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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (53917)	4/30/2003 1:47:16 PM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Jurgis, << I'll be more direct than Mike and say that the article is a bunch of cr. >> I'll be even more direct than either you or --Mike, and say that IMHO, your comment on the article is a bunch of cr. <ggg> Let me explain why I say that. Investors skills, regardless of the size of their portfolios, as it applies to financial analysis vary all over the place. Mine might be described as adequate, but maybe then again they are better described as barely adequate. One of the things that I take value from posting on, and reading financial boards, is that there are generally some posters on the board that have more skill in valuation methodology than I do, and I benefit from it. My profession is sales management. I have an undergraduate degree in liberal arts, a graduate degree in Comp, Sci, and have completed several graduate certificates in computer applications. Along the way, and none too recently, I have taken several courses in financial analysis for executives, and on the investment side participated in some seminars sponsored by TMF. I'm a Word power user, but an Excel dummy - somewhat improved after spending 42 classroom hours and perhaps twice that in focused application last semester. Being a long time user Microsoft tools available at MSN Money Central/Investor including their exceptional portfolio manager, I also happen to be a very long time Jubak reader, and I enjoyed what you refer to as his latest "journalistic sensation", and as a Qualcomm investor, enjoyed the fact that he picked a Qualcomm example. Given my own (barely) adequate skills in financial analysis and valuation methodology, when I read Jubak's article today, it reminded me of something I had been meaning to do, but neglected to, and thought I'd possibly missed a registration deadline. I immediately went back to my InBox and hustled up the registration link for an online seminar provided by Morningstar called "How to Value Stocks Like an Analyst," which consists of 5 interactive sessions over 5 weeks and costs a modest $29.95. I will probably get out of it what I put in to it, but I suspect that at the very least I'll be able to scrape off some rust, and that was overdue. Worst case, I'll burn $30 and ten or so hours, less that wghit I'll expend at the local pub over that period. << I won't even go into the "angels on pinhead" argument of "did X beat earnings estimate by penny". Who cares? >> Well, the fact of the matter is that sometimes, depending on the company, and the circumstance one does care. I happen to follow the wireless sector and a dozen players in it rather closely and am invested in two. Last week the financial press was oohing and aahing about the fact that Nortel Networks made a Q1 profit of $54-million (U.S.) or 1 exactly that one cents per share your talking about. Very few of the articles pointed out that was largely a result of a $190-million profit it made on discontinued operations, and that on an operating basis the company lost $129-million, and their wireless division saw sales fall 16 per cent year over year and 6 per cent quarter over quarter. Now that might not be interesting to you, but it is to me, even though I am not an NT investor, because I am attempting to make some value judgments about the health and welfare of Qualcomm's value chain, the comparative strength or weakness of Nokia Networks v. their competition, and whether wireless sector in general has bottomed out yet. Since I also still hold some JDSU I was also interested in the fact that NT optical sales dropped by 33 per cent over the same quarter last year and 22 per cent over the prior quarter. To each his own ... Best, - eric@investing4dummies.org -