Five Ghoulish Tech Stocks for Halloween

These stocks are downright scary.

It's that time of the year again. A time when grown men and women dress up as their favorite film, TV and video game characters, all in the name of partying on a holiday that was once reserved for candy-seeking children. Of course, I've never felt that it was strictly for kids – in fact, I don't even need Halloween

. Whatever your desires are this Halloween, there's no denying that this has been one horrifying year for select tech stocks – especially those that were

. Investors have found a degree of stability in Apple

, but with other big players fluctuating – including Microsoft

and Google

– it's becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint the next big thing in technology companies. Even newer trades – such as LinkedIn

, which proved to be a stronger trade than its critics expected – are having a roller coaster year. But they can't compare to these five big tech stocks, which are so horrifying they just might have what it takes to frighten the likes of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees.

Most Americans find it hard to believe that Nokia

is still one of the biggest players in smartphone manufacturing. But with a robust international business, Nokia has been able to survive at a time when Apple and Samsung are taking over. Nokia has also had a lot of flops, a lot of

, and

announcements that

. Nokia's promotional videos are

the hype-raising quality of Apple. So what are investors to do? Embrace this horror film with popcorn in hand, waiting patiently for the company to kill off each and every product it makes? With a $4 drop in its share price since February, Nokia's decline has been fairly significant.

Think that Nokia is going to pull through? Were you impressed with the

? If so, here's a trade to consider:

If you're not too sure about Nokia's future, you might want to steer clear of Windows Phone 7 and consider these obvious alternatives:

Remember the good-old-days when Cisco

was a strong, remarkable company that made successful products, turned a nice profit, and was generally a great buy? Those days are long gone. While Cisco isn't about to go under, the company recognized that it was

, thus the internal restructuring that led to

. Cisco, like so many tech companies who prematurely jumped into an acquisition deal, paid a pretty penny (a reported $590 million) to acquire Flip's maker, Pure Digital. But never mind the waste of money. Investors ran because they weren't happy with Cisco's results. From a 2011 high of $22.05 on February 4 to a low of $13.73 on August 10, Cisco has been all over the place this year. The stock currently trades in the $18 range.

If you believe in Cisco's future, you may want to consider the following trades:

On the other hand, if you don't think Cisco can improve its business, you might want to examine this alternative:

THQ

hasn't been doing well these days. Slipping sales, disappointing releases, and low critical scores have brought about a

that investors can't seem to shake. THQ's price has gone from a respectable (if not painfully low) price of $6.41 on February 2 to a five-year low of $1.52 on October 5. The company currently trades in the $2.30 range. Can THQ recover? That's hard to say. The ailing games publisher has released some wonderful products over the past few years, including the heavily underrated Deadly Creatures. But if the company isn't able to turn a profit on those games, then it has a serious problem.

Investors who still have faith in THQ may want to consider the following trading ideas:

Think THQ is in the toilet but love the idea of investing in video game stocks? Then consider these two other corporations instead:

From a YTD high of $69.69 on February 16 to a 12-month low of $20.30 on September 30, Research in Motion

is one scary company. BlackBerry continues to lose market share to iOS and Android, PlayBook flopped, and nothing in the company's portfolio has given investors any indication that it could recover. For the sake of the smartphone industry, I do not want to see Research in Motion go under. But at this point, I'm not sure the company can avoid failure – or worse, a takeover. Two weeks ago the company

with an outage that made the BlackBerry all but useless. At the same time, many BlackBerry users are trading in their old phones for an iPhone 4S. If RIMM can't make up for its BlackBerry decline, what will it do? The company is known almost entirely as the creator of the BlackBerry. Without it, can RIMM even exist?

Does Research in Motion have the right PlayBook to grow a fruitful BlackBerry tree of success? If you think so, then this trading idea might be worth a look:

If, however, you're one of the investors that dropped your BlackBerry for an iPhone 4S, then you already know where to turn…

The mother of all monstrous tech stocks, Netflix

is no longer Blockbuster's worst nightmare. In fact, Blockbuster execs are probably celebrating right now, no doubt with a bittersweet glass of champagne. While it must be fun for video rental stores to watch their killer fall like Michael Myers at the end of Halloween, they can't celebrate without thinking about how things might have turned out if Netflix had fallen sooner. Since the

, Netflix stock has gone from nearly $300 to roughly $80. The

and the

and

of Qwikster made it hard for investors to trust Netflix. The latter move helped improve the stock, as some believed that the company may finally be able to turn itself around. But with a customer decline of 800,000 users and the potential for greater losses in 2012, it's hard to have much faith in Netflix's future.

Despite Netflix's many missteps, it still has quite a few fans, as well as several investors who are interested in the stock. If you're one of them, you might want to take a gander at the following corporation:

If Netflix isn't your bag, however, then you might want to look at this corporation instead: