John - *Off Topic*
Thing is, the market has been rewarding them pretty much for the last five years, with the first couple being a result of cost cutting. I wonder how many folks realize that IBM has been a 7 bagger off it's lows, and has outperformed Intel over this time period!! Check this chart out....
techstocks.com
Wouldn't it be funny if IBM's stock did even better now that they are showing some growth. Gerstner has been making noises about double digit growth in their services business, and some of their other businesses showed higher growth this past quarter. I think many folks don't realize that until the past few months IBM was actually the largest software business around, Microsoft has just caught up with them. Who knows, they may make a move on the desktop side of the PC business, but I think they will continue to be a power on the laptop side due to leading edge technology. They are usually first with the good stuff here, like 14.1" screens, DVD, etc. I also see very good things for CPQ, which is kind of like IBM a couple years back, on the services side. A lean and mean CPQ/DEC should be able to get some of that pie that IBM is tapping into on the services side in coming years.
John
PS - Market cap is pretty reasonable to, less than Intel on triple the sales, company is a cash cow, well diversified in a business where a one product company can be killed. A perfect example of this would be CPQ, inventory problems absolutely kill the stock for over a year, while IBM (which also had PC inventory problems) is up around 40% because they have been able to make their numbers across other business lines and are much less vulnerable to desktop PC competition.
I saw your post on your buddy and Ciena. He rode it up to *90* from 24, and did not sell?? Worst of all, he rode it all the way back down BELOW his purchase price? Amazing!!!! |
