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Strategies & Market Trends : Bill Wexler's Profits of DOOM

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To: Bill Wexler who wrote (4490)2/19/1999 6:07:00 AM
From: Bill Wexler  Read Replies (1) of 4634
 
Reiterate strong sell/short sell recommendation...EGGS

I initially recommended shorting EGGS at around 25 a share as part of a linked trade with going long CPU (at that time around 13).

EGGS is currently at 17 and change, CPU at 10 and change.

Investors have bid up EGGS stock as an internet play. Egghead was driven out of the "bricks and mortar" business by CompUSA and promoted its web site in order to reignite interest in the stock. Naturally, insiders have been bailing out as internet mania propelled the stock price beyond their wildest imagination.

EGGS still trades at half the market cap of CPU. I believe the stock will soon trade south of 10 a share and will eventually trade south of 5 a share. Egghead, for all intents and purposes, is a defunct retailer - so we have the first problem of the company being fundamentally unsound. Second problem is that the internet stock bubble is collapsing due to a flood of new supply hitting the market. This will affect the wannabe-internet companies such as EGGS and KTEL much more than the Yahoos.

On the flip-side, CPU is grossly undervalued. Investors have thrown away the stock as if the company was about to go out of business. The perception is that rapidly declining ASPs, stiff competition from the electronics retailers, and price wars on the internet have completely obsoleted CPU's business.

I think that while these are valid concerns, CPU's business will continue growing nonetheless. CPU has already made plans to spin off its direct sales/internet division and is rapidly growing higher-margin segments such as technical services and training. In fact, I think that in another year or two, the ASP of a PC will have dramatically less impact on CPU's bottom line. I also think there will be rapid consolidation in the office products/computer retailing category. So it is very likely that office/computer retailers with good balance sheets and high volume - but depressed stock prices (CPU and OMX come to mind immediately)- will very likely become takeover candidates.
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