USA Today's Matt Krantz doesn't like SIRI or XMSR as stock picks. He never has. His reasons? Too speculative. Without any profits he feels they're too difficult to value.

He concludes with this statement:

"The fact that investors willingly put their heads in the guillotine with these kinds of stocks amazes me. When will they finally learn that over-hyped shares of small companies that are losing money are a sucker's bet?"

Rumor has it that Honda Motor Co. Ltd., is about to take a major stake (+25%) in XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., and has received government approval for it.

Below is the government form that terminates some type of limitation that has previously existed.

That's all the details known as this time. More to follow. At this time this should be taken as a strong rumor only but the early termination definitely indicates something is happening.

[FTC Early Terminations, 08-15-06] (PDF) 

When XM Satellite Radio had a class-action lawsuit filed against them, there were 5 groups all vieing to be the lead plantiff.

1. The first was the "Union Pension Group" whose losses total $551,872
2. Next up was a group of individuals calling themselves "the Zarif Group" - total losses: $471,671
   
3. On third base, we have Victor Ventimiglia, whose losses total $46,390
4. Ron Price, who seeked to be named lead plaintiff of the sub-class of options purchasers, whose losses total $13,616
5. And finally Adam Barber, whose losses total $252,000
   

About 17 days after the parties filed their motion, Adam Barber and Victor Ventimiglia joined forces with "the Zarif Group" and formed the much cooler sounding "XM Shareholder Group" with a total claimed loss of $730,304.81.

The reason for this manuever? The XM Shareholder Group claimed that  the Union Pension Group (which had the highest loss claim, and is an institutional investor - favored by courts in these cases) had "any meaningful litigation plan or organizational structure."

The Judge on the otherhand wasn't very persuaded, and had some very poignent things to say about the group's course of action. He called these concerns "hollow," "unsubstantiated" and "disingenuousness."

As a result, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle has granted the Union Pension Groups' motion for lead plaintiff and denied all the other pending motions.

[Read the Judge's Order] (PDF)
Thanks Jonathan!

XM Satellite Radio has received, on August 7th 2006, yet another request for additional information from the Federal Communications Commission. This time the inquiry involves the Sportscaster, Roady XT, MyFi, Airware, Tao and the Roady 2 XM receivers.

XM has stated in their 8-k filing that they are working to respond to the FCC and have implemented a series of actions to bring the devices into full compliance.

[XM Form 8-k] (PDF)
Thanks Ken! 

UPDATE: Inside Radio adds:

"BofA analyst Jonathan Jacoby says "the FCC also seems to want to know 'whodunit'" - it's curious about the "chronology and circumstances leading to the non-compliance." Jacoby thinks it's likely the FCC made the same request of Sirius."