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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (61269)	1/10/2000 2:38:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Qualcomm's Bubble Pops Stock Slides, But Analysts Bullish On Vision By Monica Alleven Qualcomm's meteoric stock bumped into a black hole last week even though little changed inside the company. The firm's volatile stock had consistently blown away analysts' price targets last year in a mind-boggling 2,400 percent stock rise. But it fell victim to last week's broad Nasdaq technology skid, losing more than $17 on Tuesday. Was the bubble finally bursting? Maybe in the short term, but bullish analysts weren't swayed by first-of-the-year stock gyrations. Chairman and CEO Irwin Jacobs' brainchild is destined for greatness, and analysts say CDMA will blanket the world. In fact, the long-term outlook–five to 10 years–focusing on a mix of intellectual property rights and chip set manufacturing is why so many analysts and certain investors placed their bets on Qualcomm in the first place. The San Diego company gets royalties from manufacturers that use its technology. CDMA will be used in third-generation wireless systems. In sum, “3G is CDMA,” and “CDMA is Qualcomm,” says PaineWebber analyst Walter Piecyk, whose bold $1,000 pre-split per share price target created a stir in late December. Qualcomm sold its infrastructure division to Ericsson last year, a move welcomed by investors. Now the firm is selling its money-losing handset division, leaving the company to focus on its brain power: technology licensing, CDMA chipsets and systems software, satellite-based systems and new wireless data products. Risky? Sure, but many analysts say Qualcomm is probably headed for a cushy landing and a long-term climb. “Qualcomm has great fundamentals,” with an expected five-year earnings growth rate at more than 50 percent, says Mark Roberts, First Union Securities analyst who upped his price target to $215 early last week. Several of Piecyk's competitors say privately that his aggressive target ($250 after the 4-for-1 stock split Dec. 30) was designed to generate headlines rather than provide new insight after the “heavy lifting” had been done by a dozen or so other analysts who had come before him. But Piecyk says the report was just part of expanding his wireless coverage since he started making recommendations in 1996. His goal was to get the report out by the end of the year, and its release was delayed by the early arrival of his newborn son Dec. 6. Nor are his assumptions overly aggressive, he says. Analysts differ on the logic of a $1,000 price target. Then again, every time it looked as if Qualcomm's stock had topped out last year, it would make another quantum leap. Without the stock split, Qualcomm shares would have been in the $500+ range last week–already more than halfway to the moon, with no black holes in sight.