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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (94430)	12/21/1999 10:48:00 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Mary, first of all: Enough of my complaints. You have heard them all too often before. Au Contraire, we need to hear them. It's called objectivity, which a lot of us tend to sweep under the rug, instead always looking for good news. If you and I both can see that speed is very important, than why could not Intel see it? This confuses me. I thought you were complaining about Intel being a bit too preoccupied with the speed crown. Now you're saying why didn't they see speed as important. The Intel apologists (or bad behavior enablers) on this thread will tell us that it is not easy to predict revenues - because there are so many variables. Doesn't Cisco, Lucent, Msft, Yahoo, AOL, and others all have the same set of problems. Yet they always seem to meet earnings expectations. That's quite a mixed bag. The internuts are far, far more scrutinized for revenue growth than for earnings. Earnings are a nice to have but not primary. I know that the 2 you mention, AOL and Yahoo do have their minus earnings days behind them. Microsoft. What can you say about them. If ever a company could manage earnings...capital exp. near zilch except bricks and mortar; little competition. Nuf said. Cisco I think is now in the top 3 management-wise BUT THEY HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF AN INTERNET THAT'S APPROXIMATELY DOUBLING IN SIZE, WITH NO END IN SIGHT, EVERY YEAR. You or I could maybe manage that. Lucent is slammed every now and then, I believe, for top line growth. Just have a another minute here...tough things for Intel have been plummeting PC average prices people are willing to spend, and their need to be just the opposite of Microsoft re capital....humongous (hate that word) process and mfg equipment requirements (a reason I LOVE owning AMAT). Gotta run. Don't know if I said much. Tony

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (94430)	12/21/1999 12:01:00 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 186894

Mary, re: "How about explaining to us why they don't think it is important to meet earnings expectations" Managing earnings implies one of three things. 1. Guiding analyst expectations. I admit that Intel is not strong in this. The upside, to me, is that the brokerages, and their institutional clients cannot trade on selectively disclosed information. I believe Intel makes every change in it's guidance in public, so that everyone is on the same page at the same time. I perceive this to be small investor friendly. 2. Stuffing the channel or delaying shipments. I've worked for companies that would stuff the channels, or delay shipments at the end of the quarter to meet their numbers. I don't believe Intel does this. It's a lousy business practice, it strains relationships with your customers, creates spikes and valleys in your production that make things harder to manage, and generally distracts from a companies focus. 3. Accounting tricks. I don't believe Intel does this and would be disappointed it they did. As to your complaint about their not maintaining a MHz lead in processors, I agree. Maybe we both are naive, but you would think with their resources, they would be able to keep that important benchmark. When AMD takes the lead, it opens too many PR opportunities to the bad guys. But all in all, as a long term Intel investor and observer, I'm happy with the company. It has underperformed for the last couple of months, I expect it to outperform the market for the next year. Intel stock price will always, eventually, get back to it's fundamental value, and their behind the scenes actions will continue to raise that value (IMHO). John

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (94430)	12/21/1999 1:46:00 PM
From: Saturn V	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Ref- <The Intel apologists (or bad behavior enablers) on this thread will tell us that it is not easy to predict revenues - because there are so many variables. Doesn't Cisco, Lucent, Msft, Yahoo, AOL, and others all have the same set of problems. Yet they always seem to meet earnings expectations.> No! No! No! Mary, Cisco, Lucent, Msft etc do not have the same set of problems. The only uncertainty for these companies is predicting the unit demand for the next quarter. The ASP(Average Selling Price) and the Average Cost of Goods is very well defined. For chip companies, the Average Cost and ASP are in a continuos free fall. Unfortunately the exact amount of this decline is not exactly predictable. Lately the BTO( Build to Order Model) has aggravated the ability to forecast revenues and profits. For the last two years Dell and others place no long term orders(>30 days). They place the order and want the shipment tomorrow.[ Now this has caused a shortage since demand has exceeded forecasts]. Thus investing in a chip company requires nerves of steel. The market has always given chip companies lower earnings multiples because of the above uncertainty. The system companies have commanded higher multiples, because they have an easier time hitting their numbers. Over the years I remember companies like DEC, Data General, Burroughs,Polariod, Xerox,IBM,Kodak,Apple had a PE 2 to 4X that of chip companies. However an investment in Intel has been much more rewarding with a much lower multiple. The chip companies do much better long term, but are subject to significant short term volatility. Intel has the least volatility of any chip company. Thus focus on the long term. If you are comfortable with the long term, the few percent error in short term earnings should be inconsequential.