Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Trader who wrote (49042)	7/10/2001 11:20:32 PM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

>>For example, am I right that the internet is a truly fantastic technology that is just in the early innings? << IMO, yes. But the traditional media isn't going to tell you so. They have a long history of following, not leading trends. Internet bashing is hip, so they'll prove they can bash with the best. Not only that, but traditional media has a lot to lose if/when the Internet takes off. Their business model is built on scarcity: buying a printing press is expensive. Running a TV or radio station is expensive. Running a web site is so ridiculously cheap that literally anyone can do it, right down to a homeless person using the public access terminals at the library. The barrier to entry is zero, and most of traditional media hasn't figured out how to deal with that environment. Katherine

To: John Trader who wrote (49042)	7/11/2001 1:12:54 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

No, I wasn't just speaking about the trash (most of those stocks are well on their way to zero). I meant the quality companies, the survivors. I was speaking of valuations (PE, P/S, P/CF), not stock prices. Sooner or later, AMAT will go above its 2000 high stock price. Probably not in the next upcycle, maybe the one after that. But I doubt I ever see AMAT at a P/S of 10 again. The only way a thing like that can happen is in a market bubble, where everyone has become a momentum investor. By 2000, every mutual fund manager who paid attention to valuations, had been fired, because he had underperformed the Irrationally Exuberant managers, for years. This has been a truly epochal event. The aftermath from these events is so painful, it scars an entire generation of investors. Once we are all dead or senile, our children or grandchildren will repeat our recent mistakes. But not till then.

To: John Trader who wrote (49042)	7/11/2001 3:25:04 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 70976

OT re NTAP: I'm making a bet on the storage hardware sector, and after studying it, I can't decide who the clear winner will be, EMC or NTAP. EMC has the size and the brand, and their customers are in better shape. NTAP may (just may) have a discontinuous innovation, that does to EMC what Wintel did to IBM. Both of them, IMO, will continue taking market share from the server companies (who are also into storage, but don't focus on it). When it becomes clear to me whether NTAP or EMC will win, I will switch all my holdings into that one. I prefer to hold only the single best company in each sector (actually, in each value chain), but, in this case, I'm not sure who that is. NTAP is riskier, but (if everything good that can happen does) has greater upside potential than EMC. Positives: NTAP has no debt, a pile of cash, hasn't done vendor financing, won't be writing off massive amounts of inventory. They have grown internally, not through making far-too-expensive acquisitions during the bubble. Negatives: In this downturn, profits have just about disappeared. Their customer base is heavy with dotbombs. But, once the macro picture clears (2002?, 2003?), profits could double each year for the following 5 years.