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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (63220)	3/11/2003 10:12:28 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 77400

Tokyo Stocks Close at Near 20-Year Low washingtonpost.com People say it can't happen here, but the current effort to save the economy by spending more and cutting taxes does not look like it's working now, nor will it work if it is continued for ten years. TP

To: RetiredNow who wrote (63220)	3/12/2003 12:02:31 PM
From: Stock Farmer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

mindmeld, I honestly don't know. It looks to me that on a macro level things are too expensive by about a factor of two (chain-saw math). If the underlying business beneath [the economy] is healthy and we are experiencing real rates of growth in the economic core of around 7-8%, that means we are priced approximately where we should be 8-10 years from now. Give or take. And I do suspect the economic engine is healthy. I do suspect that the "recovery" is upon us. I also think that "recovery" does not mean a return to outrageous increases in stock prices, nor double-digit growth in reported profits, nor the ability for arm-chair analysts to read the next best best-seller and set about to make themselves into paper millionaires. And succeed. Those days are over. I think "recovery" means that fundamentally strong businesses can generate stable, predictable, reliable profits. So I am not worried that companies like Cisco aren't going to grow their profits at a healthy clip. I'm worried that current prices assume that a decade or so of growth is already in the bag. Considering that we can buy companies with several decades of growth already in the bag for a lot less (dollar outlay per dollar coming back), I don't know why we would want to buy in at these prices. I suspect we'll be paying much the same price when (if) we get there, and hold the risk along the way. John