Palm (PALM) Rises On Speculation

Palm's (PALM) shares continued their upward climb today with the smartphone maker's stock advancing over 12%. Shares of Palm are up 38.5% over the past week and are back over $5.00 for the first time since March 9th.

Massive speculation persists that HTC, Research in Motion (RIMM) or Lenovo will acquire Palm. Palm may be an attractive takeover target at $5 and with a market cap of just $880 million dollars. Palm still has brand name recognition and a competitor may want to acquire its WebOS operating system. If the speculation is true, Palm's shares will rise and may even trade above the takeout price.

Investors still need to be careful in buying Palm's shares. There have been rumors of Palm being acquired by a larger competitor for years and nothing has materialized. Any competitor interested in Palm could just wait and acquire the smartphone maker for a much cheaper price. Many analysts still believe that Palm's shares are worthless. If all of the speculation turns out to just be market chatter than Palm's shares will be in a freefall and will likely retest the $3 level.