Frank, i'll listen to the CC tonight and hold further comment until then. for now, here's a take i think you might enjoy:
Call Off the Horses
By James J. Cramer
5/17/99 7:58 AM ET
Why does Global Crossing (GLBX:Nasdaq) get to trump everybody and team up
with U S West (USW:NYSE) even though it didn't even exist three years ago? Why
does the market value MCI WorldCom (WCOM:Nasdaq) so highly?
Pretty simple: the regional Bell operating companies, the split-offs of the old Ma
Bell, blew it. And in this market, that means they get the ball taken away and others
get to play with it.
Think about it. These Bell companies, with their lines already into your homes,
should have owned the world by now. There were no reasons for ISPs -- the Bell
companies could have stopped that movement in a second. Cable modem? The Bell
companies have had technology that could have stopped that movement, too, but
they never deployed it. America Online (AOL:NYSE)? These companies could
have cloned AOL, any one of them, but they failed.
They had the ball for years. They had ISDN and chose to price it out of the reach of
consumers. They have T-1 and they make it ridiculously expensive and difficult to
get (I have T-1, but not through Bell Atlantic (BEL:NYSE), Nynex or whoever
botched my business). They are a total pain in the butt to deal with, and everybody
knows it. They have taken gold mines and filled them with salt. They make me sick
to my stomach with their lost business opportunities.
This stock market punishes those who blow it. It gives market capitalizations to
those companies not hog-tied by the old ways. It wants to take market capitalization
away from those that didn't see the Web or couldn't adjust to it.
Like the RBOCs.
What's really pathetic is these companies are so cavalrylike that, even with
everything we see happening everyday, they canýt reinvent themselves. Global
Crossing, Qwest (QWST:Nasdaq), WorldCom seem like mechanized divisions
brimming with swift-moving tanks against these swordsmen on horses.
They deserved to get slaughtered.
James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At
time of publication, his fund was long AOL. His fund often buys and sells securities
that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published,
and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no
circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to
buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money
management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide
investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at
letters@thestreet.com.
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