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Technology Stocks : Lucent Technologies (LU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anonymous who wrote (8973)	8/3/1999 7:49:00 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 21876

Wisdom does not get replies here, Anonymous. Guess is part of growing up.

To: Anonymous who wrote (8973)	8/3/1999 7:56:00 AM
From: GVTucker	Respond to of 21876

Anonymous, RE: All old, large companies are inefficient. If you were a fly on the wall of IBM, GE, GM, Ford, AT&T, or any other company that has been around more than 50 years (most of the DOW components will do, thank you), you're gonna find that they all operate in an inefficient mode. They are just like the government and its bureaucracies. They believed in empire building in the old days and old habits are hard to change I must not have been clear in my earlier post. Indeed, every company is inefficient. In fact, in younger, high growth companies, there are even more inefficiencies that some of the old guard. This is particularly the case when revenue growth is paramount (i.e. most every 'Net company out there). Cost control is an afterthought. My point was that LU should follow the example of GE, one of the companies you cited. Yes, there are inefficiencies at GE. But rather than accept them as a way of life, Welch has instilled the attitude of cost management throughout the company. IBM almost bled to death a couple of years ago before new management (including an outsider as CEO) forced the company to realize that you don't have to completely sacrifice all the good things about a company when your focus on cost control. LU will be at a crossroad sooner than you think. The company would be well served to follow the example of GE and IBM. If they don't, think about another couple of highly innovative companies--MMM and EK. MMM in particular rivals Bell Labs for innovation, and both were thought of as the finest of corporate America back in the days when I was in school. Both have done a very poor job rewarding shareholders during this decade, in spite of the ideal economic conditions, because they thought that the hard decisions that I am talking about didn't have to be made.

To: Anonymous who wrote (8973)	8/6/1999 11:48:00 PM
From: Anonymous	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21876

Geez! I haven't been here since August 2. I sure had to wade through a lot of "stuff" to catch up to this point. I would say that LU is really about 3.6% down from where it was on June 28 when it closed at 65 11/16. The run up from there to 78 7/16 on Friday, July 16 is just the push that seems to be a fact of life with this stock just prior to earnings announcement. It has happened quite often in the last two years. It's too bad that this room gets so confrontational everytime this stock goes up rather quickly and then falls back even faster. That rise of 19.4% or roughly 12 3/5 points from 65 11/16 to 78 7/16 and then back down again is hard to look at for those who are long but that is life with this stock. Hindsight sort of pees everyone off doesn't it? Woulda, coulda, shoulda, huh! On paper I saw at least one years salary go out the door. I try not to let it bother me that much. I rationalize it by just looking at the trend and hoping it wont fall much further down. I don't see LU going anywhere for a while until the market gets over its jitters. And incidentally, every thing I'm invested in in the market, be it individual stocks or mutual funds, they are all down since Friday, July 16.