Apple- BlackBerry Chatter: Another Baseless Rumor?

Shares of BlackBerry Ltd BBRY were trading higher by more than six percent heading in to the final 30 minutes of trading on Monday after a rumor surfaced earlier that Apple Inc. AAPL is considering an acquisition of BlackBerry. At first glance, there could be some merit to the rumor. Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies told Benzinga that it is possible several government are beginning to worry that BlackBerry's days are limited given a turnaround plan that is still uncertain. "The one way this deal might work is if the U.S. governments [and others] basically want Apple to buy them because they're worried that BlackBerry, effectively, won't be around in its current form," Udall said. BlackBerry's name has been mentioned as a potential buy-out target several times in the past. Shares of BlackBerry surged around 30 percent on January 14 following a Reuters report that Samsung was interested in acquiring BlackBerry for up to $7.5 billion, valuing shares as much as $15.49. However, shares of BlackBerry quickly reversed after the company issued a response stating it is "not engaged in discussions with Samsung with respect to any possible offer to purchase BlackBerry." Mike Walkley, an analyst at Cannacord Genuity spoke to Benzinga a week after investors and traders fully digested the news that Samsung has no interest in acquiring the Canadian based BlackBerry. At that time, a new rumor surfaced that LG Electronics was interested in BlackBerry. "LG is struggling to be relevant in the larger Android consumer market, so I'm not sure what they would get with BlackBerry," Walkley said. The analyst further noted that an LG Electronics – BlackBerry combination makes less sense than a Samsung-BlackBerry combination. He continued that Samsung is the much larger player in the smartphone market with deeper pockets. However, the company is looking to gain share by growing its enterprise business, likely implying there is no fit for BlackBerry. Investors, traders and journalists will continue to speculate why they believe BlackBerry would be a good acquisition target. Here are a few publications that suggested BlackBerry is an acquisition target, showing that investors and traders need to take any BlackBerry-related news with skepticism.

• Crackberry.com opined in 2011 why Google Inc GOOG GOOGL would buy BlackBerry.
• Windowscentral.com argued Microsoft Corporation MSFT would benefit from acquiring BlackBerry.
• Thevarguy.com presented the case why Oracle Corporation ORCL should acquire BlackBerry.
• Businessinsider.com stated that International Business Machines Corp. IBM is "the only" company that should acquire BlackBerry.