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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (39468)	9/2/1999 2:05:00 AM
From: trilobyte	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 152472

this piece of trash graced SI homepage... WOW@@@@@ I've been in this stock since 26$. I don't see no slide... Thursday, September 2, 1999 Qualcomm slide a lesson for investors Market Analysis For those of you who have failed to embrace the technology revolution, you need not fret. I believe that there are more of you than anyone believes. Allow me to clarify. I don't mean that you haven't embraced technology into your daily lives. After all, the number of people using personal computers, cell phones, email or the Internet represents nearly every person in the country. I am referring to embracing technology as a part of your investment portfolio. Don't buy what you don't understand. Warren Buffett said it years ago: Find a product or service you like or use, find out who makes it, buy stock in that company and forget about it for five years. When you return, the money you put in should have doubled or close to it. This is how investing works. However, his most important words were, don't buy what you don't understand. And there is a lot in technology that many people don't understand. I have heard horror stories from investor relations' representatives of both small and large companies concerning some of the questions they field from their retail shareholders. All they seem to be concerned about are stock splits, which leads me to believe two things: one, they aren't very savvy investors, and two, they obviously don't know very much about the underlying business. The company ran into competition. Well, if you want to start buying technology but still don't understand the business, try looking at some other criteria. Take Qualcomm for example. Here is a company that makes both cellular phones and the chips that run them. Prior to the market opening Wednesday, the stock was up over $190 a share and had beaten earnings expectations by an average of 25 percent for the past three quarters. That $190 seems ripe for a split, and beating estimates by 25 percent would deem the odds are pretty good that the company will at least meet estimates for the upcoming fourth quarter. However, something funny happened on the way to the forum: The company ran into competition. Qualcomm has been the pioneer in the digital cell phone market, the new- age phones that are more clear than cellular and weigh less in your pocket, all for the same price. Well, capitalism has a unique way of taking out leaders by the knees. You see, Motorola and Nokia, both leaders in the traditional cellular phone market, didn't like the migration away from their products and decided to enter the digital phone market for a piece of the pie. Insiders have been selling shares for the past month. Both Motorola and Nokia indicated weeks ago that they are experiencing strength in their digital phone market, which means that someone else's market share would have to suffer. Surprise, surprise (but not to those who did some homework) Qualcomm was the unlucky recipient. Shares of Qualcomm lost more than 12 percent on Wednesday, as word spread about its lost market share contributing to softer sales. However, if that wasn't a signal enough, the writing most certainly was on the wall, as insiders at Qualcomm have been selling shares for the past month. To quote another famous Wall Street guru, Peter Lynch once said there is no better indication as to a company's strength than if its own employees are putting their money in. In Qualcomm's case, the money just happened to be coming out. Please send us your ideas. Cousin Bob is always looking for suggestions, and he also welcomes any questions from readers.