Canadian Dollars Blog

Did you know that at Research in Motion (RIM), they have a rule where if anyone talks about the company’s share price at work, they have to buy a doughnut for everyone in the company? Apparently this rule has been in place since the first day that the company went public. The last time the rule was violated was just under 10 years ago when the Chief Operating Officer was caught mentioning the share performance right before a call with analysts. This mistake cost him 800 doughnuts. While some may view this as being insensitive to shareholders, I believe it’s a good strategy. There are a lot of fluctuations in the stock market and focusing and talking about the day to day ups and downs will distract the employees from the long term goals of the company. The company can’t prevent individuals from checking the stock prices on various finance websites, not encouraging people to discuss the stock price is a smart move. The street is definitely concerned about RIM’s future prospects w...

It's not very often that we get a 15% pullback when a stock meets expectations, but that happened to RIMM. The market had gotten ahead of itself and was expecting a blowout quarter. Instead what they got was what was expected. Some say that the co-CEO should focus more on running the business rather than chase the Phoenix Coyotes. Others say that RIMM is losing a lot of market share to AAPL. Heck some others are saying that RIMM is going to go bankrupt like Nortel. While there may be some truth to the first statement, I believe that multiple smartphones can be successful in the marketplace. While AAPL has a wide moat with computers, ipods, iphones and software, not everyone wants an iPhone to do their emailing. Have you ever tried emailing with an iPhone? There's no contest when comparing it with a Blackberry. Secondly, I don't know where these 'facts' that RIMM will go bankrupt are coming from. They are enjoying healthy margins and have robust sales. Next t...