share, reporting earnings of $0.82 per share. Citigroup

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Oil broke out of the $65-75 holding pattern of the last five months on strength of a declining dollar, speculation about rising consumer confidence, and potential growth next year in the global economy. Above $79 a barrel this morning before declining slightly, oil set a record high for this year of $79.05 and has been hovering just under that mark since.

As the market looks to 3Q profitability data from major retailers this week, including McDonald’s, Apple, Hasbro and Whirlpool, there is a strong desire to see overall consumption start to increase, which would further justify rising energy and commodity prices.

The dollar continues its decline, driving oil prices upwards, with the recent flap about China and Russia seeking to denominate oil in some other currency, calling its status as the reserve currency into question. This readily observable phenomena of the declining dollar is taken by many as a good

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A bit of selling pressure sent major averages lower at the end of an otherwise upbeat week on Wall Street as Bank of America and General Electric’s numbers disappointed investors.  The Dow Jones industrial average, after closing above the 10,000 mark for two successive sessions, finished just below that level.  Despite the drop, stocks managed to post impressive gains on the week even as investors grew jittery about credit losses in the financial sector. 

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) said it lost $2.2 billion during the quarter after it wrote down almost $10 billion in bad loans and General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) revenue numbers were below Street projections.  Higher loan losses aggravated investors’ concerns as Citigroup (NYSE:C) and JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) had also reported higher loan losses during the quarter.  General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) results were impacted by lower earnings at its GE Capital unit.    

The 30-share Dow Jones industrial average fell

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Much like characters in a real-life video game, the companies that make video game consoles – Sony ADR (NYSE: SNE), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Nintendo ADR (OTC: NTDOY) continue bashing each other as they battle one another for the largest share of the video game console market.

Most investors are well aware of this battle going on between these three rivals, so no surprises there. The real surprise in the games console market, of which most investors are unaware, is occurring in the area of handheld games consoles. It is this surprise which may lead to a profitable investing opportunity.

The challengers to the traditional handheld game console makers, like Sony and Nintendo, are the smartphone makers, such as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

Handheld game console makers face increasing pressure from the rise in popularity of mobile phones with processors and graphics that are equal of their own devices, and with “app stores”

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U.S. stocks ended modestly higher Friday, wounding up a week of solid gains as investors braced for the third-quarter financial results.  Sentiments also got a boost after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that the central bank will be ready to tighten monetary policy once the economy improves.  Bernanke’s tightening comments helped the dollar regain some lost ground.  Bond prices fell sharply. 

After a two-week selloff, fueled in part by concerns that the seven-month old rally had gotten ahead of any economic recovery, stocks got a boost last week following better-than-estimated economic numbers and Alcoa’s (NYSE:AA) surprise quarterly profit.  That helped investors set aside worries and extend the rally.  Meanwhile, White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers reiterated the Obama administration’s commitment to a strong dollar, citing recent comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

This morning’s stock futures show markets are headed for a higher opening as the busy

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