<My point is not to challenge you on your comments point for point, but to challenge your objectivity<
Quite fair and almost impossible for me to judge my objectivity. Like most other folks there's a part of me that wants to see that I made the "right" decision. That can easily cloud my view...
That said, from the time that ORCL passed $60(pre-split) I became more and more paranoid about the valuation. At the time it had become nearly 25% of my whole portfolio due to the 6x increase since I had bought it and, therefore was a BIG deal for me and cause of much anxiety. You know, the old "greed/fear" syndrome. It also led me to follow the company and its markets very carefully. My biggest concern was that given the size of ORCL I couldn't see any way that they could maintain a sustained growth rate of revenues and profits that would hold this valuation up when the NAZ bubble began its inevitable deflation. The clincher for me was an investors conference where a fund manager stated that they had sold out of ORCL because they felt the upside was more than built in already.
So, that's why I got out. Now, as to why I think it could get to $15 that's really more about the macro market than ORCL. Even at today's price you've got a company that has a forward P/E for the next 12 months of 60 or so(assuming things go well). At the same time, I feel there's a 50/50 chance that there is going to be more than just a "slowdown" in the economy. I think the overall market is thinking this way, too.
And just like the crazy runup in NAZ stocks early this year, which was TOTALLY overdone and ridiculous, the same thing is likely to occur on the way down with irrational pessimism rather than exuberance. If so, NAZ could breach 2K and ORCL easily reach $12-15.
I like the company in the long run, wonder whether LE is too close to the day to day operations and have a feeling that the next year or so could be very rough for all the major IT vendors. Just IMHO... |
