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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (9347)	11/29/2000 12:13:10 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Mike, "What is happening? Delusional thinking about growth prospects are being rationalized. So what else is new? Barriers to growth are being discovered. 61% female illiteracy in India. 78% female illiteracy in Pakistan. 3 billion human beings existing on less than $1 per day in income. But that is old. That's existed for a while. But the star-struck among the Telecosm incognescenti are just now coming to grips with these realities. The rest of the world wants/needs to get connected worse than the US. So? If wishes were horses beggars would ride. And illiterates have no use for chatting on the Internet. They have need for birth control alternatives. The Communications Industry Is Not Dead No, but how many times can you sell the same service to the same customer at declining prices and get any respect in a stock market that asks only one question: "What have you done for me lately?" $270 billion and rising. It's not the direction, its the change in the rate of change that counts. Think derivatively. Second orders of calculation. The telecom world is crashing, according to the game as the snake oil crowd concocts it. For you to be sanguine in the face of this, and be in denial, is going to be detrimental to your net worth. Don't fight the tape. Ciao, Ray

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (9347)	11/30/2000 2:21:37 AM
From: axial	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi, Mike - Sorry for the late response; heck, you can't leave this thread for a night or two without gaining three hours of reading! Catching up on the trialogue between you, Ray and Bernard, a few thoughts. First, as to the general economic indicators, and an overview of 'What's really happening': I think we are, to some extent, reflecting the self-confessed inability of even Mr. Greenspan to accurately assess the state of the economy. We are necessarily working from trailing indicators. A subjective corollary to that is the fact that whatever is happening, it certainly eludes the old classic definitions of the economic cycle from recession to boom. That definition was based on an approximate 60 month cycle, and contained within it certain classic signs and steps, including the rise of unemployment, rise of interest rates, peaking of stock prices, etc. However, I think the intervention of central bankers in economies, and the tinkering that allows the so-called 'soft landing' has caused a fuzzier picture to emerge, with corresponding uncertainties. I recently posted a tongue-in-cheek question to Ray: if you can manufacture a 'soft landing', why not manufacture a 'soft recession', to wring some of the (perceived) excesses out of the markets? While I don't believe that is the case, it certainly is true that the Fed's return to a tight money policy is affecting many industries, and we are seeing the preliminary stages of many of the phenomena that are indicative of a recession, in the old model: deflating values on the markets, increasing bankruptcies, tightening of credit, etc; again, we all know the signs. Again, though, employment remains stubbornly high, as does capacity utilization. A lot of contradictory evidence. Personally, I sit somewhere between Ray and Bernard in my outlook. I certainly agree with you, Mike, that psychology has played a major role in the plunge of telecomm valuations; OTOH, both the markets and the sector had reached unsustainable valuations. But Bernard's comments and Ray's have this in common: that the eventual re-injection of liquidity by the Fed will be the first sign that an upturn can begin. The question will be whether the pilot has begun the landing flare-out too late. In the meantime, expect some failures, some serious consolidation, and the triumph of those players who have good, viable plans, access to cash, or both. Concurrently, the development of many of the models for the future of both the internet and telecomms will proceed, albeit more slowly. I think it will be a year before we'll get new bets on who the winners will be, and those winners will be dictated as much by prudent business plans as by technological wizardry. Assuming that we are holding stocks with some promise, the choices will be to hold, or sell at a loss: the sector is unlikely to regain strength soon. The bloom is very much off the rose. Regards, Jim PS - If you can (I've lost the URL) check into the figures on Fidelity's rotation out of high-tech: it's astonishing