I think this says it all re the CSCO CC.........
Stop Reading Tea Leaves on Cisco
By James J. Cramer
11/6/00 8:27 PM ET
At one point on the Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq - news - boards) conference call, the absurdity of all of what we are trying to discern about this company jumped out at me.
John Chambers, the fabulous chief executive officer of Cisco Systems, had just stated that he was "very optimistic" going forward. Back in my head somewhere, I recalled where Chambers had once said he was "extremely optimistic." Was "very optimistic" a notch down? Had Chambers grown less optimistic? I even was about to send an Instant Message to Jeff Berkowitz asking if that had been a slight downtick in confidence until I recognized the ridiculous nature of this kind of parsing.
That's right, we have all become such close textual readers of Cisco's comments that we are missing the whole forest, which is that Cisco just reported another darned good quarter and handled the whole question of a spending slowdown in one corner of its business with the same wisdom and intelligence it handles everything else.
Yes, if I were a supplier to Cisco, I don't know if I would be jumping up and down with joy. Seems as if Cisco built a lot of inventory, meaning that it took a lot of supplies down from semiconductor companies, and may not need to order now with the same alacrity it ordered last quarter.
And if I were an unrealistic and clueless portfolio manager who did not know there is a problem with the telecommunications buildout, I would probably be frightened, because Cisco addressed it head-on.
But if I owned Cisco, I don't see much to do other than to say, hey they did it again, a real good job and I would stop wasting time trying to find hidden meanings in the words of Chambers. Stock trades in a range. The same range. Nothing radical happening here.
Cisco is a huge company levered to the Internet's growth wherever it takes them, including telco and enterprise activities. Right now, part of that business, the providing of routers to some competitive local exchange carriers, is hurting. I am sure last quarter the part of the business to dot-coms was hurting. I am sure next quarter some other part of the business is hurting. But the business is gigantic and growing like wild fire and it will not be stopped because a couple of phone companies default on their debt.
Or, to put it another way, I think Chambers was extremely optimistic going forward. He just picked other words to say it.
Random musings: Not playing hooky, just coming in late because I wanted to vote and the polls don't open until 7 a.m. in my neck of the woods. But I am taking off Thursday and Friday because New Jersey schools are closed and I want to spend the time with the girls, playing soccer and, yes, playing hooky! |
