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Technology Stocks : Softbank Group Corp -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michelda who wrote (4903)	4/21/2000 1:03:00 PM
From: Netwit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6020

Malcolm and Michelda: Malcolm, I appreciate your hunt for objectivity and I agree we were dancing ourselves over a cliff in February with our unrestrained zeal. Surely this thread needs your voice. I don't always agree with you, but I love your raw honesty. But I think there is a role for everyone on the board and Michelda's role to me is that of the "muse" to the writer--playful, mischevious, undisciplined and fun. Welcome back Michelda--I missed you.

To: michelda who wrote (4903)	4/21/2000 1:33:00 PM
From: Seeker of Truth	Respond to of 6020

Michelda, you've backed up some of your points quite well. Thank you. What you say now makes good sense. The institutions have dumped it before March 30. They don't buy back now because of the recent panic over Hikari and the U.S. Nasdaq. They will buy it back sooner or later. When they do so the brokers will one after the other start recommending it, first because the institutions may control or have good relationships with the brokers and second because the buying by the institutions is a signal to the brokers that it's time to get into the stock again. If we divide 50 billion dollars by the number of shares of Softbank outstanding, i.e. 110 million we get about 460 dollars which is in the same area as the stock price, I'd like to add a different point of my own. The old economy in Japan is really quite sick. What else is there to buy in Japan except the new economy stocks? There isn't a Merck or a Walmart there. Take a look at Sony, which in many ways is a great company. But the return on equity is small. A very knowledgeable Japanese friend and I were talking about the promising companies in Japan. We mentioned Toyota, Kyocera and Softbank. The list was kind of short. In other words, what else is there to buy?

To: michelda who wrote (4903)	4/21/2000 2:35:00 PM
From: Edwin S. Fujinaka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6020

Michelda,...I've always sensed that you had a rational basis for much of your optimism about Softbank. The thing I like the most about this SI Softbank Board is that there is a lot of factual discussion and analysis and less of the hype that you see on Yahoo for example. I'm pleased to see you backing up some of your predictions with some basic logic applied to some facts as you've just done here. BTW, I just checked the Softbank Site and they are showing a market capitalization for Softbank's listed stockholdings as 3,414.8 Billion Yen. That works out to around $293 for each share. When I originally bought in, Softbank was actually selling below the value of their listed holdings. I realize that there is the bond debt to consider as well as taxes if Softbank should choose to sell off some of their holdings, but the $293 is a nice number to have in the back of your mind when you are considering buying some of the parent companies shares. A couple of days ago when Softbank was at almost $400/share it would be easy to argue that the price was very low. At $540, I still agree that the price is low especially with the split in view. If a Nasdaq Japan listing translates into a vehicle to trade directly on Nasdaq in the US, we should see another increase in interest and perhaps a little more analyst support.