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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Donna Saravi who wrote (11539)	8/31/1999 3:23:00 PM
From: Still Rolling	Respond to of 19080

Hot tech analyst likes Oracle--from TSCM 8/21-22--sorry if it's been posted already. Participants on Aug. 21 included host Brenda Buttner, Jim Cramer, Herb Greenberg, Dave Kansas and guest Craig Ellis . The transcript is unedited and phonetic spellings are indicated with a (ph). BRENDA BUTTNER, HOST, THESTREET.COM: Hi everyone. I'm Brenda Buttner and you are connected to THESTREET.COM. We're here to help you make your own investing decisions. It's time now for Stock Drill. Our guest stock picker today is Craig Ellis. He manages the Orbitex Into-Tech & Communications Fund which has returned -- get this -- nearly 60 percent so far this year. The stocks Craig will be talking about today will be Oracle (ORCL), 3Com (COMS) and Cisco (CISCO). His fund has positions in all of them. And also with us from THESTREET.COM, senior columnist Herb Greenberg, and Jim Cramer's trading partner at the Cramer Berkowitz Hedge Fund, Jeff Berkowitz. Herb does not hold any of these stocks while the Cramer Berkowitz fund is long Cisco. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us. Craig, number two software maker Oracle. What do you like? CRAIG ELLIS, ORBITEX INFO-TECH & COMMUNICATIONS: I'm on this theme about playing arms suppliers in this Internet world and people are going to be -- chasing Oracle around on a near-term basis, worrying about this and that, and are they going to make the numbers. But the reality is, it's just a world about managing data. And you know that data is going to flow in large scale. This I-commerce they have got as far as database goes, is going to be very, very successful. They're kind of the best game in town in playing some software and I think you should be long. HERB GREENBERG, SENIOR COLUMNIST, THESTREET.COM: But, you know, you mentioned the word "managing," and when it comes to Oracle, we're taking about Larry Ellison who is the CEO of this company... ELLIS: One of the great promoters of all time. GREENBERG: One of the great promoters of all time. Two years ago the question was this guy wasn't even running the company. He was doing so many things. What makes you think that Larry Ellison can be committed to this company right now? ELLIS: Oh, I don't -- you know it's not about whether Larry Ellison is committed to this stock, or this company. I mean you know he's committed to this stock. I mean how much of this stock does he hold for crying out loud? Billions of dollars worth. I think Mr. Ellison has a very, very serious commitment. But, you know, it's more important than that. You need to look inside the company. The lights are going 24-hours a day. The parking lots are full. They're hiring new software engineers. Something's happening there. I think it's worth thinking about. BUTTNER: Jeff. JEFF BERKOWITZ, THESTREET.COM: Craig, I have a problem with Oracle. There is no doubt it's a great company but they have no visibility quarter to quarter and hence there's too much volatility. Twice this year the stock has had a 30 percent move within a matter of a week or two. Third quarter we all expected them to have a great quarter and it was a terrible quarter. The fourth quarter, THESTREET hated it. Expectations were for a poor quarter. Surprise. Great quarter. Wall Street -- typical move. Everyone upgrades, the company is banging its chest, and what do we hear this week? Maybe the sales organization is not going as well as possible -- as expected. BUTTNER: But, Craig, this all gets down to timeframe, doesn't it? ELLIS: Yes. BUTTNER: You have a longer timeframe than somebody like Jeff. ELLIS: Well, there are day traders and then there are those of who want to hold it... (LAUGHTER) No, I'm just -- you know, there is a lot to be said for that. And you try not to walk into these down earning cycles. Of course you don't because I'd much prefer to buy it the day after. OK, and I don't disagree with that. And if I had any criticisms about Oracle, I think their ability to predict sales. But you know what? You got to get out of that mind set because we're finally moving to that period where corporations are starting to get on spending cycles and I'm going to bet you you're going to start to see backlogs start to grow on some of these segments and you hit third and fourth quarter for the year 2000. And I think you're going to get better clarity on some of these things.