ARM price seems to be going through a three month flattish period after a 1 year or so steady rise. Any views on what might happen next?

Morgan Stanley note:
We have had lots of good news so far on ARM this year and are still believers in the long-term story. However, we believe that it might be time to take a breather on the stock given the strong absolute and relative share price performance this year. Downgrade to EW.
Forecasts unchanged but shares have outperformed and upside now limited. With the shares up 42% since the beginning of the year, ARM has outperformed the SOX index by 15% since mid-February (when the SOX peaked at 475). We still believe that ARM will maintain its 95+% share in smartphones, leading share in tablets, and take share in the laptop market when Microsoft launches Windows8 on ARM. However, with the share price close to our 625p PT (5% upside), we believe an OW is not warranted. We are not changing our above-consensus forecasts for 2012/13 and expect Q2 results (26th July) to confirm strong demand for ARM licenses.
What could take ARM higher to the next level?
1) Strong consumer demand for ARM based Windows8 tablets and laptops and the availability of these products with attractive form factors earlier than the H2 2012 expectation. 2) If Apple were to look at ARM for its Macbook product line (see our note dated 11th May The Race for Apple). 3) Servers and cloud computing We believe there is room for ARM in a server market dominated by Intel (95% market share) and AMD (5% market share). However, we are still waiting for ARM to announce a 64bit and multi-threading core.
What could bring ARM lower to the 500-550p level?
If Q2 results are just in-line and the macro environment remains difficult, leading to more consumer weakness related profit warnings, we could see PE compression on ARM, even with no cuts on estimates. At 500p, the shares would trade on 33x 2012 and 25x 2013 MSe PE.]

Harry - have a look at posts 5,8 and 9. Quite amazing - we thought the good news was all in the past !

Out now

ARM: Goldman Ups To Conviction Buy On Structural Growth

Technology is a big switch-off says analyst, and ARM is made scapegoat

Bank of America Merrill Lynch was to blame, choosing yesterday to published unfavourable research on a rash of technology companies, ARM among them.

Against a weakening economic backdrop, the broker argued that investors already own too many technology shares, unlike in the aftermath of the Lehman Bros collapse in September 2008 when such stocks did well.

Merrill shifted to more conservative earnings forecasts and valuations, telling clients that it thought ARM shares would underperform others. That, despite the companys 18.4 per cent fall since early July.

Alongside ARM, Merrill downgraded the French software company Capgemini, ST Microelectronics, a Swiss microchip company, and TomTom, the American satnav supplier.
The Times

Just a minor point, TomTom is a dutch company.

ARM Goldman: conviction buy, tp reiterated 800

Has anyone got any thoughts rearding why ARM's price is going up while everything else is going down?

Autonomy effect?

Numis comment:
Upgrading to Buy from Add following share price weakness, positive prospects in consumer computing and positive read across from HP acquisition of Autonomy.

We believe ARM is the best way to gain exposure to a rapidly changing landscape for consumer computing (as evidenced by HP looking to exit PC business and abandoning its new smartphone and tablet products). There are strong opportunities for ARM to earn higher royalties as it enables this change. One or two % points change to world GDP growth is immaterial to the long term structural growth investment case.

The stock should continue to trade at high P/E multiples or otherwise fall prey to another cash rich tech goliath in the same way Autonomy has. We believe the depressed share price following recent market turmoil represents a buying opportunity. Current P/E is 40.2x FY11E and 30.7x FY12E.

The new Iphone 4s uses the a5 dual processor - so may give ARM a fillip today?

Great news out later this evening.......

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c18f84e4-fa6d-11e0-8fe7-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1bHaTdkJM

3rd Quarter Results.

Easily beat in fact smashed broker forecasts of pre tax profit of 47.6 and EPS of 2.7p, this is what BNP Paribas was looking for.

Revenue ($m)
192.3
158.1
22%

192.3
158.1

Revenue (m)
120.2
100.4
20%

120.2
100.4

Operating margin
44.6%
37.7%


34.0%
18.6%

Profit before tax (m)
55.8
38.8
44%

43.0
19.6

Earnings per share (pence)
3.05
2.08
47%

2.29
1.09

Net cash generation**
43.7
65.0

GF - it made a mess when I cut and pasted it - so I didn't bother :-)

Heres a better one Skinny...


UPDATE 1-Strong licensing helps ARM beat expectations
25 Oct 2011 - 07:30

* Q3 revenue 120.2 mln stg (Company poll 116.5 mln stg

* Sees full-year revenue in line with forecasts of $763 mln

* Says healthy licensing pipeline


(Adds details)

LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Britain's ARM Holdings reported strong licensing of its chip designs in the third quarter, helping it beat market expectations and offset current weak demand in consumer electronic markets ahead of the holiday season.

The company, whose processor architecture powers Apple's iPad and new iPhone 4S, reported a 44 percent rise in pretax profit to 55.8 million pounds on revenue up 20 percent to 120.2 million pounds, both ahead of analysts' consensus. Earnings per share of 3.05 pence also delivered a beat.

"Notwithstanding the below seasonal activity levels in the wider semiconductor industry, we expect that group dollar revenues for the full-year 2011 will be in line with current market expectations of around $763 million," the Cambridge-based company said on Tuesday.

ARM reports royalties a quarter in arrears, so it has less visibility on demand in consumer electronic markets than its chip-making partners such as Samsung and Texas Instruments.

The group, which recently unveiled its latest low-energy chip design, the Cortex-A7, said it signed 28 processor licenses in the quarter. [ID:nL5E7LJ42H]

It said it had a healthy opportunity pipeline for licensing and a historically high order backlog, which pointed to another strong quarter for license revenue in its fourth quarter.

Analysts expected ARM to post pretax profit of 51.1 million pounds on revenue of 116.5 million pounds, equating to earnings per share of 2.75 pence, according to a company-supplied consensus.


(Reporting by Paul Sandle)

((paul.sandle@thomsonreuters.com; +44 20 7542 6843; Reuters Messaging: paul.sandle.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: ARM/

Goldfinger - as always - an amazing company.

Bit of a blow to Intel and BIG News for ARM if true

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111025-723371.html

ARM Acquires Prolific, Inc.

Enhancing Physical IP Library Development for Advanced Process Nodes

CAMBRIDGE, UK, Nov. 1, 2011-- ARM [(LSE:ARM); (Nasdaq:ARMH)] today announced that it has acquired Prolific, Inc., which develops leading-edge IC design optimization software tools that significantly reduce development time and improve the performance of cell-based designs. Prolific is a privately-owned company based in Newark, California.

Hewlett Packard to build servers using ARM-based chips

Hewlett Packard plans to make computer servers using low-energy processors based on ARM Holdings' designs.

HP said the equipment would be cheaper to run than current alternatives.

UK-based ARM's chip architecture had been developed for use in smartphones and other mobile devices.

The British firm said the deal was "a first step" towards increasing its presence in a sector dominated by Intel's X86-based processors.

Looking at 640 again.