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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave who wrote (59743)	7/12/2001 2:33:11 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 74651

"I thought this was common knowledge by now since I've been pointing it out every quarter for over a year..." Do you really think anyone is listening to your mistaken rants? "The Earnings Per Share figures are the most important numbers, because those are the ones that your average retail investor looks at, and are the ones that the TV analyst/cheerleaders look at when figuring out the P/E." I disagree. Analysts & smart investors look further than the P/E and EPS. I've seen MANY cases were the EPS is beat and the stock goes down because of what is in the report and what the guidance is. Even MSFT has gone down, even though the all important EPS was beat and the investment income reported as income (as it should). If they do as you claim and only look at EPS then they are idiots. They should look at the full report and listen to the conf calls. Otherwise they should stay in mutual funds. You said: "Microsoft has lumped its investment gains in with its operating earnings" You still haven't provided any validity to that statement. Nice try though.

To: Dave who wrote (59743)	7/12/2001 2:38:40 PM
From: Exacctnt	Respond to of 74651

All I am saying is that MSFT reports their income statements with both operating earnings and net income. The analysts choose to look at the numbers that correspond to what they base their estimates on. If there is unusual activity (losses or gains) they will isolate those numbers and determine if their forcasts took into account those events. If they determine that they are one time events and have no future bearing on operations, then they may or may not react. Your beef with how analysts react to earnings is with the analysts not MSFT. To portray MSFT as being dishonest with their reporting, is ridiculous.