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To: SecularBull who wrote (31676)	2/22/2001 10:06:21 AM
From: edamo	Respond to of 65232

loffy...."ntap growth guidance" it's obvious that the "perception" of growth in companies like ntap has drastically changed....you own or desire to own the stock, the price of which is determined by future perception and current tangibles. the current tangibles of the overall economy weigh heavy on the future projections of growth. not to say ntap is not attractive at this level, but to reiterate it would be more attractive after it bottoms and bases...downward momentum continues until it reverses.....most high value/pe stocks are still in this mode....i would avoid any issue that is at or near a new low....too much risk...

To: SecularBull who wrote (31676)	2/22/2001 10:29:52 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Who Moved Brocade's Cheese? By Don Luskin Special to TheStreet.com 2/22/01 8:30 AM ET Is the stock market efficient? Lord knows it's not orderly, it's not simple and (lately) it's not much fun. But is it efficient? If the stock market is efficient, what are we to make of the action in Brocade Communications (BRCD:Nasdaq - news - boards) -- and the way its stock traded around its earnings report after the bell Wednesday? The stock of the industry-dominant maker of fibre-channel switches for storage-area networks closed at 44 7/8 Tuesday. A day later, it closed at 44 11/16, just 3/16 lower on the day. But during the day, it traded as high as 50 3/4 -- up more than 13%. Then came the earnings report. The headline was good: Brocade beat the earnings consensus by a penny. Beat the revenue consensus by several million. But then CEO Greg Reyes and CFO Mike Byrd started talking. And all of a sudden, we were back in the John Chambers of Horrors. Reyes said, "Short-term visibility has never been more opaque." And Byrd said, "We're seeing the effect of a softening economy." A Chain Reaction They guided second-quarter revenue to flat from the first quarter, down from an expected 18% sequential growth. Boom! Suddenly Brocade was trading in the night session at 36. That's down 19% from the close -- and down 29% from Wednesday's highs. If you're the guy who just paid 50 3/4 for Brocade and you're looking at Broke-cade trading at 36 just a few hours later, you're probably not thinking the market is really efficient. Or is it? I think it is. I think it's efficient the same way a mouse in a maze looking for cheese is efficient. It madly scurries this way and that, always sniffing for new information that will lead it to its goal, constantly changing directions as the scent shifts. It looks like total chaos. But the mouse knows exactly what it's doing: It's doing the best it can with the information it's got at the moment. The stock market isn't inefficient just because some investors turn out to be wrong. Every trade has two sides, so billions of wrong decisions are made every day. The person who bought Broke-cade at 50 3/4 was wrong, but the person who sold it to him was right. Schizophrenic maybe, but perfectly efficient. And the stock market isn't inefficient just because prices change all the time. Sure, every time prices change, all previous different prices are thus declared to be wrong. But the most recent price is always, by definition, right. Try proving it's wrong! If Broke-cade is trading at 50 3/4 and you think it should be trading at 36, too bad. At that moment, you have to pay 50 3/4 if you want to own it. If Broke-cade is trading at 36 and you think it should be trading at 50 3/4, too bad. If you want to sell it, you're selling it at 36 no matter what you think is right. No Holes in Theory Now, I know that's not the way it feels sometimes. If you sold Broke-cade at 50 3/4, you're probably smacking your lips right now, gloating about how right you were and how wrong the market was to let you sell it there. But you are part of the market, part of the collective sensory mechanism of that scurrying mouse. If you were right, then the market was right, too -- thanks to you! The fact that you sold at 50 3/4 kept Broke-cade from getting to 50 7/8 -- and then when more people sensed what you sensed, they moved the stock lower and lower -- all the way down to 36. So your being right at 50 3/4 helped to efficiently move the mouse closer and closer to the cheese. Now, at 36, you have the chance to help the efficient market be right again about Broke-cade. Maybe it's a steal at 36, and you should buy it here. As one of the mouse's sensory organs, an A.G. Edwards analyst quoted Wednesday said, "[I]t's selling at 60 times earnings -- that's for a company growing the top line by 130%. The P/E is half the growth rate." Or maybe you should sell it here. As part of the mouse-mind, maybe it's your role to worry about the lack of visibility on the next quarter. Maybe you can keep the mouse from walking into the trap wrapped around that cheese. These are crazy times in the market maze. The cheese is moving around all the time. The winds carrying the scent are constantly shifting. But a few good mice are going to get to the cheese, even if some of the others are going to get their noses dented from running into the walls. It's a great game. An efficient game. And it happens to be the only game in town. thestreet.com BRCD said looking for 100% y2y growth.

To: SecularBull who wrote (31676)	2/22/2001 10:53:19 AM
From: im a survivor	Respond to of 65232

<<Except that NTAP management recently reconfirmed growth guidance.>> I would have felt better had they lowered the bar....even if they feel they will kick A$$. First, why not take advantage of this time when you are beaten down and everybody else is lowering the bar and it is expected......then, once that bar is lowered, it is only going to make the numbers more achievable to gain and possibly blow the numbers away........Personally, I am weary that they didnt lower guidance...they are setting some lofty goals in a very odd economic market and how many companies have we seen paint a rosey picture one week only to warn or miss their numbers the next week...as if they didn't know when they were painting that rosey picture..............JMO