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

To: wallstreetbull who wrote (5946)	12/2/1997 10:14:00 PM
From: Lee	Respond to of 9124

Sam, Great post! (eom)

To: wallstreetbull who wrote (5946)	12/2/1997 10:31:00 PM
From: William T. Katz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9124

Sam, my perspective on the fundamentals has absolutely not changed. I had already assumed QNTM would be pressured on disk drive margins. I assumed that the margins would probably be hurt more than described by the Lehman report a few weeks back. I know that DLT will more than make up for that loss and the high-end losses will be curtailed by QNTM's one-time reorganization charge. This is why I continued to accumulate on the slide. I'm essentially all in now ... 100% long and somewhat marginated. I can handle some downside from here but I'm really not expecting QNTM to slip down to 20, especially without any word from management. The thing that has us spooked is the volume of this last decline and the fact that it was QNTM-specific. WDC issued the warning but yet went down much less on % basis than QNTM. SEG was barely touched. And yet QNTM should be the most shielded of the three from low-end drive margin pressures and has a nicely growing DLT business. So there are really two possibilities I see: 1) Irrational panic which fuels more panic, stop orders, and margin calls. 2) Big players got told something. I agree that #2 would be illegal and strange given that QNTM has indeed had opportunities to discuss shortcomings to analysts. The Lehman report, I believe, discussed their directions at Comdex. And from the amount of the pullback, if there was a "leak" it would have to be of a really bad change of direction since DLT is definitely strong. And anything that bad should have been in a public press release ... All I can say is QNTM needs to issue a press release now. They've done it before and I hope they do it again. -Bill

To: wallstreetbull who wrote (5946)	12/2/1997 10:32:00 PM
From: Rational	Respond to of 9124

Sam: The DLT business is very hot at the very high end of the market -- intensive data centers (corporate, government agencies like NASA and FED, universities and even big banks). Most financial analysts are not clear about this as they see prices of, say, 10GB hard drives falling and they see such drives as the end of the road. [This is perhaps true for individual customers, but not for data centers.] These analysts have no idea about RAID security, etc. I have direct experience with some data center managers who are unwilling to take any risk as far as data are concerned and want to get most reliable tape and hard disk drives. It seems some large blocks (~50,000's) were sold in the morning due to WDC's warning. Then the panic ensued and those who have made a lot of money since the start of the year tried to exit. QNTM will likely give a pleasant surprise in the earnings since most of the big corporate buyers will have to complete their planned purchases before the budget year ends. Sankar

To: wallstreetbull who wrote (5946)	12/2/1997 10:41:00 PM
From: hui zhou	Respond to of 9124

Sam, I am new to Quantum and don't know the business very well. I bought Quantum because of DLT tapes business. I just wondering who is the competition in DLT area. Mainfram storage business which EMC and STK is in are doing well. At 1.5 yeasrs ago, EMC is only 17 and verybody said it is dead. Now looks what happen. Maybe it is not the right comparison.

To: wallstreetbull who wrote (5946)	12/2/1997 10:59:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 9124

If I didn't already own Quantum (too much of it . . . ouch!), I would be almost laughing right now. This situation reminds me of how the market for high-tech stocks felt about this time in 1995. I hope I'm right because product market growth then propelled most tech stocks much higher from January thru March. The "noise" on many of the threads was a lot of moaning and goraning about how bad things had gotten. This situation is a bit different because of the Asian market fears, but I think at that time people were a bit worried about a collapse of the market in Japan. Strong markets for electronic industry products propelled the market out of the doldrums. My guess is that we will see very strong growth in PC, networking and comminications equipment sales that will drive the numbers up nicely. Asia is a problem but it will be dealt with and the impact is way overblown. Europe, South America, South Africa, and most of the rest of the world is seeing robust expansion. Well, enough for the "big picture" - right now that doesn't seem to calm worried investors minds. I wish I had become completely liquid because When this market turns, which I think will happen by the 2nd week of January, those buying during this ravaging will be smiling over their martinis.

To: wallstreetbull who wrote (5946)	12/2/1997 11:06:00 PM
From: William, III	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9124

I think the guy that said buy WDC was being facetious about tripling your money or doubling your money with QNTM for that matter. It does seem to be the way lot of investors invest however - maybe explaining somewhat why QNTM is was off more than WDC today. They look in the paper for the stocks the furthest off their 52 week high and assume it will return to that high. I've learned my lesson before on bottom fishing. Investing in industry leaders is the way to go and QNTM is the DD leader and is emerging as a storage leader. WDC is just now getting around to adressing the MR issue and which QNTM has already moved to and QNTM gets punished - it may hurt the stock price, but QNTM's still the leader. I've said it before, this reminds me of the networkers last spring and I believe QNTM is the CSCO of the DDs. I for one truly believe QNTM will be at 30-35 by Feb.1 and touching 40 by spring. Don't panic now!