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Technology Stocks : Net Perceptions, Inc. (NETP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bernieb2 who wrote (2876)	10/1/2000 9:37:08 PM
From: Carl R.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2908

Exactly. As I posted on Yahoo, if they couldn't do better than a 50% range with one day left they should have waited for the quarter to end before announcing, and that way they could have estimated revenues pretty closely. If I were going to write a recipe for what to put into an earnings warning it would be: 1. An accurate assessment of where the company is at the current time. 2. Some explanation of why the shortfall occurred, even if the excuses are broad such as weakness in Asia, or to the rising interest rates making businesses reluctant to spend money. 3. Some forward looking statements about how they intend to address the situation even if the statements don't really say anything of substance. 4. Some indication that management has the situation under control and has confidence in their ability to deal with the problems. What not to include: 1. A statement that the company has no idea where they are at the current time (i.e. "revenues ranging from $6 million to $9 million."). 2. A statement that the business plan won't work in today's business environment (i.e. "...the new realities of the marketplace"). 3. A statement that the company really has no idea why the numbers are bad. (i.e. "We're evaluating and analyzing the reasons the company fell short.") I'm sure they could have done worse, but I don't know how. My idea of how they should have handles it would have been to wait until tomorrow (when they knew the exact number), then do a pre-market warning such as: Our sales were tracking well early in the quarter, but the combination of poor market conditions in Asia and Europe and high domestic interest rates caused a reluctance on the part of buyers to close big new commitments in September. As a result of these problems our sales will fall short of expectations, and revenues will be about $7.4 million for the quarter. We are very concerned about the shortfall, and we are examining every aspect of our company to make sure this doesn't happen again. We believe that some of the big deals which we had hoped to close prior to the end of the 3rd quarter will close in the 4th quarter." Of course the company would still have been pummeled in the market, but probably not quite as severely, and it would have definitely bounced sooner and stronger. Given the current release I for one am reluctant to add to my position because I'm don't think management has any idea where they stand and what they need to do to fix things. Carl