Research in Motion’s stock movement over the past year. The stock bottomed out at $6.18 on September 24 and closed at $8.06 on October 5.
Source: Google Finance

After going from being king of the smartphone market to reporting losses quarter after quarter, Research in Motion (RIM) seems to be preparing for a difficult comeback. The company recently reported a loss that wasn’t as bad as expected by analysts. People are interested to see what this flailing company can do with the launch of a new operating system for their BlackBerry smartphones, called BlackBerry 10. It’s also expected to release a new wave of devices along with the operating system. However, with the recent release of sleek new smartphones from competing companies, such as the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III, RIM will have to come out with a spectacular device to stay alive in this increasingly competitive business.

Although a comeback from the company is rather unlikely, it’d be interesting to see if it can release a BlackBerry that can take away significant market share from Apple or Samsung (past performance would say probably not). It all depends on the release of their release of BlackBerry 10 and the devices that come with it. This may be their final chance to fight for survival or they risk going out of business.

Link to article:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/27/technology/rim-earnings/index.html

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Source: http://static.progressivemediagroup.com/uploads/imagelibrary/X-20121004145237687.jpg 

It’s widely known that Facebook’s initial public offering in the stock market wasn’t spectacular. The stock price has dropped a significant amount, from $38 to closing at $20.91 on October 5, 2012. Its lack of success in the stock market doesn’t mean that its social networking platform hasn’t experienced success. Facebook recently reached the major milestone of having one billion users registered. This is a huge deal for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who describes it as “by far the thing [he is] most proud of in [his] life.” However, the big question still remains: how will Facebook make more money off of its 1 billion users?

The question of how the company expects to extract revenue from its customers is what has driven the price of their stock down. The increasing move from desktop to mobile makes it harder to sell advertising space on the social networking site. If Facebook continues to do things without looking at the future and how they can get money out of their users, its stock will definitely continue its fall. The company’s going to have to make some strategical decisions if it wants to see its stock price make it back to its IPO price.

Link to article:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/10/04/facebook-billion-users.html