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Technology Stocks : Internet Guru Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Choate who wrote (1961)	6/25/1999 6:02:00 PM
From: astyanax	Respond to of 4337

SOFTBANK - excellent points! It's SHOCKING that the financial media has pretty much ignored Softbank stock (although they do mention Softbank news frequently, albeit in shallow coverage). The fact that Softbank has been sloth to issue an ADR one is an issue but the ADR is finally coming in 12-18 months according to Lehman Brothers analyst ("The Asian Henry Blodget") Ravi Sarathy, which issued their highest "buy-1" rating on the stock. The Softbank keiretsu contains many Net heavyweights (a nearly 30% stake in YHOO, EGRP, GCTY, etc). Understanding how the Softbank keiretsu works also has helped me predict which business relationships and merger/acquisitions will take place. Quite similar to how Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers uses their keiretsu to shape business relationship (ATHM+XCIT should have been no surprise), the same happens all the time with Softbank. What am I talking about? For starters, how about: BCST+YHOO; LAUN+YHOO; GCTY+YHOO; Insweb+EGRP+ELoan, EGRP+CPTH; EGRP+MessageMedia; and a ton of other Softbank sibling combinations I can't remember. YHOO and EGRP may be strengthening their relationship soon in regards to YHOO's push to establish a personal finance wing of their portal. Anyway, if anyone wants to know more, they will not find much info @ financial websites. But the Softbank (SFTBF) threads here at SI and Raging Bull have had an absolute frenzy of posts lately. I'm very long on Softbank, despite skyrocketing nearly 100% to an all time high in the last few weeks (despite Net shares being at only a fraction of their high) and triggering a temporary trading halt on the Nikkei (on the day I tried to buy it!), it's not even close to Ravi Sarathy's Lehman Bros 1YR price target price. One reason that Softbank has traded at a dramatic discount to its underlying holdings (by 65% according to Lehman report) is because American retail investors don't know about and the few who do have to jump through hoops to buy it. So right now, Japanese investors (who don't have stock mania, let alone Net mania) are determining the price. By the time the ADR comes out, the dramatic discount (compared to a stock like CMGI) should largely disappear. And of course, we all know it is the American retail investor supporting Net stock valuations so all hell will break loose then. In the meantime, enjoy the ride. Please share any thoughts you may have. In the meantime, these are the 2 links that discuss Softbank stock: geocities.com netconductor.com --- George Nichols The Internet Fund Fan Club netconductor.com tulipmaniac@netconductor.com

To: Choate who wrote (1961)	6/26/1999 10:40:00 PM
From: steve harmon - analyst	Respond to of 4337

softbank - it bet big and early on yahoo and others and it paid off; it is one of the premier global internet companies in my opinion but too often ignored because it trades in tokyo; in some ways it's better than cmgi in my opinion, much larger revenue and asset base, diversity