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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (18752)	11/26/1997 5:18:00 PM
From: Paul Fiondella	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 42771

Well Salah you are certainly very modest I just want to warn everyone here one more time, you must understand that the US stock market is still operating with a Bull Market psychology. I did my own test the past couple of weeks on the Intel thread. I'm convinced that nothing, NOTHING, short of a real kick in the mouth will knock any sense into American investors. They and even us number crunchers have swallowed the whole damn Bull market scenario. As proof just take a look at the bidding up of MSFT's price in the last few days!!! in the middle of the financial collapse in Japan and Korea. Some of us have been following the Asian markets closely. I can assure you that the full impact on the US economy has barely begun to be evident. Samsung is rumored to be in trouble. Micron has charged that big time dumping of memory chips that could take it out of the business has begun. The bailout will land on Washington's doorstep. We have only begun to see the collapse in commodity prices --- gold and oil and copper. Well here's where the warning comes. COMPUTERS, COMPONENTS, and all of MSFT's business are also commodities, no different from automobiles in previous recessions now. We have been spoiled in this industry as we were in the early 1980's when the recessions passed over this industry. This time it will not spare the computer industry. So put some money into cash. Don't over invest in this market. Don't make the mistake of thinking it will go on and on and on. When the chickens come home to roost, all of us are going to look at how Americans have been financing this enormous buying binge we have been on the past few years. We are going to find out it is built on a mountain of debt --- no different from the mountain of debt that the Koreans now find their economic expansion based on. Just a warning and I'll shut up now. ===================== Happy Turkey Day. Let's hope the ghost of Metacomet, the chief of the Wampanoug feels kindly toward all of us after these many years. We are only humans and we all make mistakes.

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (18752)	11/26/1997 5:22:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Salah, you missed one short term negative...tax selling and EOY window dressing. Looks like it may have started today. Good luck to you and Happy Thanksgiving. sf

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (18752)	11/26/1997 9:38:00 PM
From: Joe Antol	Respond to of 42771

Salah. Hello my friend. Again, a "class act" post. Your addon points 1 through 10 deserve careful attention indeed. It's ironic that we both liquidated at the same price (9 3/8) <smile>. Yeah, after I got the data back from the CPA, I figured I'd give it one more go. When I saw this announce, and the aftermarket activity, AND today's action (or rather should I say "re" action), Well, enough is enough <s>. ((I know what's happening (so do you, and Paul, and BP, and Steve).)) There's always hope that we're all totally wrong (contrarians exist you know <g>), but even on a postive for Novell, it's going to take quite a while (quite a while...) to straighten things out. Can't wait any longer (I said it a month or so ago -- and you know me -- I execute). So, we'll see what happens. Feels kinda strange to be posting here and not holding a position. I guess it's OK. Dave Lethe does it, and so do a few others ... but I'd like to stick around just to see how this thing finally evolves. Whatever ... your calculations were right on Salah. Including what we told them in the white paper. Now THEY'LL have to execute. Have a great holdiday Salah. Regards, Joe...

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (18752)	11/27/1997 7:46:00 PM
From: BJP1946	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Just to try to slice off a tiny bit of the gloom. I get Goldman morning research and revenues were about $30 million more than they projected. There was not a hint that the revenues were suspect in any way, nor have I heard anyone suggest otherwise. So there was a pleasant, though modest, upside. But isn't this what Schmidt has been saying. When he warns that next quarter's revenues will be flat to slightly down, he's doing exactly what he's supposed to, keeping expectations down and hopefully surprising on the upside. You can't complain about negative surprises and about tempered expectations at the same time. I've watched Schmidt a couple of times and he seems honest. Totally without charisma. If he's not a fraud, then the Company has a chance. I mean I love it when a guy is NOT hyping a company. I believe you are totally wrong when you value the company at $9 because they are anticipated to only earn $.30. Everything is DIRECTION when you are trading stocks, not absolute numbers. If they start generating cash and get a hot new product or two and start buying back shares, the stock's a double from here within 12 months. No doubt about it. And now there's almost no downside in the near term. He's told the street that revenues will be flat and the stock still held. If it holds for another day or two -- and it may not because it'll take a day or two for the analysts to make up their minds -- it won't see eight again. If one influential analyst comes on board, you've got a $10 bottom. I suppose that's much more than enough, but for the life of me this stock seems like a reasonable spec over the next 12 months.

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (18752)	11/28/1997 12:13:00 AM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Salah, As always, I want to compliment you on your insight and analysis. You always seem to be able to cut throught the emotional rhetoric and comment from a position of analysis. I always have to think for a while after reading your posts ... I hope that you continue to follow this stock! From your post, I wanted to offer some opinion (as usual) and comments. ;-) > Clearly, there are some considerations to be factored in since that > post (late June 97), unfortunately, all of these are negative, here > they are: I don't agree, IMHO, that all of these are negatives ... > 1. Resignation of Denice Gibson I do not think that this is, in any way, a negative. I think that it was a good move for both parties that this seperation took place. Denice contributed to Novell in many ways, however I do not see her departure as a negative. > 2. Delay of Moab from 12/97 to mid 98, this will give MSFT the > chance to freeze the market with NT5.0 release around the corner. If you have been following the press, then you obviously know that both companies have shipped Beta versions of the products. But you should also already know that the ship date for NT v5.0 (which you refer to as "around the corner") is now off into 1999 sometime ... or at least it has become very indeterminate. NT v4.0 is still very incomplete as a desktop OS, and is missing many key features for laptop users. Microsoft has a lot on it's plate and has created a product that has almost one order of magnitude more code to maintain than other operating systems. Active Directory, although competing on mindshare, is extremely incomplete and more limitations are going to become public in the coming months. I think that this is possibly one fo the contributors to the delay of NT v5.0 ... > 3. No change of the BOD I know that I have learned a lot from you and others on this thread (yes ... you too Joe!) about this area. I would suggest that there have been changes in the BOD since Eric has taken his place, but I would agree that no actual change in people on the board have taken place. I will trust others who have more experience as to whether the addition of a new Chairman ... a change in the hierarchy ... can effect things enough. > 4. Insiders are selling This is a rather broad statement. I would suggest that from the co-workers that I know, insiders are buying also. I know numerous people who are a part of the Novell stock purchase program, who are putting the maximum amount of money aside each month to buy stock, and who are holding it after they buy. I know of numbers of shares being bought this way that far exceed the paltry 1000 shares/month being talked about here on this thread. I know that many people will bring up the fact that David Bradford and Glenn Ricart have been selling stock, but the numbers (to my knowledge) have not been significant, and I do not know that these two individuals represent a major sentiment in the company to "bail out" of the stock. > 5. BorderManager sales are not hot, 27M in Q4 vs my expectations of > 30M, not 1.0B product as the company stated I would suggest that they are doing quite well and growing rapidly. Numerous accounts are evaluating and recognizing the power of this technology. And we are seeing more accounts that recognize that this is a "platform independent" solution, much as a Cisco router is, and can be used in corporate and ISP environments successfully. In my opinion I felt that we had a very good first quarter for a v1.0 product ... and we just got started. Don't touch that dial ... ;-) > 6. Revenues for Q1-98 are flat or slightly less than Q4-97 I can't argue this ... but I can say that you seem in agreement with Eric on this point. I believe that is what he has been telling analysts. > 7. It is not clear whether there is channel stuffing or not, I > thought they said after Q3 results were announced that channel > inventory is 45 days, now they are saying they will try to get at > 45 days or less and the DSO is 79. How are all of these jive > together?. I don't know, and I will leave this one to > the guys who own the stock to figure it out. I too have to leave this one to others. I am always amazed at how you, and others on this thread, are able to interpret and dissect the numbers ... > 8. No products to address the low end This is again an interesting area. I won't go into detail, but I'm not sure that I agree with this, and/or the need for this. > 9. Marketing hasn't improved much I'm glad that you didn't say "at all" ... with this statement you seem to acknowledge some small amount of improvement ... and that's what I want to see ... ;-) > 10. They lost money on operations in Q4, 5M-6M I will have to read more to better understand this ... I'm not sure the details of this and what the implications are. When you say that we lost money on operations, does this mean that operations had an additional expense of 5M-6M? I didn't know that operations was supposed to profit ... again, my ignorance of exactly what this means. (Any explanation would be welcomed ...) > And Irene, my predictions for Q4 were wrong and I apologize if I > misled anyone, but I would appreciate it if you can tell me how to > improve on my lousy prediction capabilities <smile>. I would say that between you and Jim McCormick(?) you are providing some incredible insight to me on how to better evaluate the numbers and what they mean. > Happy Thanksgiving to all Likewise ... and thanx for the post! >Regards > > Salah Scott C. Lemon P.S. I have to say that after the announcement I couldn't help but to grin for almost two days ... this is getting fun! ;-)

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (18752)	11/29/1997 6:48:00 PM
From: vinod Khurana	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

I sold ALL my holding in NOVL at $9 5/16 along with the December 7 1/2 calls at $1 15/16 on Thursday. Still holding the January 5 calls which I plan to use as a hedge in selling the December $7 1/2 calls. The gap left at $8 1/8 has to be filled before this stock heads above $10. Good luck to all holding this mother of all no good stocks. Nothing has changed for this company. Vinod

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (18752)	12/1/1997 5:57:00 PM
From: Tom B	Respond to of 42771

Salah, or anyone else: Since NOVL could very well be in a holding pattern until more good (or bad) news comes out, what are your top five tech stock buys at this time? I need some "profit therapy" to counteract my NOVL holdings. Tom Brimacombe