While the stock has taken a beating over the last six months, Israeli WiMAX player Alvarion (NASDAQ: ALVR) continues to sign deal after deal. On Tuesady, the company announced a deal with AccessKenya Group for, "Alvarion to supply WiMAX equipment for what will be the country's largest WiMAX network. AccessKenya will invest $3.5 million to build the network, which will initially include 35 base stations in Nairobi and the port of Mombasa."

Today the company announced another deal. This one is with Balticum TV. Alvarion is "supplying its BreezeMAX network to Balticum TV for deployment in the three Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Alvarion is very strong in the developing world. It has been growing revenues by over 30% a year, and sports more than 225 WiMAX commercial deployments.

If WiMAX never takes hold in North America, that may present some downward pressure on the stock. On the other hand, it is very strong in the developing world. For long-term investors looking for a beaten up company in the WiMAX space, you may want to spend some time researching Alvarion.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has a position in ALVR and is long the stock. He has no position in any other stock mentioned, as of 5/27/08

Israeli WiMAX play Alvarion keeps signing deals originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 May 2008 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With treasury yields well below 4%, and even decent corporate paper not yielding much better, the question I keep hearing from my elderly clients who live off of their investment income is where are they going to get the income needed to meet their expenses. Thrown into the mix that, in four years million and millions of baby boomers are set to retire, so they will also need to start adjusting their portfolios to be more income oriented. I anticipate that we will see continued demand for high-rated bonds and, as such, I can't imagine that we will see yields back above 6% on good corporates.

What to do? The answer to that question is more involved than this space permits, but take a look at preferred stock to help supplement income. My buddy, Zack Miller had a nice post about this a while back. The problem with preferred stocks is that it's hard to get information on each issue and the terms of the issue. Also, liquidity can be an issue. That's why I like the POWERSHARES ETF TRUST (AMEX: PGF). The ETF is well diversified as it holds about 28 issues. More important is that it is yielding a shade under 7%. With preferreds having been slammed over the last few months, there may be some opportunity for some capital gains as well.

Living off fixed income? Check out preferred stocks.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has a position and is long PGF. He has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 1/27/08

The search for income for retirees originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Jan 2008 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Though we still don't know exactly what happened, IncrediMail (NASDAQ: MAIL) announced today that it has been re-instated by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) as an AdSense Online customer. As a reminder, about two weeks ago, in a shocking announcement, IncrediMail was let go by Google as an AdSense customer. In response, IncrediMail stock has gotten crushed. Though Q1 '08 is sure to be bad, as AdSense is a major revenue driver for the Israeli company, I would expect them to get back on track moving forward.

"We are pleased to be able to resolve this setback so quickly and in such a positive way," said Yaron Adler, IncrediMail's CEO. "Google's co-operation in re-instating our account, together with the feedback we've received from other search engine companies, makes us more optimistic than ever regarding the potential of the search business to drive our results, validating our long-term growth strategies."

While I think that there are still problems at the internet firm, after what it did to get shut down in the first place, at current levels the stock actually looks attractive.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 1/21/08

IncrediMail back in favor with Google originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Answers Corp. (NASDAQ: ANSW) stock got smashed on Friday, dropping more than 23%. The company that via Answers.com provides users with answer-based search services and also operates Wikianswers.com, which is a Q&A platform where users ask various questions and a community of people answers them, is having all kinds of problems trying to finance an acquisition of Lexico, owner of the Web properties Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.

Answers planned to buy the company for $100 million, even though Answers had just $9.2 million in cash at the time of the announcement. Skeptics, like my IOI partner, Zack Miller, just looked at the numbers and wondered how this deal was going to be financed, and it appears that they were correct to be skeptical. Since the announcement back in July, Answers stock is down over 65%.

In a note on Friday, paidContent.org referring to the deal financing said, "a plan to sell 14.94 million shares, raising $100 million. But that was based on the company's Tuesday closing price of $6.69. Since then the stock has been crushed, falling nearly 42 percent to $3.96. At this level, 14.94 million shares would only be worth $58 million, not nearly what it needs to raise to fund the buy. At these prices, the company would have to up the offering to 25.6 million, further diluting the value held by the company's current shareholders."

It looks like if this deal gets done, and I have my doubts that it will, investors are going to see lots more red, as the stock looks like it will be heading much lower.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. Disclosure: Writer has no position long or short in any stock mentioned as of 1/20/08.

Dilution is not the Answers.com originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Friday's news that the Israeli generic drug maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ: TEVA), has received tentative approval from U.S. health regulators to market its generic version of GlaxoSmithKline Plc's (NYSE: GSK) Requip (Ropinirole HCl) tablets is just more proof that for investors, generics are the way to go. The tablets treat idiopathic Parkinson's disease and primary restless leg syndrome. The brand product had annual sales of approximately $455 million in the United States.

The bigger fundamental question has to do with the future of "big pharma"? Certainly companies like Merck and Co. (NYSE: MRK) and GlaxoSmithKline aren't going away anytime soon. The question is over the long run, with drug's continuously coming off patent, where is the growth going to come from? Generic makers like Teva (the world's largest generic firm) keep waiting for drugs to come off-patent, get approval to market a generic version, and immediately take significant market share away from the big pharma company. (Check out Zack Miller's analysis of this and other generic trends.) According to a report published by PriceWaterhouseCooper, by 2020 the pharmaceutical market is anticipated to more than double to US$1.3 trillion, but with weak pipelines, and soaring R&D costs, as well as higher legal costs, the big-pharma industry is at a crossroads.

Until we hear of a real long-term growth plan for big pharma, it seems like the best way to play the surging growth in he pharmaceutical market is to buy the generics.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. Disclosure: Writer owns stock and is long TEVA. He has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 12/2/07.

Big pharma? Generics are the way to go originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 02 Dec 2007 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With everyone speaking of a credit crunch and the rating agencies busy downgrading corporate credit ratings, S&P today announced that it is raising Israel's rating for its long-term foreign currency sovereign credit to "A" from "A-", the long-term local currency rating to "AA" from "A+", and the short-term local currency rating to "A-1+" from "A-1." S&P reiterated its short-term foreign currency rating at "A-1". In addition, the long-term foreign currency outlook is "positive" and the long-term local currency outlook is stable. S&P also raised its transfer and convertibility assessment for Israel to "AA" from "AA-".

This a huge for Israel. Just five years ago, the Israeli economy was on the verge of economic collapse. Thanks to the reforms initiated and pushed through by then Finance Minister and former PM Benjamin Netanyahu, five short years later the Israeli economy is thriving. Lower taxes, privatization and cuts in government spending helped right the sinking ship that was the Israeli economy. These reforms have continued with the current Ehud Olmert administration, to his credit. He has continued to encourage the privatization of government and quasi-government monopolies. Take for example Aliyah (immigration to Israel). A recent government decision empowers private organizations like Nefesh B'Nefesh to take the lead in offering services to North Americans looking to move to Israel. This private organization has been more successful in the last five years than the quasi-governmental agency has been in the last 25.

Continue reading S&P raises Israel's credit rating

S&P raises Israel's credit rating originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.