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Technology Stocks : Network Associates (NET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: semi2000 who wrote (5946)	12/29/2000 4:38:37 AM
From: Don Earl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6021

semi (off topic) The only one on your list I'm familiar with is RDRT. It's been quite awhile since I looked at it and to be honest, I was a little surprised they're still in business. That may not be true by this time next year. After a quick look at the profiles on the others, and without digging into SEC filings, MLIN looks to have the strongest balance sheet of the group. It might be worth calling their IR department to see if they can give you some idea on how much SG&A and R&D was associated with the recently sold business unit. If the cash burn isn't too bad going forward, it might be a good one. BWAY looks to have done an acquisition recently which probably accounts for the high book with most of it being goodwill. I'd probably look for stronger cash positions than what I saw on most of the others. Not bad bad, but not good good either. As a rule of thumb I like to see enough cash to last several years assuming a burn rate comparable to the trailing 12 months, low or no debt, and with good prospects of profitability within 6-9 months. I'm leaning real hard toward B2B e-commerce and IT consulting companies at present. Y2K pretty much shut down IT spending in the last year, but I think it's going to pick up steadily in 2001. The absurd valuations placed on anything dot com and anything e-commerce in the not too distant past was way over done, but I think that's where the growth is going to come from. I wouldn't be surprised to see a fair amount of consolidation over the next several years and the ones that do well will be the companies that treat it like a business rather than free money from IPOs. I suspect the January effect will pretty much hit techs straight across the board, but in a lot of cases it will probably be a dead cat bounce rather than a turnaround. There are so many bargains out there right now that you can put together just about the most absurd wish list imaginable and still have to get picky to narrow it down to half a dozen good companies to do some serious DD on. You might want to take a look at the Value Investing board on SI: Subject 10036 It's probably a more appropriate forum for discussing a variety of stocks and there are a number of regulars over there who really know how to get down and dirty with SEC filings and analyzing value. There is a bit of a tendency to hype one's own portfolio over there and I don't always agree with some of the picks, but over a period of time there's a fair amount of good investment information on the board. Sometimes not so much in picking a particular company but how to look at a company in the first place. All IMO, and like the man said, "We must be near the bottom, we're running out of chart." <g> Good luck.