Nortel Networks Filed for Bankruptcy Protection

When I first learned that Nortel Networks (NT) has sought bankruptcy protection this morning via @MarketWatch on Twitter (you can follow me on Twitter), I wasn’t really surprised (OK, a little bit). Wasn’t it just a month ago when reports came out that the company was seeking legal advices for a possible filing? Though NT later denied such an activity, I suspect the speculation ever went away. After all, the company has been in a terrible shape since the dot com and telecom collapse early this decade. Though the company has tried desperately almost everything to make a comeback, it has never returned to what it was 9 years ago and the stock kept trading lower and lower amid management scandal and slumping sales.

I had a bitter history with NT, not with the company itself, but with its stocks. After graduation, I worked for NT’s main competitor, Lucent, briefly, and after seeing LU and NT dropped into the penny stock category in 2002, I started to buy those stocks. In fact NT was the very first stock I ever bought. In more than five years, I repeatedly bought and sold the stock and I did make a few bucks in the early days. Unfortunately, all the money I made early were lost later as I naively hoped the company could be turned around. I eventually gave up and unloaded all my NT shares last year, taking a deep loss.

Here’s my trading history of NT:

• 09/22/2002: Bought 2000 shares @ $0.47;
• 10/14/2002: Sold 2000 shares @ $0.55;
• 10/15/2002: Bought 2000 shares @ $0.60;
• 10/21/2002: Sold 2000 shares @ $0.77;
• 11/19/2002: Bought 2000 shares @ $1.40;
• 12/04/2002: Sold 2000 shares @ $2.02;
• 12/10/2002: Bought 2000 shares @ $1.69;
• 11/21/2003: Sold 2000 shares @ $4.08;
• 01/21/2004: Bought 1000 shares @ $6.67;
• 05/06/2004: Bought 1000 shares @ $3.95;
• 10/27/2004: Bought 400 shares @ $3.27;
• 08/07/2006: Bought 320 shares @ $1.99;
• 01/16/2007: Sold 72 shares @ $27.22 (NT conducted a 10:1 reverse split in December 2006);
• 03/18/2008: Sold 200 shares @ $6.23

Now that Nortel has avoided “a slow death” by filing for bankruptcy protection, can it emerge as a different company later?

*Photo from Reuters

Related Articles You Don't Want To Miss

1. Loaded More Nortel Shares
2. Nortel Consolidated Its Common Shares
3. Record Gold Price, Countrywide Bankruptcy Rumor, and Live 14 Years Longer
4. Deal: Buy McAfee Total Protection for Free (or Make $35)
5. My Best and Worst Money Moves
6. Dumped Some NT, Bought Some PGJ
7. Sold MSFT, but at Probably the Worst Time
8. Citi Reverse Stock Split: Is It Good for the Stock?