Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clarksterh who wrote (120494)	6/17/2002 12:54:07 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

hi Clark, let me just state that it's not like i'm a real fan of AWE over PCS (although i switched from PCS to AWE due to service problems at PCS). i've never owned either stock. i also don't own any other wireless stocks except QCOM. my point is really about what a horribly deep hole PCS has dug for themselves with their huge debt, and how AWE is better off by comparison due to a much lighter debt load. this insight, which is readily apparent from a comparison of their debt loads, seems to have eluded all those who were "listening to the technology". This is, sadly, not even close to the first time that Barron's has gotten simple finances wrong. I suspect that your article is by some analyst with an agenda. i think you're off on this one, Clark. first of all, the article was written by Andrew Bary, a Barron's staff reporter who was at the helm of The Trader column for a couple years. he's quite well-respected and with all due respect for your technical expertise, i suspect he knows more about finances than you do. he's certainly not an "analyst with an agenda", as QCOM fans often like to claim whenever anybody brings up anything that doesn't fit into their picture. as for AWE's net debt being only 3BB (as of the Feb article), i suspect there are other off-balance-sheet assets that bring the total debt down to 3BB. e.g., there might be committments from DoCoMo which do not appear on the balance sheet (this is just a guess). i am not going to bother trudging through all of AWE's SEC documents and calling up their IR to find out for sure. i will just take Bary at his word and i don't think he's lying. you can believe he's lying or has a malfunctioning calculator if you like, but try to come up with some other excuse than that he's an "analyst with an agenda". btw, here's the URL for the article in case you're curious (it's the Feb 18 issue): online.wsj.com just to remind you, in case you are confident that you know much more about finances than Andrew Bary, you might want to review your own question regarding cash flow reconciliation, which i answered as per the following post. #reply-17489375 2) How will you reconcile the earnings with the cash flow if the ficticious options price is included in the earnings but never shows up in the cash flow? this is easy enough (after all, the reason cos report c/f and earnings separately is so we can look at different sides of the same entity, so there is a lot of reconciling going on already). if they are noncash charges, obviously they will not show up in cash flow. depreciation and amortization don't show up in cash flow either (i.e., they are added back to cash flow from the income statement), yet people have been happily reconciling those for ages. instead of EBITDA maybe we can talk about EBITDAF (earnings before taxes, depreciation, amortization, and fleecing) -g-.