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Gold/Mining/Energy : Friede Goldman Halter (FGH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BigBull who wrote (3)	11/8/1999 8:05:00 PM
From: Roebear	Respond to of 177

BigBull, I would expect FGH to maintain a fairly tight 10-11 trading range until they announce news. Speaking of which don't they have earnings coming out soon? As for selling options, couldn't it be a good time for buying options on the lows also? Roebear

To: BigBull who wrote (3)	11/10/1999 3:15:00 AM
From: pt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 177

Bull, I'm very long FGH, (unfortunately). Not having seen any evidence of significant short-covering, I'm left wondering what more bad news is coming. I think that there may be too many FGH investors left who have only been looking at one number on earnings estimates. When they figure out their error, FGH could be in for another nosedive. Looking at Yahoo research gives a 1999 EPS estimate of $1.05 and a 2000 EPS estimate of $1.01. Those numbers are down from $1.43 and $1.20 90 days ago. But it gets worse. The First Call details give the estimates as: FY '99 average: $.83 FY '99 range: $.45 - $1.17 FY '00 average: $.84 FY '00 range: $.55 - $1.20 I don't know what is in the numbers as far as effects of the merged operations and changes in the number of shares outstanding. But holding FGH at a forward PE of 10 and waiting for a pop is a lot different than holding it at a forward PE of 20. If $.45 and $.55 are good numbers, we're going a lot lower, IMO. What would make the numbers so bad? I'm wondering about the new ship yard. Are they doing any work there now? If it's not busy, aren't we going to be looking at a great big depreciation expense hitting the books and little revenues to cover it? And I wonder how the above plays into the Ocean Rig situation. Which yard is building those two rigs? FGH is seeking reimbursement for direct and indirect costs and overhead. If there is no significant other work going on, are the cost accountants piling all the costs onto the Ocean Rig projects? And is management trying to hide behind the OR dispute as the cause of the poor Q3 EPS? Is the increase in capacity from the new yard, which came on line near the beginning of the oil crash, the real culprit? If there are big losses from depreciation in store, maybe that has something to do with why FGH "needed" HLX so badly...double the number of shares out there so the loss per share is half as much! I hope I'm all wrong about this. But as long as the enormous short position stays around, I have to keep wondering why it won't go away when all the longs think that all the bad news is already in the stock. Paul