I agree with you totally,Edwin, about 4726, Softbank Technology. That's a matter of quite limited supply I think,
not of the true value which is probably less than recent
prices. What's also amazing is the steady rise of 9984, which closed at 43,100, not even pausing at Lehman's first goal, which was supposed to be achieved in a year, not in three months. The reason is probably the Microsoft tag. It's not hard to believe that this is the second Microsoft, a tremendous accolade. First of all, long ago they made the deal to become Microsoft's distributor in Japan. Then the deal with Microsoft and Tokyo Electric Power, now the deal with Microsoft and Global Crossing. The two companies can continue to increase their cooperation. Also we have Harmon,
the internet guru, saying that eventually Softbank will (may?) become larger than Microsoft. Everybody who knows about Microsoft will want to own "a little" Softbank, even
though it's "high". There's no way to accommodate everybody'sdesire without a further big rise in price. What we have to watch is the profitability. Many companies in Japan have become enormous by simply selling new shares almost annually. A typical example is Fujitsu which now has 50 billion dollars in annual sales but wasn't an attractive investment in the 25 year period 1972-1997. This followed a seventeen fold increase in the stock price in 1967-1971. I'm not at all predicting such a future for Softbank, just suggesting we keep our antenna out for the profits, not this year or next but eventually. If you were too early insisting on profits for Yahoo, for example you would have missed so much! |
