Stefan Mileschin

RIM shares are starting to rally as investors, who clearly did not listen to warnings, rush to buy the pig in a poke.

Shares have increased by 17.3 percent as investors think that RIM's soon-to-be-launched, but much delayed BlackBerry 10 devices might actually beat the Apple and Android juggernaut.

While normally we would welcome optimism in the market, which has been a little depressed lately, has not left its bedroom and is writing angst poetry about life having no meaning, RIM is a bit like investing in White Star after the Titanic has hit the iceberg.

The genius behind the rally is National Bank analyst Kris Thompson, who boosted his price target on RIM shares to $15 from $12.

He insists that there is more money to be made in the stock ahead of the early 2013 launch of the make-or-break new line of devices.

This follows Jefferies analyst Peter Misek who raised his rating and price target on the stock last week.

Thompson claimed that RIM's new management team is doing well by maintaining the BlackBerry subscriber base, managing costs and cash, and seemingly readying a February 2013 BB10 global platform launch.

Stock is up more than 90 percent in the past two months as the launch date for the BB10 devices nears.

However this is the sort of hysteria which we saw with the Facebook IPO and should be treated with equal suspicion. Firstly RIM has bet the farm on the Blackberry 10 and there are no real signs that it is going to clean anyone's clock.

Had RIM managed to get the phone out on time it might have appeared to be revolutionary enough to be interesting. By coming out late it has a spec which is similar to those already in the market. It will also ship with a shrinking developer base who have not provided it with nearly enough apps to compete even against Microsoft.

Meanwhile RIM's own range is withering fast in Western markets so even if the BB10 is moderately successful, RIM does not have enough other products to sustain it.

That is not to say that RIM is completely doomed. It still has some cash and a reasonable sale of the BB10 to companies might stop it disappearing completely. But any investment in the outfit at the moment is extremely risky.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/rim-shares-rally