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Technology Stocks : Western Digital (WDC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	12/22/1997 1:04:00 PM
From: TCGNJ	Respond to of 11057

Sung, Good post and good thoughts. Gotta store the data somewhere---video, audio, graphics, etc. TCG

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	12/22/1997 1:36:00 PM
From: tom pope	Respond to of 11057

Sung - excellent post. I'm not currently long WDC, and in fact prefer qntm and seg as being better positioned over the immediate short-term. But the decline in optimism on the thread (and signs of reality setting in on the qntm thread as well ) is an encouraging sign. I also totally agree that the greatest threat is a market breakdown - in that case all bets are off. There I'm encouraged by the pervasive air of pessimism that is taking over Barron's - just read the current issue for a whiff of it. I don't understand Asian flu, and my refusal to acknowledge it has cost me a fair bit of change over the past two months. What baffles me is that Japan has been in death throes for the past six years without major negative effect on the prospects of the tech sector. Why the weakness in the face of the breakdown in the vastly less important economies of Southeast Asia and Korea? If anything the companies that manufacture in the countries with weak currencies will benefit from reduced manufacturing costs. All in all, tho, this has been a tough period to get thru. BTW, interesting point re invx as a leading indicator.

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	12/22/1997 7:14:00 PM
From: Thomas Haegin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11057

HDD suppliers as leading indicators Sung, << My point is that component providers may be leading indicators for HDD manufacturers, who along with semis, are harbingers to box makers' performance, etc. If INVX expects good SEQUENTIAL revenue growth, it bodes well for WDC down the road. >> Excellent proposal - in theory <g>. No, really, I like it. Now, what fiscal years do the suppliers like INVX, RDRT, etc. have? If it's a weird one (i.e. 3Com has a May FY) , they will always announce a little bit ahead of WDC, SEG and QNTM, thereby giving an edge, maybe. Thomas P.S. Maybe you will also drop by the Asia Forum once, a thread we recently started to discuss Asian topics.

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	12/22/1997 11:11:00 PM
From: Edward Ip	Respond to of 11057

Great post, VERY VERY VERY Good post.. At least u actually put some brain into ur post :) Anyway, I agree with you on the part that WDc will have a GREAT advantage with the devalued foreign currency. It will lower their product cost, since most of their products are manufactured in Singapore and Malaysia. And they have a much smaller market share in Asia than Seg,and Quantum. When I went to Hong Kong last year, no one even really heard of WD, and to most of them Segate is the top of the line. So the devalued asian currency actually would help WDC more than hurts them.. Once more investors realize that the asia Market can't have much effect on WDC, the company should turn around and bounce back to the 20's to low 30's. One more interesting point is that WDC has no debt. This will give them a very very strong pricing advantage due to no interest payment in the future. And once again, their cost of product is almost 50% off due to Malaysian and Sing curreny got a 50% haircut. As you can see I am a long in WDC, I got in at 16 1/4, I will get in again at around $14. One last thing, their call option in July looks really good. WDC July 17 1/2 option is only at 2 1/2. To me, that's very good deal, due to from now to July, WDC should go way beyond 17 1/2.

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	12/23/1997 1:40:00 AM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11057

Sung, I caught your post late but that doesnt mean it is any less excellent at this late reading. There is one thing I am not sure I will agree with. You said <My point is that component providers may be leading indicators for HDD manufacturer>. In my experience the proverbial bad stuff rolls downhill. Check out Hutchinson, Read-Rite, AMC, and Komag for indicators that bad news from drive manufacturers resulted in a subsequent nose dive in component equities. Thanks again for the post. Please jump in more often. Best, Stitch

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	12/23/1997 2:14:00 AM
From: studdog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11057

Sung CHung: Yup, great post. Thanks for your effort. I myself am looking for tech stocks at or near book and am finding a few. WDC is has traded as low as .6x's book so it is not at its low end. However, 1.9x's book is starting to qualify as cheap for a cyclical tech, so I started a small position, in part to try and take advantage of year end tax selling drying up next week. Other cheap techs, CY, HCIA, CS Karl

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	12/23/1997 5:41:00 AM
From: appro	Respond to of 11057

Sung: Excellent, well thought out post. : ) I am waiting for an upward trend to be established before buying into WDC. I am a former APM long awaiting same there. The market can be brutal in its over-reactions both up and down. It is amazing to me to see WDC at these low levels, but I too have been burned by being early to the party. This time I plan to be fashionably late, thus adding to the lack of buyers and the attendant over-shoot to the downside.

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	1/2/1998 11:20:00 PM
From: Daniel	Respond to of 11057

> Concerns .... Network Computers (NC) will make HDDs obsolete. > Hardly! If you decide to store info on a network, the networks will > need the storage capacity. Just because you transferred where the > info is being stored does not mean the whole industry will be > defunct. But mightn't it still reduce significantly the amount of disk space needed? You'd only need to store one copy of common data (e.g., OS and applications), instead of having a disk on each machine to store its copy of the data. Daniel

To: Sung Chung who wrote (8290)	1/22/1998 9:07:00 AM
From: Sung Chung	Respond to of 11057

The technicals for WDC has finally turned positive. In my last post, I had concentrated on the fundamentals, and stated that technicals for the short-term looked neutral to negative. Well, based on the actions for the past two days, WDC has finally moved 2% higher than the 31 day m.a. (I use 2% as a filter to reduce the number of false signals). Stochastics are much better. I'd say the support & resistance are $15 & $20 respectively. If it breaks thru $20, next is $23-$24. I have always believed that WDC looked great fundamentally. However, according to IBES, there will be -89% drop in earnings this fiscal year compared to last. Then, from this year to next fiscal year, 256% earnings growth. Note the P/E; this fiscal year = 53.7; next fiscal year = 15.1. When it appears that these forecasts will be correct, the market will immediately reward WDC with higher prices, so we won't necessarily have to wait until next fiscal year. P/B = 2.12. Personally, I was hoping WDC would have taken a little longer before it moved up, b/c I wasn't able to buy more as of yet. But, you can't ask the market to accomodate your cash flow problems, right?