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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Phoenix who wrote (43216)	11/9/2000 1:03:30 AM
From: Stock Farmer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77400

Hook, line and sinker my friend. Bottom line, you, just like me and just about everyone else on the planet not in an asylum, will choose to believe who and what we choose to believe. In the case of your views diverging from those of your trusted management, you can safely fall back on the caveats and excuses management uses to render all apparent factoids simultaneously "legally accurate" and "meaningless". You can bet your bottom dollar the defense if a lawsuit is raised!!! But you must allow anyone else to behave similarly, or risk earning the label hypocrite. Let's dissect the response you posted - 10K fragment. In this case, there are two arguments presented. One deals with the applicability of the Black-Scholes option pricing model as an approximation to the cash value of an employee stock option - which is a legitimate argument (of sorts) because stock options don't vest immediately and aren't freely transferrable etc. However, this does not detract from the fact that according to management's most considered opinion, a standard option with such a strike price under such assumptions would have such values. Which leads remorselessly to a projected stock price. However, you could instead choose to look at the other argument "management" raises. This second argument is that the values management came up with are subject to "highly subjective assumptions". Duuh... like predicting the future spending of customers several order cycles ahead of time is any less "highly subjective". You find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place. You could assert that you are correct, and management also holds your view, but that management is deliberately choosing facts to misrepresent a distasteful reality, so that their estimated option compensation charge doesn't swamp earnings (at your projected price points, FASB-123 pro-forma would show negative earnings!!)... OOoh, this would not be discharging their duty. Hard to go there. You and management can't both be correct. Who's wrong? You could assert that management knows more about their business than any analyst - including yourself and revise your estimated stock price. Hard on the ego. You could assert that your estimate of stock price is more accurate than management's. But this implies that some amateur armchair analyst knows more about the company's value proposition than management. What's to say some other professional knows something they don't know too. But you can't have it both ways. And thus in answer to your question, it is only morally fair to allow others the same behavior you allow yourself. There are strange footprints in the market my friend. The rules have shifted and the vast majority haven't figured it out yet. John.

To: The Phoenix who wrote (43216)	11/9/2000 2:13:11 AM
From: Alidotr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

The Phoenix, There has been lots of talk about companies like CSCO and NT having a tough time going forward because of the financial problems with the CLECs. Do you think that this could provide an opportunity for a different type of CLEC or last mile provider to take advantage of the situation. I am one of those people that thinks that fiber to the home will eventually be deployed. I know of several power companies who have utilized their rights of way to put in fiber for longer distance applications, but don't these same power companies have the last mile right of way into the home? Is it possible that our power company may some day be our communications service provider? Pete