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

To: Tony Viola who wrote (95764)	1/12/2000 10:21:00 AM
From: Tony Viola	Respond to of 186894

Oops, I see that Peck is still somewhat bearish on Intel. Pretty good debate possibilities among the analysts, but do we care? I guess I did say that Niles counts. Maybe some day they'll all go the way of the dodo bird. Tony

To: Tony Viola who wrote (95764)	1/12/2000 10:47:00 AM
From: Ben Antanaitis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Tony, Did everyone miss, or perhaps care about: Reality Check: Not Everyone Thinks Intel Will Report a Banner Quarter By Herb Greenberg Senior Columnist 1/12/00 6:30 AM ET URL: thestreet.com So Robertson Stephens analyst Dan Niles was pumping up Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) yesterday and the stock jumped a few points. Just remember there's another side to the trade. Because although Niles is high on Intel, the opposite is true of Bill Fleckenstein of Fleckenstein Capital and Fred Hickey of the High Tech Strategist newsletter. Both are known as longtime bears on technology, which means they're often dismissed as "permabear" crackpots. Take a closer look, though, and Hickey's forecast that PC sales would slow down has materialized (albeit later than he thought); ditto for Fleckenstein's forecast last October at the Contrary Opinion Forum in Vermont, where he said Intel would miss its third quarter (which it did). Now both think that, based on publicly available information, "it's almost impossible for Intel to make the estimates that the analysts have laid out," Fleckenstein says. (Intel is expected to report after the close on Thursday.) And it's not just because Advanced Micro Devices (AMD:NYSE) appears to have finally gotten its act together, with the win of several significant contracts away from Intel. Intel's customers appear to be having problems, as are PC resellers and distributors. Last week, Gateway (GTW:NYSE) disclosed that its fourth quarter would miss analyst estimates. "How can every one of Intel's customers have problems and Intel not have a problem?" Fleckenstein asks. He's also predicting that Dell (DELL:Nasdaq) is likely to miss the quarter by a few pennies and, at best, be flat from the third quarter to the fourth. He has similar forecasts for Hewlett-Packard (HWP:NYSE) (which he says for the very first time didn't give out order rates during an early December conference call) and IBM (IBM:NYSE). "Wall Street thinks that now that we're past Y2K, corporate America will start buying all over again," Fleckenstein says. "But they already have what they need, and those that do plan to buy will wait until Windows 2000 comes out and is stable." All of that affects Intel, and Hickey wonders whether anybody has been paying attention to Intel's growth rate. Earnings in the fourth quarter are expected to grow by just 7% over the prior year's fourth quarter, with forecasts of a 7% gain in the first quarter vs. the comparable first quarter a year ago. And revenues this year are expected to grow at around 9%. Yet the stock's trading at 41 times earnings. What if they're wrong? What if Intel meets or tops the forecasts? Fleckenstein and Hickey don't think that will be the case, but if it is, they bet the reason can be found somewhere on the balance sheet. We'll know soon enough. Ben A.