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To: jjkirk who wrote (5422)9/28/2000 1:37:12 AM
From: jjkirk  Respond to of 13572
 
Extracted from The Bull Market BioTech Investor

1. COMMENTARY

The Nasdaq Exchange seems like a boxer that begins each round with a
refreshed feeling yet ends each round with buckling knees. Even though
the Nasdaq Composite has been poised to open higher most mornings,
investors have been selling into the strength. Blue chip high tech stocks
have been taken out one-by-one and that has negatively impacted their
respective sectors. Today, Priceline.com (PCLN, $11, down 8) warned of
poor revenue growth and that contributed toward Yahoo's (YHOO, $90, down
12) steep decline and many other stocks in the Internet sector. Some
investors and analysts have stated that mutual fund managers are selling
their losers in order to get those stocks off their books -- otherwise
known as "window dressing". Perhaps this is what's going on to an extent,
but there are many stocks that are becoming quite inexpensive.

The Biotechnology sector has fared pretty well in comparison to the major
market averages. The Nasdaq Biotech Index (^IXB) is up 3% in the past
five trading sessions while the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 indices have
declined 4.5% and 1.5%, respectively. For the month of September, the
Nasdaq Composite has dropped 13% and the Nasdaq Biotech index has declined
4.5%. A possible reason for the strength of the sector may relate to the
gains that investors hold, especially in the large-cap stocks, and the
favorable outlook for the industry. If fund managers have gains in
Biotechnology stocks, then there's less need to sell those securities for
window dressing purposes. In fact, money managers might wish to purchase
stocks in the Biotech sector. Money managers and investors are confident
that companies will be successful in bringing more drugs to market.

Analysts have been stepping forward lately to give their recommendations
on Biotech stocks. For the most part, their opinions have been positive.
Last week, Prudential Securities had very positive things to say about
Myriad Genetics (MYGN, $79), Tularik (TLRK, $32) and a few other Biotechs.
This week, Salomon Smith Barney provided more conservative projections
with Outperform ratings and price targets on Millennium Pharmaceuticals
(MLNM, $148, target $155), Applied Biosystems (PEB, $113, target $135) and
Celera Genomics (CRA, $99, target $114). The price targets do not
indicate much upside potential for these shares in the next 12-months.
Salomon also attached a neutral rating and a $67 price target on shares of
Affymetrix (AFFX, $54). That may have served to depress shares of
Affymetrix on Tuesday. On Wednesday, UBS Warburg established a Buy rating
on Affymetrix and a 12-month price target of $95.

Finally, with respect to the decline in stock prices, it is important to
differentiate between declines caused by market factors and those caused
by company-specific factors. With Biotechnology stocks, investors need to
have a long-term vision as companies cannot bring new drugs to market
every six months. Most Biotechnology stocks ran up to very high market
values earlier this year before moving into a steep correction. Many of
the better and bigger companies have seen their stocks fully recover and
establish new all-time highs. If the investment community considered
Biotech stocks as high-risk investments with little promise of drug
discovery, the sector would not have been able to bounce back from its
decline in April.

It is worthwhile for investors to consider whether the "story" has changed
for their Biotech holdings or whether the company is failing to move
forward with its technologies and developments. With respect to trading
activity, it is useful to monitor the volume of shares traded. When stock
prices decline on little volume (in comparison to the average daily
volume), then that typically implies that investors are not eager to
purchase shares. However, that is a lot different from investors wanting
to dump shares, as in those cases, the volume is typically great. So, it
is useful to discern whether upward movements in price are associated with
greater volumes than downward movements in price.


..........

Todd Shaver
Editor in Chief
The Bull Market Report
Washington, DC USA

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To: jjkirk who wrote (5422)9/28/2000 1:53:21 AM
From: jjkirk  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 13572
 
From Raging Bull Ciena Board

ragingbull.altavista.com

By: tomcat08 $$$$
Reply To: 9902 by hjekel $$$$
Wednesday, 27 Sep 2000 at 6:14 PM EDT
Post # of 9915

Invesco wary of 3G auction fallout
Fund manager cuts holdings in mobile equipment makers

By Bernard Hickey, FTMarketWatch 9:52:00 AM BST Sep 27, 2000

LONDON (FTMW) – The fund manager at one of the top-performing U.S. telecommunications funds says he’s wary of buying
Europe’s mobile telephone equipment makers because of the heavy costs of third-generation (3G) licences in Europe.

The high spending raises concern that the telecoms operators may be forced to skimp on 3G infrastructure, or depress demand
for handsets by charging high prices to recover the auction outlays, says Brian Hayward, the manager of Invesco’s
Telecommunications Fund [US:ISWCX]

“The auction process has made the market concerned,” Hayward told FTMarketWatch in an interview.

He referred to comments by Ericsson about how high 3G auction prices could damage demand for infrastructure and handsets.
See story

Hayward manages more than $4 billion worth of stocks in the Invesco fund, which has returned 95.5 percent in the year to the end
of August and an average 65.6 percent a year over the last 3 years.

It ranked first out of 10 telecoms funds in the last five years, according to fund analysts Lipper.

Heavy auction costs

Europe’s major wireless and terrestrial telecom companies, including Vodafone [UK:VOD], Deutsche Telekom, [DE:555750] [DT]
Telefonica [TEF], France Telecom [FR:013330] [FTE] and British Telecom [UK:BTA] [BTY], have already paid a total of about 86
billion euros ($75.5 billion) for 3G licences in Germany and Britain. They have raised their debts and are selling off units to fund the
licence spending.

Their share prices have slumped since the auctions.

An Italian auction due to be completed next month is expected to cost about 35 billion euros more.

Nokia holding cut

Invesco has already reduced its holding in Finnish handset and infrastructure maker Nokia [NOK] and is not a big holder in
Ericsson [ERICY].

Concern about the 3G spending was a factor in the big falls in the share prices of Nokia and Ericsson after their mid-year results.

See story on Ericsson’s results. See story on Nokia’s results. See Goldman’s view on pressures on Ericsson’s position.

There is also a danger the telecoms operators will not be able to provide the content to fill their 3G networks once they are built, or
that the capacity will go unused, Hayward said.

Risk of 3G flop

Hayward pointed to the lackluster response to WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) services introduced in Europe over the last
year.

WAP is a less sophisticated way to access the Internet and has not been as successful as many had hoped in its European
launches because of slow download times and relatively sparse content.

“There’s still a risk ahead of us that all that capacity that we will have when the third generation is deployed will go unused,” he
said.

“We may not see the ramp up in services that has everyone so excited about what is happening in Japan.”

The explosive growth in NTT DoCoMo’s [NTDMY] i-mode mobile Internet service in Japan over the last year has helped boost the
European auction prices.

I-mode is now the world’s second-largest Internet Service Provider behind AOL [AOL], with 12 million customers to AOL’s 23
million.

Stick to infrastructure

Hayward said Invesco wanted to take advantage of the rapid growth expected in use of the Internet through wireless and
telecommunications networks.

But Invesco does this by buying telecoms infrastructure plays, in particular those linked to growth in optic-fibre networks and data
storage networks.

It’s top ten stocks are currently dominated by networking and fibre-optic equipment groups like SDL [SDLI], which is merging with
JDS Uniphase [JDSU], Corning [GLW], Nortel [NT] Ciena [CIEN], EMC [EMC] and Juniper Networks.

Most of these investments are U.S.-based, but one European stock Hayward has been watching lately is France’s Alcatel
[FR:013000], which has transformed itself into a telecoms equipment maker.

Invesco has invested relatively less in telecoms operators.

Telekom ‘flowback’

It holds Vodafone and will hold a stake in Deutsche Telekom, although this is linked to the impending swap of Invesco’s
Voicestream shares for Telekom shares. Deutsche Telekom is buying Voicestream as it aims to boost its U.S. wireless
presence, but does not have a substantial terrestrial presence in America.

Hayward said many U.S. fund managers would sell down their Deutsche Telekom stakes once they received the stock.

“A lot of that stock is going to go back to Europe,” he said.

This expected sale of Deutsche Telekom stock back to European institutions is known as “flowback.”

See more information on Invesco Telecommunications fund