Sprint Nextel Corporation (S) Gets FEMA Contract; Good News For A $5 Stock

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) has been in a very bullish market lately on the stock market, pushing through the $5 mark for the first time in more than a year. While $5 is considered a significant milestone for stocks – it tends to open up a new wider market of investors – like mutual funds, which may have restrictions forbidding of stock with less than $5 in value – it could be just the beginning of a resurgence for the company, which has seen its stock go up 115 percent since the new year and nearly 40 percent since announcing its second-quarter earnings late last month.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) has been a favorite low-value, high-potential stock for several hedge funds, including billionaire David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, which had a $195 million stake in the stock at the end of March, which made up nearly 4 percent of its billion-dollar portfolio.

There is some additional good news for Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) in its move to become a competitive third option to Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) in the wireless telecommunications industry – namely, retention of customers. Most noteworthy is the retention of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), which had been on the Nextel network for its push-to-talk feature. The government agency announced a deal to transition over to the Sprint network as Sprint Nextel winds down its Nextel network by the middle of next year. Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) has offered 2,000 Direct Connect (Sprint’s push-to-talk service) Kyocera devices for FEMA’s evacuation programs in disaster areas. The service is expected to be in full operation for the current hurricane season, which runs through  November.

This news goes hand-in-hand with the successful numbers for Sprint in retaining its Nextel customer base – about 60 percent of the Nextel customers who switched in the second quarter moved over to Sprint, which is a higher retention rate than Sprint had previously reported. With this, piggybacked on comments by CEO Dan Hesse about his company’s plans for revival, Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) seems positioned to become an attractive investing opportunity for a larger share of the market.