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Technology Stocks : QUANTUM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale J. who wrote (4878)	11/12/1997 4:56:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9124

One of the financial measures that Quantum has taken in the past is the sale of PUT options. They made something like $500 million selling puts as reported in last quarter's conference call. I bet that Quantum is now selling puts agressively, soaking up a lot of money that institutions and other scared investors are willing to throw in the company's direction. That ends up benefiting the investors who hold onto the stock but it also provides some assurance to the institutional investors. The disk drive sector has historical had very low P/Es compared to other technology stocks. In fact the P/Es seen when Quantum was around 40 were very unusual. By historical measures, we are now at fair value. However, with the strong growth expected in the industry and the fact that Quantum is extremely well positioned to take advantage of market opportunities with a diversified set of leading edge products, a higher P/E is totally justified. Quantum has gotten in front of the curve in the gearing up of products with MR heads, is leading in the rapid growth DLT area, and has developments well under way to lead in the next generation of near field and advanced HD technologies. A statement from the company that updates and (hopefully) confirms the understandings expressed during the last quarterly conference call would help to address the overdone fears of institutions and other investors. Maybe Quantum's astute CFO and other management is satisfied with the current market conditions as it allows them an opportunity to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars of puts to nervous investors.