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Pastimes : Home on the range where the buffalo roam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: freeus who wrote (5248)	1/2/2002 6:32:54 PM
From: Venkie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13815

qlgc and nvda were really cheap a while back but now it's too hard to tell...baby dell's.

To: freeus who wrote (5248)	1/3/2002 10:48:27 AM
From: jhg_in_kc	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13815

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. I OWNED THIS ONE AND SOLD TOO SOON. It's hard to believe, but Wall Street's big winner of 2001 was a technology stock. Nvidia Corp. (Nasdaq:NVDA - news), which makes graphics chips for Xbox (news - web sites), Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) popular game system, saw its shares more than quadruple, making it the year's best performer in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. Nvidia opened the year at $16.50, and then quadrupled to close 2001 at $66.90 -- even as shares of dot-coms, chip makers and telecommunications companies melted -- fueled by a strong video game market and its recent addition to the prestigious S&P 500. The Santa Clara, California-based company, however, hopes to avoid the fate of earlier winners. Nvidia inherits the award from Enron Corp. (NYSE:ENE - news), the once-darling energy giant now shattered by its murky finances. Opening the year at $83.13, Enron shares now trade at 60 cents, a drop of 99 percent. In 1999, the winner was wireless communications company Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq:QCOM - news), which rocketed 2,600 percent amid an inferno of optimism that eventually burned out virtually the entire sector. The stock now trades nearly 75 percent below its 1999 high, adjusted for a stock split, of $185.03. Qualcomm achieved a bit of infamy after failing to achieve one of the most bullish predictions of the dot-com era. A PaineWebber analyst said the stock would hit $250 a share, which, before a four-to-one split, was equivalent to $1,000. Widely respected among video game fanatics, Nvidia makes chips that churn data into realistic-looking video in game systems and computers. Its stock has succeeded even as the S&P 500 index dropped 12 percent. Nvidia has outperformed its customers, growing earnings in the third quarter by 60 percent despite the worst-ever slump for the semiconductor industry, which was ailing from overcapacity and sluggish demand. In the summer, however, Nvidia was hit by heavy speculation that its stock would fall because of impending competition from other graphics chip companies. Some investors predicted the stock would dip to $15 a share, a forecast the company has thus far shown to be false. Marc Klee, co-portfolio manager of the $900 million John Hancock Technology Fund, said Nvidia will face competitive challenges in 2002 that could threaten its stock performance. But, he said, the company is not likely to repeat the troubled history of past top performers. ``Unlike Qualcomm and Enron, where there was a very strong consensus, you don't have that with Nvidia,'' he said, referring to the boundless optimism about the first two companies. A bit of scandal touched Nvidia in mid-December, when a federal judge fined a former engineer of the company for insider trading. The employee was one of 16 people accused of buying company stock after learning that the company would announce a lucrative contract with Microsoft, maker of Xbox. A spokesman for Nvidia could not immediately be reached for comment