Yesterday's announcement of the AT&T (T) and T-Mobile deal gives both companies a clear "win" in the telecommunications sector. Who are the "losers"?

The tower companies have experienced downward pressure today, with American Tower (AMT) currently trading down over 8%, SBA Communications (SBAC) currently down over 10%, and Crown Castle International (CCI) currently hovering down almost 5%.

China plans to stockpile rare earth metals, according to The Wall Street Journal. While these plans haven't been made public, the WSJ reported Monday the efforts have emerged from recent statements. Rare earth metals are comprised of 17 elements, used in the manufacture of laser guided weapons and hybrid car batteries.

Last year, China imposed an export ban on rare earths. This new move is going a step further. The ensuing shortage of these metals will increase production costs on a variety of industries including cellphones, oil refining and high technology batteries.

Dropped calls have been a nuisance since the dawn of cell phones. But which cellular service provider has the best record in terms of the fewest dropped calls?

In a recent survey, ChangeWave asked 3,800 cell phone owners to estimate the percentage of their calls that were dropped during the past 90 days.

The survey, which was conducted Dec. 9-15, 2008, produced a clear winner: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has the fewest dropped calls of all.

Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), a famous name in the wireless industry whose colleagues include Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM), Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN), and Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK), reported earnings for the fourth quarter on Thursday. While the stock may be up today, I'm not so sure I'd be a buyer of it.

It's not that the bottom-line numbers were wholly bad. Net profit rose 16% to roughly $1.1 billion. Earnings per diluted share on an adjusted basis increased 17% to $0.63. According this news source, that figure beat estimates by three pennies. That's all well and good, but that news source also states that Qualcomm is guiding below consensus. Not surprising, certainly, given what the markets are going through. But it still puts a damper on the stock's near-term potential, in my opinion. Plus, free cash flow was down 13% during the quarter, and it was flat for the twelve-month period.

Except for certain companies like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), I'm not really interested in playing the tech sector. If you had purchased Qualcomm near its 52-week low of $30.87, I'd be a seller into today's strength. No, I certainly can't predict the movement of stock prices, but I can tell you that I think Qualcomm could easily pull back from today's rally. The recession is going to worsen, and I don't think we've reached the point where the market will begin to discount better days. In fact, we're probably far off from that point. The rally that is going on in the markets as I write this (and by the time this gets published, it could be gone for all I know) feels like a dead-cat bounce. That wouldn't be good for Qualcomm's stock, I'd imagine. So, kudos to management for beating Q4 expectations. But I won't be rewarding you by buying your stock. Sorry!

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.