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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SecularBull who wrote (5314)	11/16/2000 4:50:52 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Hi LoF, In that sense, is the newsletter more of a brochure for these companies than it is truly an objective piece? I've been reading Mr. Gilder's work for five years now and I found that for about 3 years he was able to take me, as a layman, and provide me with insights into technology that I could not find elsewhere. I am very grateful for this. In fact, the very first 'subjectmark' I had when I joined SI a little less than 2 years ago was the one we are on right now. In the last two years, I can't tell you how many hundreds of hours I've spent at SI, the EETimes, Current Analysis, CIR, RHK, company white papers, the COOK Report, the SMART Letter, LightReading, Bloomberg.com, Techweb, IEEE Spectrum, Wireless Week, Sounding Board, America's Network and dozens of other sources, trying to amplify the wisdom of a once-a-month 8 page newsletter. Let's just say the ratio is on the order of 300:1 non-Gilder to Gilder sources. There is a wealth of information that I have gathered over the past two years. And the one conclusion that I can categorically state regarding the GTR is that it is today vastly more fickle, biased and unhelpful than it ever was in the past. I have come to assume that the picks are made for two reasons. 1) promotional fees paid, as Mr. Crowe has just announced to the public in anger for the first time and 2) the ability of the GTR to goose stocks with the "Gilder effect". There simply is no question in my mind but that there are many truly great companies on the GTR list. But it is equally true that there are a greater number of similarly endowed companies that for whatever reason are not on the list. Why, for instance, is PRCM on the list and not NTAP, EMC or MCDT? This is too fickle a pick for me to give credence any longer to the decision making process going on in the Berkshires. It simply appears that we have someone picking favorites for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with inherent competitive advantage in the sector. To reiterate, Mr. Gilder at one time provided a valuable service to the investing public. Today, I can no longer feel this to be the case. Not in view of the seemingly capricious nature of the picks, and certainly not in view of the fact that Mr. Gilder's primary allegiance has to be to his biggest customers. One of whom happens to be Merrill-Lynch, every one of whose brokers has the exactly same access to the GTR that the typical $300 subscriber has. And I won't go in to the special "sessions" that Mr. Gilder has with the best of M/L's retail customers from time to time. Regards, Ray