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Non-Tech : YEAR 2000 STOCK PICKING CONTEST -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JSB who wrote (90)	12/24/1999 9:22:00 PM
From: jung, haeoh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1146

My pick for the Nasdaq is MRV Communications (MRVC). Started by three Israeli professors at Caltech in the early 1990's making fiberoptic components, then branched into low-end LAN products. The stock crashed from the $mid-20's to $6 last year due to the unforeseen rapid softening of the low-end LAN product market. But, MRVC has been incubating many (at least 7) high-tech start-ups in the hottest sectors of the already-hot networking industry and is planning to IPO the original fiberoptic division, thereby more or less declaring their intention to follow the CMGI-like model (now being followed by ICGE). All the start-ups will eventually be IPO'ed as well. Their products have won numerous awards and have probably the best specs within their categories. The stock has come all the way back from $6 to $50-$60 this year, easily passing its old-high of $40 this month. A report came out 2-3 months ago (Van Kasper) detailing MRVC's start-ups in various incubating stages and setting a 12-18 month target price of approx. $40 (if my memory serves me right), which is now obviously history. The more recent report from them set a 12-month target price of $166. Their original report set a long-term target price of approx. $300 but their recent report essentially said that the $300 looks like an underestimate now. Rumor has it that Merrill Lynch (who doesn't cover MRVC yet) has an internal report essentially setting the same target price of $160. There is ample evidence that institutions have been accumulating this stock, sometimes keeping the daily spread wide enough to discourage buying by retail customers. I started following the stock in '95 when the Investors Business Daily carried 3 articles about MRVC in a short period of time and have owned the stock ever since, adding to my position along the way, which I must admit has been nerve-wrecking from time to time. I caution potential investors that this company is very hard to understand because of their numerous divisions and start-ups and the management is not especially adept at keeping their shareholders informed. Every year I keep thinking "MRVC will prove me right this year", but have been forced to wait--until this year, that is. Finally this year, things seem to be falling into right places and MRVC seems poised on the cusp of greatness. Haeoh