Internet Stock News Announces Investment Opinion: Internet Telephony From a Pro's Perspective
BusinessWire, Nov 10 17:21
by Internet Stock News
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 10, 1999--
INTERNET STOCK NEWS: Nov. 10, 1999
"Internet Telephony From a Pro's Perspective" by A. Sahoo,
ISN Writer
Also available on the Web at
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A recent study from Killen Associates projects that businesses worldwide will spend $8.1 billion for Internet Protocol voice services, and another $5.5 billion for IP telephony equipment, by 2003.
Other reports echo these rosy projections, and The Street seems to have taken notice: analysts at all the major investment houses are now covering Internet telephony equipment and service providers. These pros are experts at poring thru company data, and ferreting out nuggets of wisdom that could make or break an investor's position. So, let's take a look at how the pros rank main IT companies.
Unlike you and me, professional analysts have access to an enormous amount of high-quality information on the companies they track. Aside from detailed industry research and company financials, they oftentimes meet regularly with company management to verify data and get a prognosis straight from the horse's mouth. Company execs understand that analysts' opinions are critically important to their share prices, so usually they do share as much information as they can.
Although hundreds of companies are attempting to capitalize on the IT boom, a few pure plays have distinguished themselves in the marketplace. Many of these have been discussed in previous articles: *T Company Analysts Average Ranking Past 3 mos.
Covering (1=strong buy) Performance Phone.com (NASDAQ:PHCM) 5 1.30 +150% ITXC Corp. (NASDAQ:ITXC) 2 1.50 +350% Level Three (NASDAQ:LVLT) 8 1.56 +12% Clarent (NASDAQ:CLRN) 5 1.60 +783% Net2Phone (NASDAQ:NTOP) 4 1.63 +500% Nat. Msys. (NASDAQ:NMSS) 7 1.64 +100% Jfax Inc. (NASDAQ:JFAX) 2 2.00 -50% 8 x 8 Inc. (NASDAQ:EGHT) 2 2.25 0% VocalTec (NASDAQ:VOCL) 6 2.50 0% E-fax.com (NASDAQ:EFAX) 2 3.00 -38% *T
It's interesting that average rankings for most of these pure plays are close to 1 (indicating a "strong buy") or 2 (indicating "moderate buy"). While better performers do have better average rankings, even among the best, some are better than others. (Wouldn't you be bummed if you had bought LVLT instead of CLRN, just on the basis of a few hundredths of a point of analysts' opinion rankings?) . It's also clear that a larger professional following doesn't necessarily mean better performance.
Some of the smaller IT companies are not followed by professional analysts. These include (AMEX:FCM), (OTCBB:USAT), (OTCBB:IPVC), (OTCBB:TVCP) and (NASDAQ:ETEL) -- some of which have recently experienced significant gains. Other, newly public companies -- like (NASDAQ:IBAS) and (NASDAQ:DDDC) -- must wait for the 30 day quiet period to pass before coverage may be announced.
Internet telephony isn't just for the small guys, though. For these diversified companies, Internet telephony accounts for less than 10% of their overall businesses, however, many of their IT divisions are nonetheless larger than their pure play counterparts: *T Company Analysts Average Ranking Past 3 mos.
Covering (1=strong buy) Performance Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) 37 1.38 +11% Nortel (NYSE:NT) 29 1.59 +35% AT&T (NYSE:T) 28 1.80 -17% Lucent (NYSE:LU) 35 1.84 -7% 3Com (NASDAQ:COMS) 31 2.26 +5% Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERICY) 21 2.07 +27% *T
For the large caps, analyst rankings seem to correlate less well with past performance than for the start ups. Despite similar rankings by analysts, the larger gains have been earned by investors in the pure play IT companies -- but so have the larger losses. The larger enterprises, followed by many more professional stock watchers, offer greater stability and perhaps a few less sleepless nights for the private investor.
While professional rankings represent one criteria by which to evaluate a potential investment, savvy investors should make sure they perform their own due diligence before clicking their "submit order" buttons.
Article also available on the Web at internetstocknews.com.
About Internet Stock News
Internet Stock News is a free media publication providing FREE real time quotes, access to Internet Initial Public Offerings (IPO's), independent news, research, and commentary about the Internet investment revolution. Interested analysts, brokers, institutional & individual investors may subscribe to Internet Stock News for free at internetstocknews.com.
Members will be periodically informed of ground floor investment opportunities in Internet companies such as: AboveNet Communications (NASDAQ:ABOV), Critical Path (NASDAQ:CPTH), Covad Communications (NASDAQ:COVD), drugstore.com (NASDAQ:DSCM), Freeserve PLC (NASDAQ:FREE), Engage Technologies (NASDAQ:ENGA), Tibco Software (NASDAQ:TIBX), Baboo.com (NASDAQ:BAMB), Chemdex Corp. (NASDAQ:CMDX), Hotjobs.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:HOTJ), Interworld corp. (NASDAQ:INTW), Mortgage.com (NASDAQ:MDCM), MyPoints.com (NASDAQ:MYPT), Quokka Sports Inc. (NASDAQ:QKKA), Internet Capital Group (NASDAQ:ICGE), MP3.com (NASDAQ:MPPP), musicmaker.com (NASDAQ:HITS), Liquid Audio Inc. (NASDAQ:LQID), Homestore.com Inc. (NASDAQ:HSCM) and Packeteer (NASDAQ:PKTR).
CONTACT: Internet Stock News
Tony Suneson, 858/677-7777
stocktalk@internetstocknews.com
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Companies or Securities discussed in this article: Symbol Name
NASDAQ:HSCM
NASDAQ:HOTJ
NASDAQ:VOCL Vocaltec Commun Ltd
NASDAQ:PKTR
NASDAQ:DSCM
NASDAQ:CPTH Critical Path
NASDAQ:COMS 3com Corp
BB:TVCP Talk Visual Corp
AMEX:FCM
NASDAQ:DDDC
NYSE:T At&T Corp
BB:IPVC Ipvoice.Com Inc
NASDAQ:HITS Musicmaker.Com Inc
NASDAQ:MYPT
NASDAQ:ETEL
NASDAQ:MPPP
NASDAQ:EGHT
NASDAQ:NMSS Natural Microsystems
NASDAQ:ITXC
NASDAQ:EFAX
NYSE:LU Lucent Technologies
NASDAQ:CMDX
NASDAQ:BAMB
NASDAQ:ERICY Ericsson(Lm)Tel'B'ADS
NASDAQ:ABOV
NASDAQ:CSCO Cisco Systems
NASDAQ:IBAS
NASDAQ:TIBX
NYSE:NT Nortel Networks Corp
NASDAQ:MDCM
NASDAQ:JFAX
NASDAQ:LVLT Level 3 Communications
NASDAQ:COVD
NASDAQ:INTW
NASDAQ:FREE
NASDAQ:NTOP
BB:USAT USA Talks.Com Inc
NASDAQ:LQID
NASDAQ:CLRN
NASDAQ:ICGE
NASDAQ:ENGA
NASDAQ:PHCM
NASDAQ:QKKA
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