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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (4347)	12/16/1997 6:39:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116756

History lesson, who to blame BUSINESS INSIDER -- Will Corporate America Start Blaming Everything on Asia? Also, a reality check on ETrade's IPO claims Herb Greenberg On its conference call with analysts late Monday, Oracle President Ray Lane made it perfectly clear that while a slowdown in some parts of its business are just blips, troubles related to turmoil in Asia are serious. Oracle's blame-it-on-Asia explanation follows a similar blame-it-on-Asia earnings warning last week from 3Com. Asia clearly is a growing problem for many companies, including many in Silicon Valley with large exports to Asia. But Oracle and 3Com had other troubles as well. Oracle has been struggling with a slowdown in U.S. sales of its principal relational database product. Its stock tumbled 29 percent yesterday on disappointing second-quarter earnings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Gate gives you the business at Business & Finance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Back in March I pointed out a host of problems in a column that questioned whether Oracle's ''life in the fast lane'' was about to slow.) And 3Com has been trying to unstuff the clogged distribution channel it inherited when it acquired U.S. Robotics. That raises the next obvious question (at least to yours truly): How many companies will start using Asia as the scapegoat for all their earnings embarrassments? We won't know until after the fact. But back in the days of the Gulf War, many companies with little relationship to the Middle East blamed their troubles on the war. Asia isn't likely to be any different. But it doesn't matter because Wall Street doesn't really care what causes earnings disappointments. SHORT POSITIONS -- Speaking of Oracle: Back in March Oracle looked like a disaster waiting to happen. Despite its lovefest with Wall Street, the company had a tough time meeting analysts' estimates for several quarters. Josephthal analyst Bert Hochfeld was among the few analysts who were skeptical about the company's growth potential, saying at the time that database software prices were falling to ''commodity'' levels. Oracle insisted it didn't have any troubles. Then rival Informix ran into trouble, and even Hochfeld turned bullish, saying, ''If your largest competitor has blown up, then not even the dimmest among us can say that's a bad thing for Oracle.'' In recent months, though, he once again became an Oracle bear. The reason is simple: he says the relational database business -- Oracle's bread and butter -- ''is at the end of its life'' as a growth vehicle. -- Numbers, please: Remember those deals ETrade and Charles Schwab were striking a few months ago with investment bankers to give their customers access to initial public offerings? Yesterday, Palo Alto-based ETrade issued a press release bragging that it had sold all of the shares it was allocated by Robertson Stephens in last month's IPO of Sportsline USA, an Internet sports information service. ETrade CEO Christos Cotsakos was quoted as saying that ''the great amount of enthusiasm ETrade customers showed for this offering is proof positive of just how interested independent investors are'' in IPOs. Now, for a reality check: Only about 125 of ETrade's customers were eligible to buy the Sportsline IPO. To get in on the deal, they had to meet certain requirements imposed by ETrade, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Association of Securities Dealers. Of the customers who wanted the shares, only about 70 actually got them. And according to ETrade and Robertson Stephens, ETrade only had access to a measly 75,000 shares of the 3.5 million that were offered. ETrade says this was just a pilot program, but it shows that despite the hype, individuals hoping to get in on the ground floor of a hot deal may get a cool reception. -- Statistically speaking: Money manager Eric Von der Porten, of Leeward Investments in San Carlos, observes that if the Dow closes above 7,669 this year it will be only the second time since at least 1918 -- as far back as he has data -- that the Dow will have doubled in three years. The first time was between 1933 and 1935, when the market was recovering from the 1929 crash. ''Market bulls will undoubtedly point out that this rapid run-up was followed by an additional 25 percent gain in 1936,'' Von der Porten says. However, the exuberance ended in 1937, with a 33 percent pullback that wiped out the 1936 gains -- and then some. ''I ain't no market timer,'' Von der Porten says, ''but it's interesting to observe and speculate.''