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Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Walster who wrote (273)	12/16/1997 4:34:00 PM
From: Barron Von Hymen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

I cannot offer a buy or sell recommendation, I don't claim to be more qualified to make recommendations for you because its your own money. But I can share with you my views. I usually don't get excited about deals like this. There are many instances where a much larger company decides to make investments into other smaller ones. I assume that this is a sure bet buy indicator for you. Take for example, Microsoft's purchase of a large percentage of Apple when they were trading at 20+ a share. With Apple now trading at under 15, clearly Microsoft's interest was not in making a capital gain, which is what we're interested in doing when we buy stock. There are cases like Ballard Power and Light back when it was $20 a share. With major investments from Daimler Benz, and Ford taking stakes in the company, that might have put a spotlight on the shares of Ballard at that time. Now Ballard trades at higher than 100 a share. But companies like MSFT and NTL can afford to shed a few million to take a stake in companies, and doing so might benefit the company in ways other than appreciation in the acquired stock value. However, if they suffer a capitol loss, they could absorb it much better than investors like ourselves. I presume NTL moved up today in sentiment with the market, since this deal really doesn't have that significant an impact in NTL's value yet. For the record, I would prefer owning shares of NTL, a company that has proven earnings and growth rather than something they decided to gain a 20% stake in. At the same time I would have 20% exposure to that investment buy owning the NTL shares. Good luck.