Judy, 1. Compaq will say that they are completely sold out, as they do every year. Then they will announce rebates on unsold boxes. 2. Dell will say that component prices are still coming down faster than pc prices. 3. Micron will say that component prices are still increasing much faster than pc prices. 4. Intel will claim that their mpcs are being sold through to end users instead of being piled up in boxes at the distributors. 5. The banks will claim that the crisis is over and that the Fed ought to lend them more money cheap so they can pretend that it really is. 6. We will see a slew of companies up their previously lowered eps rates due to Xmas sales. They will later miss those numbers due to merchandise returns. 7. IBM will count bogus service revenues out to Y3K as revenues and eps for this quarter. And get away with it again. 8. Hewlett-Packard will tell the truth and everyone will call them the Grinch. 9. Amat will notice an upsurge in equipment orders without pointing out that all these orders are coming from an AMAT joint venture fab. Again. 10. Market strategists will gloat over the demise of the super bowl indicator and brag about how the bull market was stronger than the Broncos' victory. 11. CNBS will tell us about the huge sum of money on the sidelines just itching to buy shares lower. As they did in the previous decline. NOT! 12. Abby Jo will claim that valuation is in the eye of the beholder. And she will offer investors more poison apples of advice on buying high and waiting for the inevitable crash to bankrupt them. 13. Joe BatsInTheBelfria will say that the market will go up forever because of the collapse of Communism. Somehow, he will ignore the fact that the world's largest country, second most powerful military machine and fastest growing economy is communist. But, hey, the US did not recognize Red China for 30 years. Can we expect more from Joe, who will say anything to support a bull case? 14. Asia and Russia will be declared topics not to be discussed by genteel folk. 15. Excuses will be made about our horrid savings rate. 16. More excuses will be made about our stagnant productivity growth. Hey, are #15 and #16 related? 17. And even more excuses will be made about our soaring trade deficits. Since the largest deficit will soon be with a country old Joe of Gruntal and Groanal doesn't recognize, see #13, we will have to revise the method of calculating those figures until they look less gruesome. 18. We will soon hear that eps don't really matter as US corporations will have little or no eps growth next year. Making the pe ratios look even sillier. So, we will hear lies about a new pair of dimes for eps, the same way we heard them about dividends.
That's a few I expect to hear between now and Xmas. Plus a lot I haven't thought of.
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