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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (28430)	9/25/1999 9:29:00 AM
From: William Hunt	Respond to of 77400

Thread ---Cisco Systems Inc. Dow Jones Newswires -- September 24, 1999 DJ Cisco To Ask Hldrs To Up Share Authorization To 10B>CSCO By Anthony Palazzo LOS ANGELES (Dow Jones)--Cisco System Inc. (CSCO) plans to ask shareholders to approve an increase in its share authorization to 10 billion from the current 5.4 billion. In a proxy statement filied with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cisco said it will use the additional shares for acquisitions, employee stock options and purchases, and other business goals. As of Sept. 13, Cisco had 3.29 billion shares outstanding, and another 491.5 million reserved for employee stock options and purchases. Shareholders will vote on the authorization increase at the company's annual meeting Nov. 10. Often, a doubling of a company's share-count authorization is seen as a prelude to a stock split. However, in this case, the request for a share-count increase is unrelated to any potential future stock splits, a Cisco spokesman said. In California, where Cisco is incorporated, companies aren't required to increase their share-authorization prior to splitting their stock, the spokesman said. Most public companies are based in Delaware, where share authorization must be increased before shares are issued that would exceed it. Cisco, of San Jose, Calif., last split its stock in June. It was Cisco's eighth split since the company went public in 1990. It has been on a buying spree lately, purchasing a number of smaller companies as it tries to retain and extend its lead in communications devices that use the Internet. BEST WISHES BILL

To: Zoltan! who wrote (28430)	10/2/1999 12:38:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

>>They say LU should hit the 50's. But shouldn't people wait for a bargain? October 4, 1999 A Nose for Value . . . And Nonsense A fund manager disdains market cheerleaders, unearths corporate values An Interview With Robert Olstein ~ Precisely a year ago, when we last sat down to talk shop -- that is, stocks and creative accounting -- with the eponymous proprietor of the Olstein Financial Alert fund, gloom and doom were casting their twin shadows over world markets. Yet this man was smiling, even though his fund at that point was down 8% for the year. Now we know why: Olstein Financial Alert, which boasts a coveted five stars from fundtracker Morningstar, ended 1998 with a gain of 15%, and has been building on that splendid turnaround since. This year Financial Alert is up a market-stomping 19%, thanks once again to Bob's keen eye for corporate value, and his equally keen nose for bookkeeping nonsense. This powerful combo has led him to a broker, a boat operator and a bombed-out HMO, among other alluring issues. At the same time, Bob's quick to prick market myths and rile some of Wall Street's sacred cows. Pom-pom boys, read at your peril... ... Q: Are you suggesting that companies beating estimates by just a penny or two may be massaging the books? A: Not all companies, not at all. But for us, an upside surprise sometimes raises a red flag. The penny itself isn't material, but the seeming need to produce an upside surprise, even a tiny one, makes us wonder what else is going on. Has business turned much tougher? The government has made us all more conscious of accounting abuses, but below the surface no one's really paying attention. Companies still are smoothing quarterly earnings by front-ending revenues, or booking sales well ahead of product shipments, as Sunbeam infamously did. Corporations are still playing with doubtful account reserves, and taking multiple "nonrecurring" charges, which makes it very difficult to determine the underlying growth rate of earnings. Let me emphasize that many of these practices are perfectly legal. But the net results can be misleading. Q: Can you cite some examples? A: Lucent Technologies, in our view, is growing earnings by about 9%-10% a year. But it's a fantasy to think the company's earnings are growing by the 20% it reports. Lucent has made numerous acquisitions and established a string of restructuring reserves in the past few years. At the same time, earnings have been boosted by reversals of a portion of those reserves. In addition, pension profits have become a material contributor to earnings. Again, it's all legal, but potentially misleading. I can think of several large companies that have bolstered reported earnings in like vein, but Lucent's the one I happen to be most familiar with. We owned the stock at one time and had to vacate the premises. Q: Why did you do that? The stock has been a major-league winner. A: We thought the company would suffer an earnings disappointment, and that hasn't been the case. Just the same, we think the shares are overvalued based on our assessment of earnings growth. Lucent probably is worth $45-$50 a share, not a current $66. We'd rather put our own and our investors' money into stocks selling at 25% discounts to the underlying companies' worth. Q: Are you shorting Lucent? A: No. We don't sell stocks short on the basis of valuation. We only short companies when we think their financials or business plans are totally out of whack. Short-selling represents a very small portion of our portfolio. We do it to keep ourselves sharp about potential abuses.... interactive.wsj.com