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Technology Stocks : Corel Corp. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Master (Hijacked) who wrote (8002)	12/10/1999 3:54:00 PM
From: Kip518	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9798

December 10, 1999 15:13 Corel shares sink as doubts, profit-taking, surface By Sarah Edmonds TORONTO, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Shares in software company Corel Corp. suffered a reversal on Friday as market players took profits and started to question the recent feeding frenzy for any stock linked to the Linux computer operating system. Corel shares were down C$12.40, or 21 percent, to C$45.50 at midafternoon on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The stock had been up C$6.50 earlier in the session. On Nasdaq, where Corel was the most actively traded issue, the stock sank 8-11/16 to 30-9/16 in turnover of 42 million shares. On Thursday, Corel closed at C$57.95, a gain of C$34.10, or 142 percent, from last Friday. Ottawa-based Corel has been squarely in the buyers' spotlight, as has any company on either side of the border that has been able to boast of any connection to Linux. Linux is an open-source operating system seen as a potential rival to the Windows system of market dominator Microsoft Corp . One trader attributed some of the selling of Corel on Friday to a segment about the company aired on CNBC in the morning that cited a November 29 report by Scotia Capital Markets analyst Ralph Garcea. In that report, Garcea pegged the one-year target for Corel at C$9 a share and recommended investors reduce holdings. The trader said that after the mention on widely watched CNBC, the stock tumbled so quickly that he was hard-pressed to sell into the decline. Corel fell to a session nadir of C$40.50 before midday before clawing back some ground. Lust for Linux shares grew to a fever pitch this week with the launch of two initial public offerings, highlighted by VA Linux Systems Inc. , which made the most successful debut of any stock in history. Shares in VA Linux, which makes computers that run the upstart Linux operating system, fell early on Friday after opening higher. On Thursday, the stock skyrocketed 700 percent from the offering price of $30 a share, a record first day of trading. Corel, which has an easy-to-install version of Linux for the desktop, is seen as a potential beneficiary of the wider adoption of Linux onto mainstream PCs -- which would give it a larger market for its other software products. But analysts are starting to question whether the move is overdone and those stocks that have been carried along by the Linux buying wave may get washed lower should the tide turn. "(Corel) is cheaper than the American stocks but none of these things are worth what they're trading for," said Duncan Stewart, fund manager at Tera Capital Corp. He added that while it is clear that many of the Linux-connected stocks have got ahead of themselves, there is no way to predict when reality will reassert itself. "Basically what you're looking at here is the total market cap of the eventual Linux winner five years from now will probably be on the order of $10-$20 billion," Stewart said.