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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ruffian who wrote (6935)	8/8/2000 2:33:31 PM
From: A.L. Reagan	Respond to of 34857

Nokia finds some love By Paul R. La Monica Redherring.com, August 08, 2000 redherring.com The recent downturn in big wireless stocks suggests that investors have suddenly lost their connection. Nokia (NYSE: NOK)'s stock plunged 25 percent on July 27th, after warnings of lower-than-expected earnings, and has continued to drop. Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERICY) has lost more than 23 percent of its value after saying on July 21 that its handset business would lose money this year. But the Street's assault on cellular stocks seemed to mystify attendees at last week's San Francisco Money Show, a gathering of mutual fund managers, newsletter writers, and individual investors. "Nokia is a screaming buy right here. Wall Street took it down for no reason," said Patrick Dorsey, director of research for Morningstar. Mr. Dorsey was one of several speakers at the conference to express their dismay at how Nokia has fallen so far so fast. WIRELESS WASHOUT It's true that investors haven't had much to cheer about in the wireless sector as of late. In addition to the warnings from Nokia and Ericsson, a Lehman Brothers analyst issued a report last week that said Motorola (NYSE: MOT) told suppliers it would produce fewer handsets than expected, although this did not have a huge impact on Motorola's stock. But all this seemingly bad news has caused many investors to wonder if the wireless boom is coming to an end. In the wake of the earnings warning, seven Wall Street firms downgraded Nokia, a move that certainly accelerated the sell-off. But while many Wall Street firms were bailing on Nokia, several speakers blamed Wall Street analysts for setting expectations for Nokia and other cell phone companies too high in the first place. To many at the conference, Nokia seemed to be yet another example of how a company riding a huge wave of momentum and positive sentiment can be hit particularly hard, even on the slightest negative news. And that could present a buying opportunity. William Keithler, manager of the Invesco Technology Fund, said that although the earnings warning surprised him, he did not see it as a reason to sell. "I don't see Nokia's leadership role changing. This is a hiccup that is slightly disappointing, but Nokia's not in danger," he said. EXPECT A BIG FOURTH QUARTER Others investors said they think Nokia is positioning itself for a healthy fourth quarter with a host of new product offerings, including higher-priced Web-enabled phones. Michael Murphy, editor of the California Technology Stock Letter, said he expects Nokia naysayers to be surprised by what will turn out to be a strong fourth quarter. "People talking about the end of cellular are wrong," he said. "Tech is seasonal, just like toys. The fourth quarter is always big." Nokia Investor Relations Manager Bill Seymour echoed this sentiment when he gave a presentation about the company to investors. He told a crowded room of attendees -- many of whom were Nokia shareholders -- that the fundamentals for Nokia and the cell phone industry at large had not changed for the worse. "We are in a product transition period," Mr. Seymour said. "We are going to lower prices on older products and take market share. We will ramp up in the fourth quarter with higher products." TRASH TALKING Mr. Seymour was clearly irritated by the huge sell-off in Nokia stock -- at one point he said he was amazed that so many professional investors could behave in such a rash fashion, even though they were educated at the nation's finest business schools -- but he made an effort to joke about the stock drop. Toward the end of his presentation, he showed a slide picturing Nokia's stock chart for the last year. Superimposed on the chart were the words "38% OFF SALE!" Nokia that day happened to be 38 percent off its 52-week high. Will the Street reconnect with Nokia? Only time will tell. But if the fourth quarter turns out to be as strong as many at the Money Show predicted, investors may regret not getting in at these levels.

To: Ruffian who wrote (6935)	8/8/2000 4:29:00 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Respond to of 34857

I've met a lot of whining scripting language writers in their late teens, some which thought they were hacks after a couple of dos batch files and making attempts at visual basic. Some then turned to drag-and-drop web page design and importing, positioning their favorite gif and jpg files, a masterly move in an expanding market. I guess it is too much to also ask them to check the settings of their phone, SMS or Data for WAP, as well as make a call to their operator asking for local Data support. (even if internet information said some operators in India don't support SMS-messages, a niece spending some time there was able to do SMS messaging to Finland almost every day from som 10 different locations, even on the train from to Bombay, which was fun) After that demanding task the hacks could of course remember to figure out how to query what phone visit their site and do some testing (for example the same hacks who open their html pages as full screen and open another at every close command). Anyway, I'm doing banking, getting news, checking my (finnish) investments,etc on the 7110, have not yet had a urge for selling so that is untested. But the service is similar enough to the desktop version that my brother's wife accessed her accounts at first try with some help from her kids on the navigator roll and how to fill in the password-code. That is, that WAP-designer used the wrong symbolic representation for when to advance to numerical input mode compared to selecting items from a menu. She additionally had the standard problem of finding out how to "get back to where I went a moment ago", another thing needing a more intuitive system in desktop browsers. But it is fantastic how things speed up when going from the appr. 300bps, 160 byte SMS-channel to 9.6kbps streaming data when transfering some 321-600 bytes of text and commands(when the local operator supports that) That is, I decided not to make any consumer behavior testing on myself, since I've been doing electronic banking since the early 80s in and to Finland, from all over the world. It is pretty incredible how it now becomes more and more common in USA as well as UK for the individual, not just for larger corporations. Ilmarinen. p.s. To keep the "personal identification" target and avoid age discrimination: This winter I plan to take some time to have my ageing (80) godmother start to pay her bills with a 7110, good when her doorstep, yard is covered in snow with a possibility of ice beneath. (she insists on paying every bill herself, to not use any automatic billing from her account) Btw, she already likes the 7110 display and the predictive text-input, easier for her to write me and her kids and grandkids text messages. (but at that age one needs to have one's time to get used to the idea of replacing things, probably some association with too old versions in the market and beeing forced to part from them, like when the old refrigator reached the limits of refrigator age)