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

To: D.B. Cooper who wrote (8275)	7/19/2002 10:49:06 AM
From: Shoot1st	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13815

I once had a 72 LeMans.....it could lay tire for a city block...top speed was about 70....and I put a super stereo in it.....everybody laughed.....they said you're supposed to have a car that costs more than the radio.... I've seen one Cooper.....they look great....but getting to the age where I like lotsa steel around my butt, I'll pass on every suggesting one be bought......unless you let the grandkids drive it around the back yard. Shootie

To: D.B. Cooper who wrote (8275)	7/19/2002 10:49:23 AM
From: D.B. Cooper	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13815

Thursday July 18, 7:43 pm Eastern Time Reuters Company News Mercury Interactive net income nearly doubles By Ilaina Jonas (adds ceo and analyst comment, details, byline previous Sunnyvale, California) NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) - Software maker Mercury Interactive Corp. (NasdaqNM:MERQ - News) on Thursday said second-quarter net earnings nearly doubled, in part because of a one-time gain for early retirement of debt. ADVERTISEMENT The company, whose core product is used to test software before it's deployed, also said its growth was fueled by demand for its application performance management (APM) product that monitors software that runs specific business operations. APM accounted for 24 percent of all new product sales and have increased 69 percent over the prior year. Mercury's products have sold well in the current climate where corporations try to eke out every dollar they spend. "The stuff we have to sell is very valuable in an environment like today where people try to save money to get more from their existing new investments," Mercury's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Amnon Landan told Reuters. "They have very good technology at very reasonable prices, which is not always the case in the software industry," Goldman Sachs analyst Thomas Berquist said. The Sunnyvale, California-based software maker, said net income rose to $18 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with $9 million, or 10 cents, in the year-ago quarter. The average deal size was about $65,000. The company's research and development staff of about 400 are based in Israel and comprise a slightly less than a quarter of the Mercury's work force of 1,700. Revenue slipped 2 percent to $94 million from $96 million in last year's second quarter. Excluding amortization of goodwill and a one-time gain of $7 million associated with early retirement of debt, the company posted a profit of $13.3 million, or 15 cents a share, in the second quarter, compared with $16.2 million, or 18 cents a share, a year earlier. The results were in line with the company's guidance issued in April when it said it expected to post second-quarter earnings of 14 cents to 16 cents a share on revenue of $91 million to $96 million. NOTHIN' TO COMPLAIN ABOUT For the third quarter, the company said it expected to earn between 13 cents and 18 cents a share, excluding items and revenue in the range of $95 million to $100 million, compared with the analyst average outlook of $99.49 million. Analysts, on average, expected the company to earn 14 cents a share for the third quarter, according to Thomson First Call. "Nothin' to complain about," Berquist said. "It's incredibly rare. They actually maintained their guidance for the second half of the year. which was also very rare. investors will be pleased, the only overhang frankly is the overall economic environment and what it means for the future." Mercury repeated prior projections for 2002 per-share earnings of 60 cents to 72 cents on revenue of $380 million to $415 million. Shares of Mercury closed on Thursday at $23.60, down 30 cents, or 1.26 percent, and was unchanged in after-hours trading on Instinet. Since the start of the second quarter, shares of Mercury Interactive have lost 40 percent of their value, but have outperformed the S&P Software Index by 24 percent.