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Strategies & Market Trends : Market Gems:Stocks w/Strong Earnings and High Tech. Rank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andrew G. who wrote (93245)	4/13/2000 6:43:00 PM
From: Roger Schelling	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 120523

Andrew: I for one like the concept of that last post. Here are a few that seem to have 'de-coupled' from the normal flow the last 6 weeks. I know very little about most of them though, so there ya go. How comfortable can I get trading them? ADBE VSH DTL DABR BBY CMX PVN CC BFCI DTL MGG MEAD FWIW Roger

To: Andrew G. who wrote (93245)	4/13/2000 9:17:00 PM
From: Jenna	Respond to of 120523

Excellent post Andrew.. That is exactly what seems to be happening.. No matter how single stocks stand out, if one stock 'fails to have spectacular earnings' the entire sector, or what's worse the entire nasdaq takes the brunt of this punishment.

To: Andrew G. who wrote (93245)	4/13/2000 9:43:00 PM
From: Scrumpy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 120523

NEW YORK, April 12 (Reuters) The party was fun, but wooooooh! -- the hangover. Tech stock excesses seen fueling U.S. market rout (Reuters, 04/13/2000 20:05) By Eric Auchard Investors who started the New Year giddy with forecasts of an impending spending boom on Internet technology appear to have uncorked the champagne too soon as the eye-popping gains have gone flat amid a broad-based rout of the sector. And while individual stocks could come back as they report better-than-expected quarterly results this month, analysts warn the sector has far to fall to wring out recent excesses, even if demand for technology remains undiminished. "My view is that stocks are probably going to be rough for a while. I don't think it's going to be a quick bottom," said Steve Milunovich, chief technology analyst at Merrill Lynch. "We are going to have days where we are going to get rebounds, but on the whole, I am still a bit cautious in the near term." What went wrong at a party that held so much promise? Technology analysts and fund mangers blame the trouble on the wild-eyed valuations investors gave to newly public "dot-com" stocks that reached flood-tide levels in the fall. The huge gains for the Internets brought a general laxity about how to measure the performance of tech companies, even the more established players, spelling trouble as upward momentum in the sector dissipated over the past month. Renewed concerns that personal computer software bellwether Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) would report lackluster results next week sparked the latest sell-off on Wednesday. That added to last week's disappointment over the software company's failure to settle the government antitrust case against it, which cut 30 percent off the price. Still, Microsoft is just one of many excuses for investors looking to pull the plug on technology stocks -- first selectively, then sector by sector and increasingly across the boards. From the peak of the share-buying spree in mid-March -- when the technology-driven Nasdaq composite index was up 24 percent on the year -- the market has reversed course and turned negative. It is now down nearly 10 percent from Jan. 1. And the sell-off is not limited to the new crop of dot-com companies, most of which have yet to show a penny of earnings amid the expensive race to establish a brand identity on the Internet frontier. Many of these stocks are more than 50 percent off their recent highs. Indeed, the pressure has spread to semiconductors, communications and personal computers -- companies with real earnings and revenues. Their vulnerability reflects stock prices that are inexplicable by any traditional measure -- valuations derived in part from the afterglow of Internet excitement. Major names in technology stocks such as Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) and Dell Computer Corp. (NASDAQ:DELL), which had held up well in recent weeks relative to smaller firms, have been dragged down with the rest in the last few sessions. Wall Street pros compare plunging technology stock prices to "catching falling knives" under current market conditions. Technology analysts and fund managers complain that the increasingly sharp selling waves seen in recent weeks on the Nasdaq stock market are fueled by emotion, not fundamental analysis or changes in the outlook for technology businesses. Janet Ramkissoon, a technology fund manager with Quadra Capital, a New York investment boutique, said solid companies had been unfairly tarred by "dot-coms" that put off running profitable businesses as they slip in secondary stock offerings that dilute the value of the stock of existing shareholders. "There has been too much complacency by investors just rubber-stamping opinions of sell-side analysts. Wall Street should be more responsible about picking apart the valuations," she said. Such financial shenanigans extend beyond Internet firms to a wide range of technology stocks, she said. As an example of the continuing excesses in the market, Ramkissoon offers as an example the earnings report of Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS), which on Wednesday took a massive $177 million charge to write off the value of employee stock options. The "one-time" mostly non-cash charge was more than 10 times the revenue reported by the high-flying maker of computer memory technology, she noted. "It is time to step back and look at balance sheets and companies with tons of revenue and real earnings," she said. "Rambus revenues are skimpy. ... This just stretches every definition of reasonableness." Ramkissoon distinguishes these from companies in her fund such as software maker i2 Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:ITWO), Dell Computer Corp. (NASDAQ:DELL), chip equipment maker KLA-Tencor Corp. (NASDAQ:KLAC) and communications chip maker Altera Corp. (NASDAQ:ALTR). Investors once could not own enough of anything e-commerce, business-to-business or Internet infrastructure. Now they are turning away from many such companies, as hyped-up business plans hit up against the new-found aggressiveness long-established retailers, manufacturers and industrial conglomerates. The party mood turned increasingly uglier in the past month amid signs that many recently public Internet firms were already cash-strapped. Many would need to flood the markets with still more stock to fund operations, further delaying already distance promises of profitability. Meanwhile, hundreds more initial offerings were waiting in the wings, and so sapping demand for existing shares. In a sign the deluge may be ebbing, SciQuest.com Inc.(NASDAQ:SQST), a business-to-business distributor of life sciences products, said on Wednesday it had withdrawn its plans to sell additional shares, citing unfavorable market conditions. It said it had enough financial capital to conduct operations into the future and that company management and other insiders had no incentive to sell new stock at current depressed levels -- at least 80 percent below its record high. Copyright 2000, Reuters News Service Companies or Securities discussed in this article: Symbol Name NASDAQ:KLAC Kla-Tencor Corp NASDAQ:ALTR Altera Corp NASDAQ:MSFT Microsoft Corp NASDAQ:RMBS NASDAQ:DELL Dell Computer Corp NASDAQ:CSCO Cisco Systems NASDAQ:ITWO I2 Technologies NASDAQ:AMAT Applied Materials