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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (13843)	7/16/2001 4:08:02 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 34857

NOK Jitters? Nokia ADRs fall to 2-year low on sales jitters NEW YORK, July 16 (Reuters) -- American depositary receipts of Finnish telecommunications equipment giant Nokia (NYSE:NOK - news) hit a two-year low on Monday because of investors' concerns over slowing handset sales. The ADRs closed down $1.13, or 6.2 percent, at $17.17 after falling earlier in the session to $16.92 for the first time since late May 1999. They were the most actively traded shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Henry Herrmann, chief investment officer of Overland Park, Kansas-based Waddell & Reed, which oversees assets of $40 billion, said Nokia ADRs were hurt by a Deutsche Bank research note indicating sluggish initial sales of the company's new GPRS handsets and by fears of declining overall sales by all handset makers. Handset sales forecasts ``have been coming down all year,'' Herrmann said. The Deutsche Bank note also predicted that Nokia will set the bar low for the next quarter when it reports earnings on Thursday. ``Given limited visibility and the need to re-build investor confidence,'' Deutsche Bank analyst Bruce MacDonald wrote, ``we expect management will ensure that Q3 2001 EPS guidance is conservative in these uncertain times.'' Henry Asher, portfolio manager of Northstar Group, which has more than $100 million in assets under management, said worries ``that European demand has really fallen off a cliff'' may also have hurt Nokia shares. Companies such as Nokia and rivals Ericsson , a Swedish telecoms equipment maker, and Chicago-based wireless technology giant Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT - news) are in ``a long valley'' because of diminished forecasts of handset sales, he said. Asher said handset sales forecasts that last year stood at 600 million units have been cut to 400 million as predictions of ever-expanding wireless features proved excessive.