ML Fundamental Growth Fund manager's statement:
Printed out here for posterity, as a model of... whatever:
"What happened was this: Earlier this month, AT&T Wireless (AWE:NYSE - news) started to advertise this new full service -- 3G wireless service, access to the Internet, streaming video, audio, the whole bit. They pointed out that what this was is this NTT DoCoMo I-Mode service, that it used this wide-band CDMA [code division multiple access] chipsets from Qualcomm (QCOM:Nasdaq - news). Then I saw the announcement that Verizon (VZ:NYSE - news) was giving Lucent (LU:NYSE - news) a $5 billion contract to build out the infrastructure for this service. When we started to build up our exposure to communications-equipment business in late-December 1996, it was on the same basis. Contracts, after like an 18-24 month period, in December of 1996 were being led by the wireless companies to build out the PCS digital-wireless spectrum.
[Last week,] we made the first meaningful uptick in our exposure in technology in some time. We bought an investment position in Lucent, and we bought an investment position in Qualcomm. I mean, $5 billion is a huge contract, and it's more likely to be front-end loaded than back-end loaded because AT&T Wireless is offering this service. I'm sure they're using Lucent and Qualcomm components in this thing."
Note: Sales charge= 5.25%. 5 yr. annualized beat 88% of peers. |
