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Non-Tech : Costco, slow but sure? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WalleyB who wrote (328)	1/9/1998 10:26:00 AM
From: Paul K	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1147

COMPANY TO WATCH San Fransisco Business Times, Wednesday, January 07, 1998 at 20:31 Costco Companies Inc. Along with oversized cartons of laundry detergent and jumbo portions of frozen ravioli, the discount warehouse chain will soon offer its 15 million card-carrying customers discounted realty services - upping the ante in the competitive residential brokerage marketplace. The bulk retailer based near Seattle is joining forces with AmeriNet Financial Systems, a Denver-based real estate and mortgages services company, and plans to roll out the program at its 90 California stores this spring. Already underway in Colorado and Arizona, the program provides Costco shoppers with a variety of loans and services through AmeriNet referrals. Agents referred via Costco will charge two-thirds of their normal commission, hoping to make up for the reduced rate through increased business. AmeriNet will take an undetermined cut for its cost and profit. What's left will be passed along to the member by Costco as a refund. Brokers said they didn't feel overly threatened - other discount programs have come and gone - but acknowledged that a new entrant with Costco's clout poses a competitive concern.

To: WalleyB who wrote (328)	1/11/1998 8:30:00 PM
From: Mat Miller	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1147

Jim, Well, things are so dead around here (including me, wonder if it's the cold weather?), that I became a customer for a Guidant Corp. (GDT) product. Would have been a good stock to buy at its IPO back in Dec. 94. It went from 9 to the current 52 in the last 3 years. But, the current P/E ratio of 57, Y/E 97 of nearly 40 and Y/E 98 of 30, still seems pricey to me. Costco seems to be doing a good job of hanging in there. I'm surprised since they have an Asian connection (the 2? Korean stores), that the analysts haven't assumed that overall sales will be down 15-20%!! <g> Anyway, you're right. You need to get into semi-conducters for more excitement than Costco can give you! I haven't check out either of the ones you've mentioned. However, I do own some, either directly or indirectly. Besides Intel (only 100 shares), I have IDTI and SGI. Silicon Graphics has been quite beat up and I'm a bit concerned with how well it is going to do. IDTI is also in the dumps (like most all of them). But I'm more optimistic about it. I've owned it before and did alright with them. They have a number of items that hopefully will do well. For example, they make some of the chips that go into the Web TV and they have a Pentium clone chip ready to market. The later they have simplified the architecture of the chip to make it faster and cheaper, with just a little of the more 'exotic' functions not directly on the chip. Good luck in whichever one(s) you pick. While the boards here give a lot of opinions on each of them, in the end, it always is 'pay youse money and take youse choice'! Mat