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To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (72624)	2/27/2001 8:09:15 PM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Joel: I'm always too "early". (g) Kidding aside, it is going to be very difficult for Louis this time around. Here are a few sample reasons. - The comparisons are going to be tougher this Q. - The market looks like it is not in a mood to ignore bad numbers, disappointing numbers or non-growth numbers. - Most of the businesses in which IBM is heavily involved have been suffering inventory hangovers and saturation. Tough for any one company to skirt these generic kinds of problems. - Louis has played every darned accounting card known to man. A nasty scene tends to develop when reality catches up with this sort of chicanery (CPQ and GTW come to mind as examples). - IBM's current PE is based NOT on a level of expected or perceived growth (there has been none for many quarters), but on the migration of tons of fund dough to a "safe harbour" stock. Fund managers know that all their confreres are doing likewise and that the flood of dough in and of itself will keep the stock price in LA-LA Land until the final dance is at hand. Unfortunately, many party guests have already been carried out,..... er,..... departed and the party is winding down. - The massive debt-driven stock buybacks helped levitate the corpse, but cratered the balance sheet in the process. Today's market is much more aware of and concerned with such matters. - Several other former "untarnished darlings" succumbed incredibly quickly to the market's wrath once the cosmetics wore thin. IBM is likely to tumble even faster once this process commences,..... especially once the accounting excesses see the light of day. It is known that certain divisions are in serious trouble. It will be difficult for the company's more successful divisions to overcome the drag of their wounded brethren. Best, Earlie