"[Canadian technology] Companies who are producing earnings or even those who are not losing as much as people would have feared may show some surprising stock strength,"
That would be a welcome change indeed.
TORONTO -(Dow Jones)-Shares of JDS Fitel Inc. continued to skyrocket Tuesday, and analysts said this signals a turnaround in sentiment towards Canadian high-technology stocks.
It's a welcome change in mood for these companies. Many small- and mid-cap Canadian high-technology stocks spent the second half of 1996 and the first half of this year in the doghouse, lagging behind the U.S. high-technology market.
Shares of Nepean, Ont.-based JDS Fitel have jumped about 30% on the Toronto Stock Exchange since July 31, when the company reported strong earnings for the fiscal year ended May 31. In that period, JDS Fitel had net income of 94 Canadian cents a share, compared with 63 Canadian cents a share in fiscal 1996.
On Tuesday, JDS Fitel shares were up C$4 to C$59 (US$42.78) in Toronto.
"We've seen a turn in sentiment (in the Canadian high-technology sector)," said Brian Piccioni, analyst with Marleau Lemire Securities Inc. in Toronto.
JDS Fitel shares have bucked the negative trend in the sector, rewarding investors richly since the company's initial public offering at C$12 a share in March 1996. But JDS Fitel's stock price advance in recent days and the recent strong rises in the shares of Hummingbird Communications Ltd. and Geac Computer Corp. means that investors are starting to look for attractive bargains among high-technology stocks, Piccioni said.
"Companies who are producing earnings or even those who are not losing as much as people would have feared may show some surprising stock strength," Piccioni said. "That doesn't mean go out and buy every mess out there, but certainly it may mean that people should revisit the train wrecks of the past year and see if there are some that they find interesting."
Copyright (c) 1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Transmitted: 8/5/97 2:12 PM EDT (L100XpP6) |
