To: wlheatmoon who wrote (893 ) 4/25/2000 12:31:00 PM From: John Pitera Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Does Microsoft Really Have Reason to Be This Gloomy? "Maybe the real story is: why does Microsoft (MSFT) want to knock its stock down?" So started a lengthy email from Michael Murphy of the California Technology Stock Letter, in response to my question late Sunday night: "What's your take on Microsoft, now?" The "now" referred to his recommendation to buy Microsoft two weeks ago after the company warned of a weaker-than-expected third quarter. "They're lying," he wrote back. "Again." He went on to say he was "shocked" to see Cramer's comments, in his initial Microsoft conference call column, say, "I have never heard this company talk down earnings before." "It does it EVERY TIME," Murphy says. "It brought the whole sector down in July '99 and July '98 by forecasting sharp slowdowns in its business that never happened." (He says he went to 100% cash in his newsletter on July 14, 1999, because he expected Microsoft to forecast slow growth on the conference call.) "A simple review of its quarterly conference calls for the last four or five years," he continues, "will show its forecasts are almost always lowball and usually are WAY wrong. It will say its revenue growth is about to slow when it is about to accelerate. It will say PC sales look weak right after Intel (INTC:Nasdaq - news - boards) has said they look strong -- and Intel turns out to be right. Maybe so it can show the government that Microsoft is not really the monopoly it's being made out to be because its stock has nearly been halved from its high? Hey, in this wacko world, stranger things have happened.
