To: LJM who wrote (40698 ) 9/13/1999 4:55:00 PM From: MileHigh Respond to of 152472
Monday September 13 4:34 PM ET Qualcomm Stock Drops As Company Skips Conference LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Shares of Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq:QCOM - news) fell about 7 percent Monday after the wireless telecommunications provider pulled out of an investor conference, apparently leaving some investors wondering if bad news was around the corner. Qualcomm fell as much as $13, or 7.88 percent, to $152.69, but edged back to $153.375 by the Nasdaq close. The stock has swung in the past year from less than $19 to more than $198. The market may have been spooked when Qualcomm dropped out of an investor conference in Boston Monday morning, said Mark Cavallone, an analyst with the S&P Equity Group in New York. ''People read into that that they are going to have a bad quarter or something,'' he said. A spokeswoman for the San Diego, Calif.-based company said the conference no-show was due to a scheduling conflict. She declined to comment on the decline in the share price. Investors may be on the alert for news from Qualcomm after Everen Securities on Sept. 1 forecast that the company would meet fourth-quarter profit goals but would not exceed by much, in contrast with earlier quarters, Cavallone said. Qualcomm's stock dropped 9 percent after Everen made its forecast. While Everen said tightness in component supplies and price erosion in telephone handsets could limit Qualcomm's ability to beat earnings targets, Cavallone said the company would profit in the long-term from royalties for its mobile telephone technology patents. ''I don't think you're buying Qualcomm for its handset business,'' he said. ''The company is more positioned for chipsets and royalties.'' It was unlikely that an announcement Monday by network equipment maker 3Com Corp. that it would spin off its Palm Computing unit, which has a partnership with Qualcomm, would affect the company, Cavallone said. Qualcomm makes a mobile telephone that uses the Palm Computing platform to store addresses and schedules and to send electronic mail. ''I don't think that has anything to do with what's going on today,'' he said. Qualcomm spokeswoman Christine Trimble said only that ''Qualcomm will continue to work with Palm.''