Yesterday the analysts at Bank of America moved up Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) from “neutral” to “buy”; Sprint closed up 2.64% at $5.05 per share.
Since the earnings call on July 26, Sprint is up about 40%. Some of the numbers were negative, but traders seem to love Sprint right now, and there have been some developments to give hope to shareholders.
Sprint previously revealed it would be shutting off its Nextel network in June 2013. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) used to use the Nextel network, and has now switched to Sprints new push-to-talk service Direct Connect. The agency will be getting 2000 devices for use in its mass evacuation program, and the service should be available during hurricane season.
In addition, yesterday Sprint started receiving online pre-orders for its first 4G LTE smartphone with a full QWERTY physical keyboard and world roaming, the Motorola Photon Q. The phone will be available in stores on Aug. 19, but customers who pre-order may get it two days earlier.
While some may be excited over the launch of the 4G LTE phone, others may be concerned that Sprint is behind its biggest competitors with its 4G LTE network, which could negatively impact performance when iPhone 5 hits the market.
The rating upgrade by Bank of America is not the only positive signal from analysts. While the estimates for this quarter haven’t changed too much in the last three months, the EPS estimates for 2013 have gone from negative $1.08 to negative $0.99.
Sprint is still losing money and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future, but at least shareholders have had a reason to be happy in the last two weeks.
