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Technology Stocks : PMC-Sierra (PMCS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ibexx who wrote (3032)	1/12/2000 9:18:00 AM
From: SJS	Respond to of 3818

Ibexx, They're in my IRA account. Even though I can trade it with tax impunity, I try not to time things. The last time I tried to time something last November, Soros bought a boatload of JDSU, and I got called with the stock over 50 points higher than my strike price. I try to let my winners run with lots of Digel on hand, if need be. I just keep thinking that if I trust managements guidance, trust the research I've done on the sector, and trust numbers I see, then I'll re-evaluate all of those if conditions warrant. Nothing here is new for you, I am sure, but I felt the same way when I bought (for holding) my first lot of JDSU (then called UNPH), or took my first dive off a diving board as a kid, or my first "hold your breath" underwater swim, or...... Regards, Steve

To: Ibexx who wrote (3032)	1/12/2000 11:36:00 AM
From: AMF	Respond to of 3818

Hi Ibexx, PMC-Sierra is a U.S. company, not Canadian. It doesn't even trade in Canada on the TSE...just happens to be located in the high-tech belt in BC. (I tried to buy it for my RSP but it would pushed my foreign content over the allowable limit, thanks to our bizarre regulations. Best Regards

To: Ibexx who wrote (3032)	1/12/2000 11:55:00 AM
From: John Farrell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3818

A history lesson for Dr. Ibexx on PMCS (formerly SERA) First Off, Sierra Semiconductor, which changed it's name to PMC-Sierra about 2-3 years ago, started within 25 miles of Ibexx's beloved Intel in the early 1980s, I think it was in 1993 when Sierra Semiconductor bought PMC-Sierra, at the time a very, very small company. In 1996, there was a dramatic shift, as the internet build-out really started getting strong momentum, Sierra Semiconductor restructured from a ASICs shop that had about 15% of the 28.8/33.6kbps modem market (chief competitors Rockwell (now Conexant), Lucent, US Robotics (now 3Com), and Cirrus Logic) and about 4-5% of the graphics accelerator business (chief competitors S3, Cirrus Logic, ATI Technologies (now there's a "typical Canadian company" for ya)). Both of those markets were very cutthroat business which didn't allow for the explosive profit potential that the ATM/Sonet business did. Note: Cirrus Logic, a much larger company at the time, also got out of both the modem and graphics accelerator businesses (as well as about 5 other graphics accelerator companies folding up, with 3dfx Interactive and nVidia popping up as stars as the shift to 3D happened). Sierra Semiconductor didn't have any of the former Silicon Graphics employees that were the key architects at 3dfx and nVidia, nor did they have any 56kbps plans for modems back as x2 and k56Flex were in the works. I know this as I was an employee at Sierra Semiconductor (in San Jose) until mid-1996. To quote Dr. Ibexx: "The inherent volatility of PMCS has kept me from owning PMCS as a core holding. Too bad it can't escape the fate of a "typical" Canadian stock." Last I checked, PMCS was still an American company (incorporated in Delaware) and reports it's earnings in US$, not CDN$. If going from $31 at the start of 1999 to the 1999 close of $160 is too volatile to be a "core" holding, I feel bad for Dr. Ibexx. "I have been trading this issue involuntarily, but how I wish I could just hold the shares and forget them." As a comparison to some of Dr. Ibexx's beloved "core"-hold-them-and-forget-them (mostly) hardware holdings, here are one, two and three year comparison's with PMCS (which has handily outperformed them all). 1 year (approximately) siliconinvestor.com 2 year (approximately) siliconinvestor.com 3 year (approximately) siliconinvestor.com Of course, one of Dr. Ibexx's core holdings, QCOM, kicks PMCS's butt, but it's 1999 run-up was one of the most spectacular single stock performances I've witnessed, so we know he can handle some "volatility". grin -John