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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (9222)	1/22/1998 1:36:00 PM
From: Lazlo Pierce	Respond to of 95453

Dave, I agree 100%. If allegations are true, he's gone and quickly. Also, that will have an immediate, sharp, negative effect on the Street. Also from briefing.com ********************** OILFIELD DRILLING/SERVICES STOCKS: This is one of the last things investors were expecting: the report of an earnings shortfall by industry leader Schlumberger Ltd (SLB 72 3/4 -8 3/4). For the period, the company earned $0.72 a share, 4 cents less than Wall Street had been anticipating. But SLB was the only company from the industry to report disappointing quarterly results. Moreover, a disappointing earnings figure was not the only surprise SLB had for investors. Also reporting this morning was Diamond Offshore (DO 40 3/16 -4 5/8). The contract driller said 4th qtr earnings rose to $0.55 a share, which was 2 cents shy of analysts' expectations. While it is alarming that these companies actually missed their quarter, the shortfalls were certainly not significant enough to create the type of carnage that we are seeing today: Cliffs Drilling (CDG -5 1/2), Cooper Cameron (RON -5 1/8), Halliburton (HAL -4 1/2). The major cause of the panic-selling and profit-taking occurring today is Schlumberger's comments that, although, it expects its customers to increase spending by 10% this year, issues related to the Asian financial crisis could cause them to revise spending patterns. For the first time, a major player in the drilling group is not aggressively bullish on growth prospects, which is causing investors to reevaluate their charge into these stocks this week, following an extremely positive write-up in Barron's. Also not helping matters is another drop in crude oil prices.