Gee Larry -- I think you might be my long-lost twin brother. I too,
can stand only so much profitable investing, they go wondering off
into "tax-loss territory".
I own the stodgy ol' stuff. On the tech side,I like Intel, Microsoft,
and Compaq, First Data, and Amgen as long term holdings. The only thing very exciting about them is the cap gains they generate year after year. Recently bought some Motorola at 47 and Lam Research at 23.5. and some Verifone at 32 -- but will likely trade out of them in a year or so -- just can't resist doin a little bottom fishin'..
My latest "great hope" is a company called Amati ( AMTX ). It was
trading for pennies early last year, got as high as 36 this year, and
it's back around 16 now. I usually shy away from "story stocks" like
this, but this one I just couldn't resist. It's got a market cap
of around 283MM, 17.7 million shares outstanding. Soros owns about
1.28 MM shares. They hold the patent on a technology called ADSL.
What that is, if you're not familiar, is a a process that allows a
much higher modem speed than currently available--about 6MB -- which
is about 175 times faster than the your standard 28.8 modem. And,
even on top of this blinding speed, there are two REALLY BIG PLUSES
that a lot of folks are PERHAPS overlooking...
1. They can do it over copper wire, which is the current status of virtually every home in the USA/world. ( There are other high-speed modems, but they all require fibre-optics/co-axle cable).
2. It's has duplex capacity, which means you can use your computer AND talk on the phone at the same time !
They're in marketing agreements (as a supplier of technology) with
Microsoft, GTE, NEC, Motorola, Gilbert Comm.and about 30 other smaller
outfits. Soros group bought about 7 1/2 % of the company. It looks
promising, as long as somebody else doesn't come along and invent a
better technology.
Their two biggest known competitors are a company called Westell,and
a little outfit called Ariel. The guy that started Ariel is a laid
off employee from AT & T. He was after them for years to develope the
technology, but they decided to can him instead. Big mistake !!!
Looks like they'll be buying the technology back via licensing
agreements for what they could have virtually had for damn-near free.
While everybody is busy looking at networking and chip stocks, I
figure the next big play is really in bandwidth. My Pentium processor
can run a multi-million byte program or data base in the wink of an
eye, but if I want to TRANSFER that info to you, it could take hours
via current modem speed. And if video pay-per-view is to become a
reality via your phone company, there's just no way around this
technology at present.
And this is technically, to me, a big plus...they aren't even expecting to turn a profit til 1999. A lot of people/money managers won't even look at a company with profits that far out. So this is definitely a long-term play.
So, in the spirit of buying a lotto ticket, I bought 300 shares. If
it moves up above old highs -- I'll add a few more. If it craters,
hey--what else is new !!! <G>
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