AT&T and Nokia took a hatchet to the price of Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone, the Nokia Lumia 900, over the weekend. This normally isn’t too big of a deal—phones drop in price all the time—but many are concerned that this is a bad sign for Nokia. As if in confirmation, Nokia’s stock price fell three percent today and many analysts are calling for caution, but not abandonment, when it comes to Nokia stock.

“They are stuck between a rock and a hard place—to drive sales of their devices they are going to have to spend money on marketing and promotions, but at the same time the stock market is demanding they do anything other than spend money,” said Ovum analyst Nick Dillon.

Former world heavyweight champion Nokia has certainly been familiar with rocks and hard places, frying pans and fires, and any number of “oh darn” phrases that you can think of. Once the dominant force in the mobile world, Nokia is now well behind Samsung and Apple.

Nokia has thrown most of its still considerable force into Windows Phone and the Lumia 900—and it shows. The Lumia 900 has awesome specs, but with recent announcements that it will not benefit from a Windows 8 upgrade, can Nokia dig deep and bring out another seriously competitive flagship phone? Anybody who has insider information on a positive answer to this question, please message me privately so we can both buy massive amounts of Nokia stock.

Whatever the future holds, right now you can pick up an ultra-slick—and pretty darn fast—LTE smartphone for only $49.99 with the signing of a 2-year contract. No offense Nokia, but your loss, our gain.

[Reuters via FierceWireless]