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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Senior who wrote (8790)	1/25/2000 12:25:00 AM
From: Don Hess	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Art, Paul, Betty, Aus, Thread - As I read your comments on analysts I was expecting/hoping for a buy side/sell side comment or two to pop out. For those unfamiliar, brokerage house analysts are split into two teams, the buy side and the sell side. The names are misnomers. One never hears the opinion of the buy side analysts, these are the people making recommendations for the financial health of the company and its shareholders. The sell side guys are the pundits that we read about and listen to in the media. They "sell" their opinions to the world. Cynics tend to believe that the sell side folks are shackled by intentional time delays. Why recommend to clients that they buy XYZZ until after the buy side guys have already scooped up shares at lesser prices for the benefit of the company? Then, the sell side recommendation can just add icing to the cake. Of course, sell-side hatchet men do just the reverse, recommending a short long after the buy side people have already sold short the same issue. PHD's or morons, experts or not, I fear the "analysts" not because of their depth of understanding, but because their opinions aren't without bias toward their employer's interests. As this regards SanDisk, the buy side folks may well have been on board at $17. That we don't hear from the sell side people until it is at $100 is predictable, and a shame. - Don

To: Paul Senior who wrote (8790)	1/25/2000 8:51:00 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Respond to of 60323

Paul, those are very good observations. When a stock takes off and LATER ON gets a strong buy recommendation, it's symptomatic of analysts getting caught in a momentum frenzy and preferring that route to one which identifies intrinsic value. The intrinsic value in SanDisk is in its patents and its skilled (and honest) management -- something very hard to find in abundance in most companies. Some analysts will acknowledge these characteristics, but at the same time they fail to understand how to quantify them. That's why a company selling at what some would consider outlandishly high prices may or may not be all that high. I think SanDisk fools a lot of analysts who fail to recognize that intrinsic value. Art