Dear Longs, Your leader in Fools History. A great lesson
Investors in highflyer Iomega Corp., the world's leading manufacturer of removable computer storage products, have been chastened in the past two months. Following a strong earnings report in April and a string of positive news from the company, Iomega's stock more than tripled, hitting an all-time high of $55 a share on May 22nd.
Since then, the stock has collapsed, pausing momentarily at apparent support levels only to fall some more as the overall market sell-off has punished nearly all technology issues. On Wednesday, prices dipped as low as $14.75 a share, or just half of what the shares traded at last Thursday going into what even shortsellers predicted might prove to be a surprisingly strong earnings report.
Needless to say, the red-hot Iomega folder on THE MOTLEY FOOL, the leading online financial forum, has not been a pretty sight of late for anyone besides the chorus of snickering shortsellers. The incredible bloodbath in recent days has wiped out some fortunes and led to a wave of recriminations and soul-searching confessions by previously confident but now wounded bulls in Fooldom.
And as the financial establishment had perhaps long fantasized, the pain around Iomega, a visible force in THE FOOL's success, has caused many investors to at least momentarily reconsider the wisdom of Folly.
When one top Merrill Lynch executive appeared on CNN's MONEYLINE this past Monday extolling the virtues of professional financial advisers, one could almost imagine he was speaking directly to the hundreds of thousands of individual investors who have flocked to Fooldom in hopes of becoming self-reliant.
With two-thirds of earnings reports coming in above expectations and the Fed sitting pat on rates, confident of a imminent slowdown in the economy, it's tempting to call this the FOOL Correction, just another part of a conspiracy by the old-guard financial community to scare the pee-willy out of do-it-yourself individual investors.
But in some ways, THE FOOL's "Iomegans" do seem to have fallen victim to their own success. Having long fought to have a voice in how CNBC and other news media tell the Iomega story, these investors have indeed become part of that story. But even as they've made serious progress in winning the war, they now seem to have lost a major battle.
After all, Iomega's second quarter earnings came in at $.11 a share, above the analyst consensus estimates of $.10 but significantly below the $.15 consensus numbers of the Fool folder investors who submitted estimates. Revenues were $284 million, close to analyst estimates but much below the $300 million plus predicted by the Iomega bulls in Fooldom.
Yet from a number of perspectives, Iomega's results looked impressive. Revenues on new products (Ditto, Zip, Jaz) accounted for $275 million in sales, or nearly *seven* times their revenues in the second quarter of 1995. Looking at the more useful sequential quarter comparisons, the numbers still looked good. Overall sales increased by 28% from the first quarter of 1996, and sales of Zip and Jaz, the key products going forward, saw their combined
sales increase by 32%, from $186 million to $246 million. Gross margins for the three new products rose by 29%, from $58 million in the first quarter to $75 million.
The initial news reports seemed positive. Early Friday morning, CNBC anchors reported several times that Iomega had beat analyst estimates by 10% and that the stock might rise as a result. Then, shortly before the market opened, the story changed slightly to include the fact that the earnings were well below the $.14 to $.15 expected by the online media, which in this case meant Fooldom.
With the stock trading down $5 before the open, a poster named "VISCOCITY" broached one subject that would haunt the boards for the next few days. "We might have shot ourselves in the foot on this one," he said.
Shortly thereafter, "CHSams" posted a note directed to Tom Gardner, one of the co-founders of THE FOOL. "Please- do us IOMG shareholders a favor. Please discontinue the IOMG board. Let us not go to Folder #112. We are not doing the stock or the company any favors. I, for one, want the stock to move on its own merits. This forum is now 'harming' the stock.
"You might argue that it is only a short-term effect; however, I'm thinking of the public image we're creating for stock boards in general. There has been reference of this all being studied in the future by the likes of Harvard Business School. Well, it may turn out to be a study of shareholder stupidity. |
