Re: The latest from Investor Relations
Anybody home? CTEC is trading wildly on heavy volume, and the SI board dries up. Did everybody go over to Yahoo?
I spoke with Lola Moenich from CTEC Investor Relations yesterday. Here's the scoop. One of the three analysts who follow CTEC lowered FY99 and FY00 estimates to bring those estimates more in line with those of the other two analysts who follow CTEC. The reason cited by the analyst was that the introduction of LDXs into the pharmacy market might be delayed due to Amerisource, one of CTEC's distributors, being acquired by McKesson. Warren Pinckert, CTEC's CEO, warned at the last conference call in September that this could happen, and this analyst was just now changing future estimates to reflect the old news.
Amerisource has not told CTEC that they would delay the pharmacy roll-out. But this COULD occur, since takeovers usually result in new projects being put temporarily on hold while the merged company straightens out internal problems.
It is important to remember, Meonich said, that CTEC currently gets none of its income (ZERO $$$) from the pharmacy market. (So any delay, if it occurs, still would not affect the powerful earnings momentum that CTEC has built up.)
She also said that the 1000 LDXs for the Parke-Davis trials are currently being used by physicians. And these machine will stay in the hands of the doctors after the trials are over, meaning that CTEC will have 1000 new customers for its cassettes. (This also means that revenue from the sale of these machines and the cassettes will be a part of this quarter's earnings!)
I asked her about a rumor on the Yahoo board about a pending announcement that the World Health Organization will use LDXs in developing countries. She laughed and said that she hadn't heard anything about it, but that she might pass this good idea on to the sales department.
IMO, the selling is WAY overdone. I bought a ton more yesterday at 9 3/4, and I am as fully invested in CTEC as I have ever been. I can't imagine that CTEC will be lower than this next year.
Happy investing!
John |
