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To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (39752)	6/18/2003 3:39:55 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71524

Pfizer Cuts 2003 Earnings Outlook Tuesday June 17, 6:15 pm ET By Jed Seltzer and Ransdell Pierson NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE - News) said on Tuesday inventory build-ups at drug wholesalers would cut into its 2003 earnings, but its 2004 earnings will rise by about 23 percent, boosted by cost cuts from an acquisition and increased sales of key medicines. Pfizer said wholesalers had built up excessive supplies of Pharmacia drugs, which will hurt sales of the same products in coming months, thereby trimming full-year earnings by 7 cents. The company now expects 2003 per-share earnings of $1.73, about three cents below the average Wall Street estimate. Customers typically keep fairly large supplies of the kinds of drugs Pharmacia sold, including ones for cancer and glaucoma, a former Pharmacia official said on Tuesday. For 2004, the company estimated earnings of $2.13 per share, above the average estimate of $2.06 per share. Shares of Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, jumped nearly 5 percent on the outlook, which was released as it gave fresh details on its pipeline of experimental drugs at an investor conference in New York. It later closed on the New York Stock Exchange (News - Websites), where it was the most active issue, at $36.18, near a 52-week high of $37.04 Revenue is expected to total $54 billion in 2004 from a combined Pfizer and Pharmacia, compared with about $45 billion last year. That represents 10 percent growth per year. OUTLOOK FOR GROWTH "This is what Pfizer needed to do -- convince people they can continue to grow," said analyst Barbara Ryan of Deutsche Bank. Despite the robust outlook, investors and analysts remained concerned that Pfizer is too dependent on big acquisitions -- Pharmacia Corp. in April and Warner Lambert Co. in 2000 -- to boost profit. They want to see the fruits of a research budget that exceeded $5 billion last year. The company is slated to lose U.S. patent protection in the next three years on five of its top-selling medicines that had combined sales of $11.5 billion last year -- or about one fourth of Pfizer and Pharmacia's total revenue. The question is whether Pfizer's existing and future drugs can compensate for the huge drop-off in sales when those five face generic competition. "I think Pfizer will be OK until 2005, but you have to worry about 2006 and beyond," said Richard Schneider, an analyst at DuPont Capital Management. He added he was optimistic Pfizer will come up with enough big new drugs to make up for shrinkage in older drugs once they face generic competition. Among the most anticipated new treatments are two combination pills that would include Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor, the world's top-selling medicine with more than $8 billion in annual sales. One combo drug would raise HDL, or "good" cholesterol, levels by 50 percent. Most cholesterol drugs lower LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, but raise HDL just a bit. A drug that significantly affects both levels in one pill could become widely prescribed by physicians, analysts said. Pfizer also expects to start marketing a drug next year that combines Lipitor with Norvasc, its top-selling blood pressure drug. Millions of Americans have both hypertension and high cholesterol. "Lipitor and Norvasc in one pill could serve a very big market," said Sena Lund, a research analyst for Cathay Financial. Lund said the combination could generate annual sales of $2 billion to $3 billion. Both combo medicines could also help prop up Lipitor, whose sales growth has slowed in recent quarters. Investors and analysts want Pfizer to prove it can boost earnings through new drugs rather than by squeezing significant savings from overlapping research and manufacturing. Pfizer research executives sought to address that concern at the conference, pointing to the Lipitor combinations as well as experimental drugs for asthma, smoking cessation, impaired vision, cancer, epilepsy, osteoporosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.

To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (39752)	6/19/2003 3:40:25 PM
From: Return to Sender	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71524

Harry do you follow the BP Indices at all? Unless I miss my bet there should be a confirmation to go net short on the BPNDX tonight: investorshub.com The other BP Indices may take a while to confirm a pullback but the Nasdaq 100 led on the way up so it could lead down even if all we see is a shallow consolidation. RtS

To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (39752)	6/20/2003 2:34:12 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71524

Analysts predict wireless hot-spot crash By Graeme Wearden Special to CNET News.com June 19, 2003, 12:00 PM PT Most of the money that is being spent creating public wireless "hot spots" is being wasted, according to research published on Thursday. Analyst group Forrester believes that, in the future, there won't be enough people using Wi-Fi devices to support the operators that are currently introducing wireless local area networks (WLANs) and hot spots, which are places where wireless Web access is available to the public for a fee or for free. "With all the hype today about the rollout of WLAN public hot spots, it's as if the dot-com boom and bust never happened," said Lars Godell, a Forrester senior analyst. "We believe that much of the money being poured into public WLAN today to enable access--from places as diverse as bars, marinas, hotels and airports, as well as train, bus and metro stations--is being wasted," he said. According to Forrester, there will be just 53 million Wi-Fi-enabled laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs) in use in Europe by 2008. In addition, only 7.7 million people who use them will be prepared to pay to use Wi-Fi wireless hot spots. Wi-Fi networks create a 300-foot zone where laptops can wirelessly connect to the Web or to a corporate computer network. "Simply, basic constraints on the number of devices in use, and users' willingness to pay a significant amount for Internet access on the go, will limit public WLAN users to numbers well short of planned networks' carrying capacity," Godell predicted. "Additionally, the sky-high costs of providing Internet backhaul from hot spots will kill many hot-spot business cases." There is growing concern within the Wi-Fi industry that operators are not offering the kind of pricing models that will attract users. There are also rumors that user take-up is below expectations. Forrester predicts that Bluetooth, a rival short-range wireless technology, will be much more widespread than Wi-Fi, and expects that there will be 286 million Bluetooth-enabled devices in Europe by 2008. Theo Platt, director of U.K. hot spot provider Broadscape, supports Forrester's view that the business case for running a subscription Wi-Fi network is weak, but doesn't think that Bluetooth hot spots are the answer. Platt told ZDNet UK that Bluetooth made up less than 5 percent of usage of Broadscape's hot spots, and pointed out that it works within a much smaller range than Wi-Fi. "Wi-Fi is the superior technology over Bluetooth for public access," he said. "The range is greater--Bluetooth's is 10 meters, compared (with) 100 meters for Wi-Fi. The bandwidth is greater, and more users can use one access point at once...with Bluetooth, you are limited to seven," Platt explained. Platt added that he agrees that Bluetooth devices will outnumber Wi-Fi devices in the future, but insisted that Wi-Fi is the "accepted and most practical method for public access."