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

To: Rob S. who wrote (5954)	12/2/1997 10:49:00 PM
From: Nick	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9124

I really don't think there has to be a reason for the recent decline, except that the market, especially the Naz, has been getting hit. Good companies with good potential get hit too, sometimes without reason. Look at CREAF or PAIR...both had good earnings recently and some upgrades, but both have been getting hammered. QNTM is a good company, and we pretty much all agree that's it's the best DD maker, so a little patience now will payoff soon.(I hope) Nick

To: Rob S. who wrote (5954)	12/2/1997 10:52:00 PM
From: Michael Burry	Respond to of 9124

Geez, why this talk of a lawsuit? Quantum is a fundamentally sound corporation that is dealing with analysts like all companies do. A shareholders suit will not make any of those losing money here any more likely to gain a substantial part back. Patience and confidence in the business plan. When the DD's come back out of their current cyclical downturn, Quantum will have a headstart there in addition to the profitable DLT biz. Wait a couple years. Of course, those on margin are learning lessons, but that is greed's fault, not Quantum. As a part of a well-diversified portfolio long-term portfolio, Quantum makes a good core holding for tech exposure. Tax-loss selling and general panic may push this to 18 short-term, but all the better to shake out weak holders and provide a buying opportunity for those with cash and sense. Good Investing, Mike

To: Rob S. who wrote (5954)	12/2/1997 10:54:00 PM
From: William T. Katz	Respond to of 9124

RE: Hypothetical case of a company telling analyst of fundamental problems before issuing any press release (and no public dissemination of talk occurs). Why, pray tell, can a company make drastic price-changing statements at an analysts conference and then wait several days before issuing a public release? Why is that any different than insider trading, where the "insiders" in this case are the analysts + big players that get the information first? Even if you are correct that you couldn't win a lawsuit based on this, I might remind you that the law is a living changing entity. The spirit of laws on insider trading is to prevent profit or prevention of loss based on non-publically given information. If information is withheld for as much as a few days, during which time a large volume of trades ensues, then the spirit of the law is broken. You have your opinion. I have mine. In the (hopefully) rare event that this is a leak, I think this particular case would be a good test case in securities law. I would probably consult with the law and business school faculty here at the Univ. Anyway, on second thought, I think Sankar has the correct interpretation that people are selling because QNTM has risen more from year beginning. This is year-end selling that is more specific to QNTM. With the internet and easy access to information, if QNTM had said something to analysts, someone would have heard of it by now. So the whole hypothesis of bad conference talks (that you raised) is probably incorrect. But that still doesn't change the fact that if such an event occured and nobody released the information (which would require a conspiracy between all analysts and big players), that would violate the spirit of securities laws. -Bill

To: Rob S. who wrote (5954)	12/2/1997 11:01:00 PM
From: Y. Samuel Arai	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9124

Here's a blurb from Reuter's Story tonight: ------------------------------ ...Western Digital said it also plans to further accelerate its transition to desktop and enterprise system hard drives featuring magneto-resistive head technology. "I'm actually taking this as a positive announcement," said analyst David Takata at Gruntal & Co. Takata said Western Digital had previously asserted it would continue to ramp up disk drive production this quarter, something that would have caused further problems for the sector as a whole. *With Western Digital now keeping production flat it will give the disk drive market a chance to settle.* <<NOTE:THIS IS BULLISH FOR QNTM>> When profits were at record highs for disk drive makers all manufacturers added capacity skewing the delicate supply/demand balance and eroding profits. The problem was worsened by the addition of new entrants into the market. "This industry hangs on a supply and demand balance and over the last couple of quarters there has been too much high-end capacity coming on line, and in this quarter there is too much capacity period from the high end to the low end, and that's the problem in a nutshell," Takata said, adding that he *sees the problems as short term.* --------------------------- Looking at the large-block sell-orders going through, I think a fund just used this announcement as an excuse to clear more of their QNTM positions...to what I'm not sure, but I heard Fidelity was dumping just about all of their tech holdings...Compaq was mentioned in particular, by a fund analyst. As far as I could tell with PC Quote 6.0 this morning, there was a lot more smaller-block buying (100 to 5000 shares) than selling, but prices never went up because of the large block sell orders (15,000 to 150,000 shares). As far as I know, it means a lot of individual investors bought this stock today, and believe this stock to be a good investment. But a fund holding a large stake seems to be actively clearing this stock, and not allowing it to move up. At least this is the impression I get from watching the real-time trades go by... Sam