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Technology Stocks : THQ,Inc. (THQI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: OGM who wrote (13142)	2/9/2000 9:23:00 PM
From: Raymond James Norris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14266

OGM, I expected criticism from my posts. Let me reply... You're kidding, right? Are you proposing that TA is a better long term predictor than actual performance? This statement doesn't make sense. First, TA is not a predictor of anything: either in the short or long term. People get caught up with what they've read somewhere and dismiss TA without understanding what it measures or tells us. So your point is mute; TA doesn't predict anything. Second, performance, or perhaps better stated "earnings," is the true driver of a company's stocks success. I agree with that; there's no question about it. However, it is not possible to know this performance before it is known in the market. Therefore it is difficult to capitalize on unless we're buying leaders for the long term that we know have superior management, business model, products, service, etc. Now, Technical Analysis doesn't predict prices but it does tell us what other people know. They have to buy and sell to profit from any information and that buying and selling is manifested in stock charts. The weakness in the price chart on extraordinary volume tells me something important: someone who owns a lot of shares knows something that isn't good about THQI. You can't convince me that a bunch of mutual funds or institutions happened to sell their shares on the same 2 days (don't forget yesterday's major reversal sign). I'm assuming you're not just a short, and your being earnest. If so, how does TA and charts outweigh the performance of THE BUSINESS ITSELF in determining price long term? First and foremost, I am not short. I don't short stocks for religious reasons. Second, this statement demonstrates the same fallacy of your first one. (1) TA doesn't predict and (2) actual performance cannot be known before it is released. Therefore long term investing hinges on investing in companies that show consistency. Dont think CSCO trades at $130 because of its recent earnings. Instead, it trades at that price because of future cash flows. The examples you mention (CSCO, MSFT, etc) are great examples of companies for which TA is of no value in the long term -- people want to own those companies because the managers of the business deliver superior results, dominate their industries, and have great balance sheets. CSCO, MSFT, SUNW, and other leaders demonstrate strong long term chart patterns. Believe it or not, their long term charts show strong buys. You see, TA can be applied to any time frame: seconds, minutes, days, weeks, or months. By simply adjusting the time frame the bars represent, we can evaluate anything for any time frame. You state that TA has no value for long term winners like these. Not so. Let's take CSCO to demonstrate. You can draw a long term trendline beginning on 10/3/1990 which continues to hold today. CSCO is a leader; it hasnt broken this 10 year support line. Institutions have supported it and continued to support it. Now, THQI had a 5 year uptrend line which it broke last week. This is different from CSCO. Institutions are no longer supporting THQI at the same rate they were in the past 5 years. That means something fundamentally has changed. It makes no sense that they would support it several times during its bull run and stop now for no reason. Of course, you will charge back this is all hocus pocus and worth nothing but a grain of salt. And that's fine; the truth is never easily bearable, especially when your money in on the line. But, if you insist on complicating your life by focusing on things other than the intrinsic value of the business This shows you are shifting the discussion away from the facts. I am not complicating my life. I hold no position in THQI and am quite happy, thank you. My long term portfolio has monopolies and leading tech companies that I know will continue to grow; not small caps that are showing considerably distribution. Of the many things that the managers of this company are guilty of, delivering fantastic products and great shareholder value are not among them. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters. Actually this isn't true. A small joke in the buy side of institutions is what is a billion dollar company worth if no one wants to buy its shares? Answer: nothing. Great products are great, but they don't mean anything if no one wants a piece of the company that makes the products. That's what is happening with THQI. The fundamental front is beautiful. But people are selling shares. And I don't know why and honestly I don't care. I'll find out later when the news hits the wire. Why else were 500k shares sold by insiders in November - conveniently right as THQI made its top at $39? Conservatively Yours, Raymond J. Norris

To: OGM who wrote (13142)	2/9/2000 9:25:00 PM
From: Apakhabar	Respond to of 14266

I just received a call back from Mary Garrett while writing my previous post. The gist of what she said: 1. The meeting was not a "conference" call. Each of the four analysts was called separately. I asked if BF spoke with anyone from a hedge fund (i.e. Chanos or Rocker) and she said no. 2. No information on whether or not THQ has rights to making XFL games. THQ's legal team was looking at it. 3. No information on how many Smackdown! units will be initially shipped. 4. The JAKK arrangement (she did not want to be specific about the numbers) is similar to an author's advance/royalty schedule: JAKK gets a guaranteed advance. They also get a royalty for each unit sold after the advance is covered. But as more and more units are sold, this royalty decreases. 5. The company expects to grow by 20% this year. She said the company liked to talk about what they "expect" to sell as opposed to what they "hope" to sell. First quarter comparisons will be difficult because of last year's blowout of WCW product. 6. To her knowledge no game releases are going to be pushed back in 2000. There is "a good buzz" about Summoner and new Rugrats and Scooby-Doo games will coincide with movie releases. All in all she sounded very upbeat but I was bothered by her statement that the company did not feel they had to release the precise details of the JAKK agreement. She said the company didn't feel that all information regarding their alliances was material and that it probably would not be in the annual report. That sounds very wrong to me so maybe I misunderstood her (but I don't think so). Maybe someone can ask her the same thing. PS. OGM... The point about TA is not that it "wags the dog" but that it is supposed to indicate changes in the fundamentals before these changes are made public.