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Technology Stocks : JDS Uniphase (JDSU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sam who wrote (9368)	4/22/2000 2:18:00 PM
From: JMD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24042

sam, that's an interesting observation: "IMHO, it wasn't only Microsoft's woes that brought this most recent decline in the NASDAQ, it was the heated "land grab" competition bewteen ORCL, ARBA and CMRC and the ability of the "old-line" companies to take advantage of that competition." In our version of Family Feud, my son and I are locked in endless debate over the Old and New Economies. Call me zany but I can't for the life of me see WalMart just rolling over and handing the keys to the retail kingdom to some 24 year old with a web site. Safeway is supposed to start shaking in their boots cause WebVan's bringing tomatoes to the doorstep of some dot.comer? I don't think so. If WebVan and those guys prove out an alternative (and profitable) grocery distribution channel, then Albertson's and Safeway will just say "thanks for pointing that out", buy a few jillion delivery vans, jack up their web site, and promptly put WebVan, et.al., out of business, or at least that's how I see it. The Internet Revolution Phase One is over (perhaps stock market historians will mark its offical end as 4/14/2000). Now we begin Phase Two which might be described as The Revenge of the Old Economy. Maybe these guys were asleep at the switch, and maybe they didn't "get" the Net. Hell, Bill Gates writes a book just 5 years ago pontificating about our techno-future and blew the whole concept. So, with all due respect to the Gen X and Y ers out there, kudos for the wake-up call kids--now sit back and discover just how powerful entrenched and profitable enterprises with worldwide distribution networks are. From a stock market perspective, it will be kind of a bummer to watch the casualties from the first wave of the net roll in (how many web sites do we need to sell Alpo for bow-wows? gimme a break). But while 4/5 of them are slipping quietly under the waves, the tools and concepts they pioneered will be integrated into the "old" economy with enormously beneficial effects. Productivity will continue to improve at an historically outsized pace, and the heightened competition from vastly more efficient supply chains will keep a lid on prices. Real wealth is the ability to make more with less, and this I believe is what the Internet offers. We will soon be able to measure and prove this in real dollars and cents, instead of just viscerally 'feeling it' as Greenspan and others have alluded. It just won't happen till Chapters 2 & 3, and the market got way ahead of itself thinking the Promised Land had already arrived, signed, sealed, and delivered. Throw in a little greed and money lust, and we had ourselves the start of a pretty good bubble. I'm praying most of the air has been let out of the balloon already, with not too much left. The ringer is margin debt, IMO, and if folks have borrowed against their houses and 401Ks to buy stock, then the downside could be significantly greater. Otherwise, this is a very strong economy that looks likely to get stronger which I anticipate will be reflected in the stocks of profitable companies. regards, mike doyle