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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hueyone who wrote (17797)	1/10/2003 3:58:14 PM
From: Hardly B. Solipsist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19079

Okay, I apologize for the meaningless remark -- it wasn't my intent to be insulting, and I regret that it came out that way. As I said before, I think that this sort of fundamental analysis of companies is very useful, but what constitutes fundamentals (at least in my opinion) has to depend on the company and the industry. Software companies tend to have almost no tangible assets other than cash. MSFT is valuable because they have a lot of smart people and a monopoly, not because they have a big bank account. Oracle doesn't have a monopoly, but they have a business strategy that makes more sense to me otherwise, and so I bet on them because of that. I actually agree with you that even if Oracle's business succeeds the stock price could drop as a result of changes in public sentiment, and I do try to take such things into account, but I find it very hard to do so effectively. Most of the money I have I made in the bubble market, and I took out a significant fraction of my assets and put them in cash and gov't bonds because I couldn't make sense of stock valuations. At some level I still can't, because as I have said before, the only sensible definition I can come up with is using estimates of discounted dividends going forward (plus any payout from the company's dissolution), and by those standards I can't find anything to buy. So I admit that I'm going by the seat of my pants on Oracle and the few other companies that I own right now, and I do it based on my assessment of the risks and rewards for the their business. And I do try to keep in mind some of the issues that you mention, but I can't figure out how to do it quantitatively and get an answer that I believe. It's possible that this means that I'm kidding myself -- and I don't ignore this possibility -- but for the time being I'm assuming that investor sentiment won't change fundamentally (above the change that took place when the bubble burst).

To: hueyone who wrote (17797)	1/11/2003 10:41:34 AM
From: Qualified Opinion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19079

Maybe a trend is developing with insider selling.

To: hueyone who wrote (17797)	1/11/2003 11:43:20 AM
From: MeDroogies	Respond to of 19079

Not that history is bad to look at, but taking a look too far back really can't tell you alot. I'm a believer in the value of both fundamental and technical analysis. But using the past to determine the future is, as the the saying goes, like "driving by looking in the rear-view mirror". That said, there is no question that technical analysis has value, because it provides clues to the recent psychological behavior of investors. Psychological trends tend to play out over periods of time, so the value is useful, but limited to very specific periods. Fundamental analysis has value because it provides a good indication of how well a company is managed, which gives an investor clues about how it may be managed in the future. That said, ORCL has consistently proved to have good long term management. When you analyze it on a stand alone basis, it has provided an excellent return on investment over the long term. I saw about a tenfold increase in my primary investment (which I cashed out), and still have a gain of 200% on the remainder (not counting the money I've made trading it). I consider Ellison to be, based on his personality, somewhat coarse. But I don't know him or socialize with him. On a professional level, he has consistently shown leadership, vision, and a strong sense for providing investors with value. Primarily because he is one of the largest investors in his company. That said, the overall market is dictating much of the stock action that companies are seeing right now. I still consider ORCL one of the leaders in its field and I expect that position will grow and consolidate, which will only benefit the company and its investors. On the other hand, I can still see how some short term shocks may lead to hiccups. Options may play a long term role in reallocating cash, but as someone here stated - no more than salaries would. Salaries would be more transparent, but less of an incentive to drive performance.