Great Call on Marvell! What's Next?

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First, let me clarify that when I say Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL), I'm talking semiconductors, not superheroes.

Through April of this year, Marvell shareholders had endured a bumpy ride, as shares sagged from a high of $20 last year to less than $10. The Fates have started smiling again since then, and Marvell's stock, partially fueled by a Marvell-ous first-quarter report, has bounced back up to nearly $17.

On CAPS, more than 1,000 investors have been navigating the peaks and valleys of Marvell's stock. Of these investors, none has been right on the money with Marvell the way CAPS All-Star traviskang has been. This player made eight calls -- both bullish and bearish -- on Marvell in the past two years and has netted 73 points by being dead-on right each time.

traviskang is one of CAPS' All-Stars -- players with a rating of 80 or greater -- and has managed an impressive stock-picking accuracy of 56% on calls while racking up 478 points.

Marvell hasn't been his only winning call. Here are some of his other prescient picks:

Company	Date Picked	Call	Points	CAPS Rating
China Finance Online	9/17/07	Outperform	114	**
Take-Two Interactive (Nasdaq: TTWO)	12/4/07	Outperform	74	****
First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR)	10/1/07	Outperform	71	**

Data from CAPS.

So what is this investor considering these days? Some of his recent calls on CAPS:

Company	Date Picked	Call	CAPS Rating
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)	6/6/08	Outperform	****
IBM (NYSE: IBM)	6/5/08	Outperform	***
AMR (NYSE: AMR)	6/2/08	Underperform	*

Data from CAPS.

Of course, not all of these picks may pan out, but they could be good places to start further research. I decided to take a look at Stock Advisor pick Apple.

The big Apple
The big news with Apple, of course, is Steve Jobs' announcement of the new 3G iPhone. Although the major points of the announcement -- 3G, lower price, more storage, GPS -- may have surprised few, the finer points of the announcement may be of more interest.

Most of the gushing thus far has been over the snazzy new $199 price point for the entry-level iPhone. The interesting backstory for investors, though, is that Apple was able to drop the price by reworking its deal with AT&T (NYSE: T).

With the first iPhone, Apple got a share of the monthly service revenue from iPhone customers, a fairly unusual deal for a handset maker. Apple has dropped this provision on the new iPhone, going the more traditional route of selling handsets that are subsidized by the service provider. The move seems to make sense for Apple, as it will bring the focus back to device sales and open up foreign markets that were less willing to share service revenue.

Overshadowed a bit by the iPhone's new features and price cut was the introduction of MobileMe, a service similar to Microsoft's Exchange, but affordable and available to the non-hardcore-enterprise user.

As fellow Fool Tim Beyers pointed out, this service is not only a great way to help iPhone users get the most from their smartphones, but also a means for Apple to extend its reach to users on all hardware platforms.

There's been plenty of chatter on CAPS about Jobs' announcement, and most CAPS investors think the move will benefit Apple and help boost the stock over the long run.

Meanwhile, CAPS All-Star johnnykillz has been looking at the big picture. He thinks that the company's success in the smaller device market will help it snatch a larger share of the PC market:

Apple is a vertically integrated technology company which has recently delivered big time on its long-term "digital hub" strategy. The iPod & the iPhone have produced a halo effect over the software/hardware "core" products, what's next? As problems with Vista persist and iProfits are funneled into hardware/software improvements, could we be talking 10% market share of PCs sometime soon? While Bill Gates has retired into philanthropy, Steve Jobs is still delivering bottom-line masterpieces.

What's your take on Apple? Get in the action by clicking to CAPS. CAPS is absolutely free and has more than 105,000 stock pickers chipping in to find the best stocks out there.

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