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To: Earlie who wrote (144042)	1/16/2002 8:56:25 AM
From: yard_man	Respond to of 436258

Nice summary, Earlie -- thanks.

To: Earlie who wrote (144042)	1/16/2002 9:08:05 AM
From: sun-tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

looks like an outright disaster. i haven't seen this much bad news since sep 21 <G>

To: Earlie who wrote (144042)	1/16/2002 9:38:04 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Earlie - - Linear Tech is doing just fine. This minor adjustment to their employment ranks and pending sale (the company hopes) of excess plants has nothing to do with the free fall in revs ($121.0 m vs y-o-y of $258.0m). Read the release again, your interpretation is entirely mistaken. They are simply retiring a 4 inch fab, long since paid for multiple times. Note that they will not even take any special charges for it. Note that even at extremely low revenues, their NET after tax margin is still about 38% of sales, with absolutely clean earnings reports and a pristine, debt free and cash heavy balance sheet. The stock is overpriced, of course, but there are no operational issues not related to the economic environment. Regards, Don

To: Earlie who wrote (144042)	1/16/2002 9:56:58 AM
From: Bill/WA	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 436258

Bill/WA to uncle Earlie, Gotcha a report from my area [east side of the Olympic peninsula across Elliot Bay from Seattle] Kitsap county. Includes Bangor Nuc. Sub Base, Bremerton Naval shipyard, fu-fu Bainbridge Is. and a bedroom community for Seattle (whew!). Most shopping is done in the town of Silverdale with new and many up to date stores and malls. This is traffic AFTER XMAS as I believe most people will spend, spend, spend for Xmas regardless of their $$ condition (like my x-wife ;-) The huge Kitsap Mall - parking lot well below average. Pier 1 - empty. 4 month old Gateway store - empty since opening. Circuit City - employees busy playing video games on computers. Office Depot and brand new Staples - maybe 5 customers. Brand new BBY - "was" crowded before Xmas but now empty and many shelves remain empty (I think they acquired Dell's "On Time Inventory" software program and it told them to FORGET about restocking for future sales ;-) HD (Casa de Pot) below average even with sale prices. And last but not least, CostCo. I see a definite decline in customers and also their carts are not as full (people seem to be keeping more $$ in their pockets, realizing they don't need those gallon jars of marinated mushrooms!). I like to use CostCo as a bellweather because I feel people enter expecting to buy things they can use and consume but usually leave with stuff they'll never use or end up throwing away (a gallon of mayo ?!) One thing I have notice in all of these stores (except CostCo) even before Xmas is that they have drastically cut the number of employees. In my little town of Port Orchard a new Staples was built - its empty, and so Office Depot decided it needed to take over an empty Rite-Aid store in a strip mall across the street, to share the pain, I guess. I don't see how these 2 stores can remain open. Maybe Ben Henwood (if he's listening) can chirp in on the east side (Seattle, Belluvue, etc.) Best Bill/WA

To: Earlie who wrote (144042)	1/16/2002 10:36:49 AM
From: reaper	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

everybody is so insanely focussed on tech that nobody seems to have noticed the just DREADFUL API's that came out last night. very bad for the E&P and service companies (OSX cleanly rejected at its declining 200 dma a couple of weeks ago; now below its 50 dma). E&P's cutting back production all over the place; land and GOM rigs sitting idle everywhere (for example, Patterson/UTI has +/- 110 of 317 rigs working right now) and crews busy watching Oprah instead of working. would note that while everybody talks about the "energy dividend" to the consumer, it is not that clear cut. every dollar that i don't pay for natural gas or electricity, and many of the dollars that i don't pay for oil and motor gas, are dollars that are not going to Exxon-Mobile, Apache, Valero Energy, Halliburton, PG&E, whatever. there are +/- 325k people working in the "energy extraction" business (according to BLS) who make a pretty decent mean wage of $41.5k. now some number of those people are going to be out on the street looking for work (and I can assure you that an off-shore engineer won't get equivalent pay at the local Wal-Mart) plus shareholders of the energy complex seriously lose out as there is less free cash available for dividends and stock re-purchases. not exactly a zero-sum game, but the "energy dividend" is a lot less than advertised. Cheers