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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (69304)	10/19/1999 6:15:00 PM
From: benwood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Michael, I'm sure that someone will be happy to show their DELLirious money the egress. <g>

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (69304)	10/19/1999 6:56:00 PM
From: Zach E.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Hi Mike, It has been a while since I've "Asked Michael Burke", so I will make up for lost time <g>. Why was the CPI so much lower than the PPI? Does it usually take a while for the higher prices paid by the producers to leak down to the prices charged to the consumers, or what? Do you have any opinion on Sara Lee (SLE), or Genuine Parts (GPC)? Both seem to be good cos. that are trading at "okay" prices, although the overall market is still high enough that I am reluctant to buy much of anything. Also, the big pharmaceuticals are pretty far off their highs. Not exactly at 8x earnings <g>, but which ones do you like, and at approximately what price? Finally, a friend of mine is interested in Apple, I know that you hate the boxmakers in general, but I haven't heard you say much against AAPL as DELL, GTW and CPQ. Any thoughts? Thanks for your time. Zach

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (69304)	10/20/1999 4:18:00 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

MB - DB 03:40 SOUTH KOREA'S HYUNDAI TO LAUNCH WAGON IN JAPAN - KYODO. DB 03:40 SCHWAB, TOKIO MARINE TO LAUNCH ONLINE TRADING IN JAPAN ON DEC 1. Hyundai never seems to get it right. Schwab and Tokio Marine customers will need a LIFEBOAT, not a WAGON. -g- Regards, Don

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (69304)	10/20/1999 7:58:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Dell and DRAM's Interesting article in today's Washington Post. Kumar say's: But one industry analyst said that it is a Dell issue; the price squeeze does not presage an industry-wide problem, said Ashok Kumar of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. Dell left itself little room to maneuver by narrowing its list of chip suppliers from 40 to a dozen over the last two years--and DRAM chips to a single supplier, Kumar said. "The company has reached a level of diminishing returns in its logistics efficiency," he said. Anyone know who the DRAM supplier is? washingtonpost.com

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (69304)	10/20/1999 11:29:00 AM
From: AurumRabosa	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

A Whole Other Type of E-Trade: Internet Firms Swap Ad Space, Then Count It as Revenue by Edward Wyatt, NY Times, October 20, 1999 Since the first cave man exchanged his favorite club for a neighbor's animal pelt, barter has been an accepted form of commerce. Now some Internet companies have turned themselves into virtual trading posts, making barter a way of life. ... In the first half of this year, nearly a fifth of Sportsline's $24 million in revenue involved no cash payments. Instead, Sportsline gave to other companies that amount of advertising space on its site in exchange for advertising and other services and goods on their World Wide Web sites. These types of exchanges have become so common that they may be skewing the financial picture for the Internet industry. Since these new companies rarely have profits, revenues are often the key determination of their value. Strong revenue growth, thus, can translate into higher stock prices. ... In few cases do investors have any idea how big barter has become. Most companies that include barter deals in their reported revenue, like Sportsline, do not mention the practice in their earnings news releases. Only by reading far into a company's quarterly report to the SEC would an investor find disclosures about such transactions. The SEC requires companies to break out the deals if barter accounts for 10% or more of revenue. "Something about the practice doesn't smell right to me," said Robert A. Olstein, portfolio manager of the Olstein Financial Alert fund, a $350 million mutual fund that tries to find undervalued stocks by parsing companies' financial statements. ... But because of the peculiar characteristics of the Internet business, accountants and securities regulators are taking a closer look at the issue. On Monday, the SEC's chief accountant, in a letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, requested that the board's special task force on emerging issues take up the issue of accounting for barter transactions, calling it one of four "priority level 1" issues accounting and securities regulators face. ... "Personally, I think it's fraudulent," said Alan M. Meckler, chief executive of Internet.com, which runs a network of Web sites, electronic newsletters and discussion groups. ... Typically, a company that barters advertising records two transactions of equal value. For the advertising space on its own site that it gives away, a company records a given dollar amount of "expenses." At the same time, it records an equal amount of "revenues," representing the value of the ad space on another company's Web site that it received in exchange. ... www10.nytimes.com ****************************************************************** The next thing they may discover is that some of these con-artists are claiming charitable tax deductions when they fill unsold inventory with charity banner ads for organizations such as The Red Cross, etc. When will the public wake up to the scam and stop paying 100s of times the true value of these New Era stocks which are really only worth a new pair-of-dimes, the kind with virtually no silver and virtually no hope of profitability?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (69304)	10/20/1999 12:27:00 PM
From: Richard Nehrboss	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike and all, Does anyone have data regarding what happened to shareholder value during the AT&T breakup? I'm obviously looking at the MSFT play. Thanks in advance Richard

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (69304)	10/20/1999 4:45:00 PM
From: PaperChase	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

It's a good thing you "daytrade" those QQQ puts. <G> Last time I checked QQQ was up 4. This rigged index will do nothing but gyrate within a longer term up pattern.. just like any good tech stock. I am calling an end to this bear trough until "rate fear" enters the picture in about 2 weeks. Until then, party on!