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Strategies & Market Trends : Technical analysis for shorts & longs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (35653)	12/26/2001 9:20:20 PM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69284

Stock Picks Revolve Around Worldcom By Bob Beaty 12/26/2001 09:50 AM EST Well, the back of this year is in sight and I doubt anyone will lament its passing. Back in January, legions of loyal readers sent in their picks for their favorite stocks and strategies for 2001. As I'm sure you'll recall, the hands-down winner was Bernie Ebber's diversified communications fiefdom known to all as Worldcom (WCOM). Surprisingly, while it wasn't a barn burner, it held up quite well over the year, all things considered. And now I'd like your picks again, but that call to action will come a little later. For now, let's take another look at Worldcom. On Jan. 3, 2001, First Call/Thomson Financial had a consensus rating for Worldcom at 2.2, or a "moderate buy." It sits there still, even though the consensus earnings estimate for the year has dropped to 72 cents a share from $1.16. The price of Worldcom back then was around $15. They're right around that level again, now. Analysts were projecting 12-month targets of between $22.50 and the low $30s. And don't look for a big bump in 2002 -- the consensus earnings estimate is 64 cents a share. But then, the $1.16 figure from January proved less than prescient, so the jury's still out on that, too. For those keeping score, Worldcom earned $1.41 a share in 2000. No Hit, No Harm To be fair, in mid-January 2001, just before the wheels came off just about everything, Worldcom did trade at $22. It spent the rest of the year retracing that spike, hitting $12 around 9/11. Even through various reports forecasting the demise of Worldcom, it turned out to be, if not a positive return for the year, a stock that did no harm -- a winner given all the other tragedies and travesties out there. Put one in the win column, gentle readers, as sometimes no hit, no foul is as good as a homer given the rest of the field. The year that was 2001 is closing on an odd note. We spent most of the year deflating any vestiges of the dot-com bubble, tripping over landmines with ubiquitous earnings warnings and sector collapses. Then, in the last quarter, when things looked worse than anyone could have predicted, the markets rallied -- and while we're not on the plus side, at least we have a modicum of strength. Searching for Change The big-tech camp, including IBM (IBM) and Microsoft (MSFT) have fared the best, with some icons of the past excesses, such as Amazon.com (AMZN) and Yahoo! (YHOO), looking perky. The fourth quarter is basically a write-off (pun intended) as sympathetic investors overlooked bad news based on 9/11. The first half of 2002 could be the most interesting period in a decade as we see whether rate cuts continue to kick in, economic stimulus gets adopted or abandoned and the recession goes out with a whimper or a bang. The crappy fourth-quarter-earnings "honeymoon" is over and now the task will be to separate the wheat from the chaff. Once again, the time has arrived for your picks -- long, short and in between. Should we dive in and if so, into what stocks and/or sectors? Is Worldcom still a world-beater? E-mail me and let's open 2002 on a consensus note. Even though the terrain looks rough, there must be, just like last year, pockets of profit. Bob Beaty writes about technology stocks for worldlyinvestor.com. He worked for 20 years in the brokerage industry, in both Canada and the UK. Now primarily Internet-based, he has written extensively on stocks, bonds and market-related issues for a variety of Web sites. He doesn't hold positions in any of the companies mentioned.