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Strategies & Market Trends : Coming Financial Collapse Moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Plaything who wrote (861)	6/26/2002 1:31:36 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 974

Imagine what will happen if one bigname tech company like IBM, AOL, CSCO, or QLGC should be exposed to some kind of similar accounting fraud or insider trading?!!!! This sector was the most hyped and overbought, and there is no way that some of them (if not most!) did not use shady accounting scams to pump up imaginary earnings. Let me save you the trouble: WCOM capitalized their new network. That is not illegal. See for instance, 446 et sec of the Internal Revenue Code. But even if you want to argue, its disclosed on the balance sheet. AOL has been capitalizing "new user" ads for 5 years. Remember all those disks you get in the mail, any accountant would know that they are not on aol balance sheet (or rather, income statement) CSCO has already expensed this. IF you follow then you may remember the 38 BILLION friggin dollars they wrote off two quarters ago. IBM has been doing the accounting hoohah since lew getsner came on in what 1987. But when you do it this long it all balances out. THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS AND CICICORP LENDING ENRON 12 BILLION DOLLARS OFF BALANCE SHEET.

To: Plaything who wrote (861)	6/26/2002 8:34:57 PM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 974

Plaything, Let's see... IBM will get killed by pension liabilities... They won't be alone however. Any of the older companies that still have pension liabilities will be feeling the pinch soon, if not already. Much of any profits will be required to be redirected into pension funding leaving little for current employees, to say nothing of common shareholders... AOL? The merger seems to be coming apart at the seams. Internal squabbling and discontent should limit any chance they might have at a clean recovery. Overall, I like the concept. But the current players (insiders) don't seem to be capable of finding the right combination to make the company click on all cylinders... Cisco? They continue to dominate their sector, but it's a much smaller sector now. So they've got 85% and growing of a shrinking sector. Stock is way over-priced for current earnings. And the outstanding share count is way too high now. Everyone who wants CSCO already owns CSCO. And that doesn't even include the current outstanding options that are either currently worthless or have negligible positive value to the employees holding them. Employee discontent should start to become a major problem for CSCO who as much as any company has relied on the options to satisfy employee remuneration demands... QLGC? Way over-priced... Little to no CAPEX spending in their customer's budgets, which is an absolute must for them to grow... Probably the best of the 4 stocks you mentioned, but the price is just way too high for my tastes... Scandals for any of them? Within the realm of possibility, but probably not within the realm of probability... Best chance for a scandal of some sort might be insiders selling on advance knowledge of financials, but I'd put the chances of that happening at under 5%. I'd also add Oracle to the list of potential problem companies... KJC