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Technology Stocks : MACROVISION -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (150)	7/31/2001 10:21:25 PM
From: afrayem onigwecher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 201

``Buy into the weakness,'' said P. Sterling Auty, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, Tuesday July 31, 2:22 pm Eastern Time Macrovision shares drop after guidance maintained LOS ANGELES, July 31 (Reuters) - Shares in content security firm Macrovision Corp. (NasdaqNM:MVSN - news) dropped nearly 20 percent on Tuesday, as more aggressive investors sold out of disappointment that the company did not raise its financial guidance for the second half of the year. The drop from the start of trade took Macrovision shares to their lowest level since mid-April. It was the largest single-day loss in percentage terms since early January. Phil Leigh, an analyst at Raymond James and Associates, said that aggressive traders were getting out of the stock because the company maintained previous guidance in announcing quarterly earnings on Monday rather than raising it. He said that there were likely two causes behind the investor uncertainty: the company's statement on Monday's conference call that sales cycles are lengthening on its line of licensing management products, which make up 30 percent of sales, and decreasing shipments of digital set-top boxes for cable and satellite, which brought down the company's revenues from securing pay-per-view broadcasts. Other analysts said the drop opened a buying opportunity for longer-term investors. ``Buy into the weakness,'' said P. Sterling Auty, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, in a recorded voicemail message this morning. He gave three reasons: the company's diversification of revenue, its market position in the digital content protection industry, and a belief that Macrovision's system for preventing unauthorized CD copying will become the industry standard. Shares of Macrovision were off $10.86 at $50.71 in active, choppy afternoon trading, after earlier dipping as low as $48.75. Tuesday's decline extended a slide that began in after-hours trade on Instinet Monday, when the stock fell $3.67 at one point to $57.90. ``I don't think there's a simple answer'' as to why the stock is down, said Ian Halifax, chief financial officer for Macrovision. Macrovision, which is the leading provider of content security systems for videocassettes, DVDs, and software, reported pro forma earnings on Monday of $10.4 million, or 20 cents per share, ahead of the average Thomson Financial/First Call estimate of 18 cents from a survey of seven brokers, and up from $8.3 million, or 16 cents, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenues for the second quarter were up 12 percent over the prior quarter and 38 percent over the year-earlier period. On a net basis, though, including amortization of goodwill and deferred stock compensation as well as charges for impaired investments, earnings fell to $5.1 million, or 10 cents per share, from $5.6 million, or 13 cents, in the year-earlier period. Many other stocks in the content security sector were up Tuesday, including gains of more than 7 percent for Internet Security Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:ISSX - news) and CheckPoint Software Technologies Ltd. Those stocks have been helped by the media and government attention to the ``Code Red'' Internet worm, which experts have warned could slow Web traffic to a crawl. biz.yahoo.com