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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (33636)	9/2/2000 10:09:20 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 57584

Wireless giants comparison: VOD selling at 25 x revenues PCS selling at 10 x revenues NXTL selling at 8 x revenues AWE selling at 6 x revenues VZ selling at 2 x revenues What is wrong with this picture?

To: American Spirit who wrote (33636)	9/2/2000 10:41:04 PM
From: Sharck	Respond to of 57584

VZ, value play yes AS.

To: American Spirit who wrote (33636)	9/3/2000 8:47:13 AM
From: Softechie	Respond to of 57584

VZ One thing the streets don't like is unions. However it's a great hold for value play and rising inflation market. Here's an excerpt from the Barron's article for next week. Union membership is growing now, as it usually does in times of prosperity. Only good times create the shortages of labor that give unions leverage; only good times make businesses so profitable that they can expand without worrying too much about pay rates. Despite organizers' rhetoric, unions are a pimple on the backside of prosperity, not arteries for the fair and efficient distribution of wealth. Consider the example of Verizon, the former Bell Atlantic combined with the former GTE. To settle a strike, it recently granted large pay increases, limited overtime and gave its unions special privileges to organize wireless phone workers in the former Bell Atlantic territories without elections. Even in a service industry that can continue to provide its product without most of its work force, Verizon concluded that it could not afford to alienate customers in need of maintenance and new installations. The owners of the capital employed in the company may agree with the managers, but they should also recognize that they are bearing the real cost. Unions are one reason why Verizon shares sell at a price/earnings ratio of about 13, while non-union communications companies trade at up to 100 times earnings. And Verizon, which has a reputation for especially poor relations with its unions, sells at a four-point P/E discount to BellSouth and an 11-point discount to SBC. Simultaneously with the settlement, Verizon and Vodafone pushed forward with plans for an initial public offering of stock in their Verizon Wireless joint venture. It's unclear whether the IPO will affect the union's efforts to organize the wireless workers; the wireless company's initial SEC filings list unionization as one risk factor.