Geospatial Stocks Shake Stock Market Worries…But It’s Getting Harder to Tell
The geospatial technology stocks seem unphased by the malaisse on Wall Street. Last week’s crash and Monday’s "dead cat bounce" has left many of the geospatial stocks the way they were. But it’s getting harder to understand the health of the industry. Garmin (GRMN) once again shrugged off worries and surged nearly 6.5% on Monday due probaby in part to a small blurb in Barron’s about the company’s rising earnings potential. The short mention was more of an "I told you so" as the publication had profiled the company back in February 2006. Big money managers hate to miss it big so they jump in when the stock takes a breather.
Trimble (TRMB) remained flat over the last few days, seemingly unaffected by any news and continuing to march to its own drum.
Intermap Technologies (IMP.TO) is the sleeper in the group. Traded on the Toronto Exchange, not many investers have probably heard of the company but its stock is up 17% this year.
GeoEye (GEOY) has slipped over 10% in recent weeks. But this company’s stock won’t soar until its bird flies. Don’t expect it to slip beyond its trading range between $20-$24 until GeoEye-1 launches.
But as more companies are acquired (Intergraph by private investors; MapInfo by Pitney Bowes; Tele Atlas by TomTom), it becomes increasingly difficult to grasp what investors think of geospatial technology. Of course you have seen NAVTEQ’s (NVT) fortunes zoom as well on the news that Tele Atlas was bought. Are they next? And what happens if they are absorbed by a much larger company that is peripheral to the geospatial market…like Pitney Bowes’ (PBI) acquisition of MapInfo. We added PBI to our stock ticker on the Directions Magazine home page but with a market cap of over $10 billion, what part of that stock price reflects the fortunes of the geospatial software solutions division? Likewise with Oracle or Microsoft or Google. As Adena and I discussed in the podcast today there is a lot of cross pollination going on between the big guys and everyone else. There are fewer and fewer "pure plays" in the geospatial business anymore.
