sjmercury.com
READY FOR TAKEOFF: Speaking of downtrodden, there appears to be life yet at Ascend Communications Inc. (Nasdaq, ASND).
Ascend was a Wall Street darling until early last year, when its stock began a sickening descent from more than $80 to nearly $20. Ascend tripped in its acquisition of Cascade Communications Corp. and by losing market share in remote-access concentrators, the equipment that connects Internet service providers to their customers' computers.
But reports from the company's presentation this week at Morgan Stanley & Co.'s software and networking conference in Phoenix suggest Ascend has fixed some of its problems.
''We're optimistic that we've returned to a growth track,'' says Michael F.G. Ashby, Ascend's chief financial officer. ''We basically reaffirmed the fact that we're comfortable about our business outlook in general and optimistic about 1998.''
Translation: Ascend likely won't shock Wall Street when it reports earnings Jan. 20.
Ashby says Asia remains a problem for Ascend, but that sales are strong for Cascade's ATM switches, which big phone companies use. He also says Ascend no longer is losing North American market share in remote-access concentrators and that inventory levels are down, a positive sign.
Ascend's stock, off 19 cents Thursday to $27.38, jumped $1.50 the day of the company's Morgan Stanley presentation.
Notes money manager Douglas F. Whitman of Whitman Capital Inc. in Palo Alto: ''When your stock's been severely depressed, you don't have to have much good news to get it going.''
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