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Technology Stocks : Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hossein hosseini who wrote (2806)	1/26/1998 3:04:00 PM
From: Tom M	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3276

Hossein, why <wait a few days and see what happens>? Are you thinking higher bidder potential? TIA for your reasoning, Tom

To: hossein hosseini who wrote (2806)	1/26/1998 8:37:00 PM
From: Paul Mathis	Respond to of 3276

>>Street seems to be happy with the deal. << Not sure why you think that. CPQ is offering about 60, and today the street will give you 55..... no premium there.... They spanked CPQ close with close to a 10% decrease. If you bought this stock 3 years ago, you broke even, (not counting opportunity cost), so I guess one's joy is dependent on where they got in. I think that for DEC to be where they are given what they had to work with is disappointing. Best wishes to all the new holders that got a windfall, good for you! I'm sure there are some other longs out there that share my sentiment. Regards.

To: hossein hosseini who wrote (2806)	1/26/1998 11:40:00 PM
From: John Sladek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3276

Hossein: How's it going! I don't think that Palmer will be around after the deal is done. I imagine that CPQ would not want to keep him, and will replace him with one of their own people. Regarding LEAP's: I sold my Jan '99 $40 calls for $19.25 today, and my Jan '00 $50 calls for $16.25. I figure that the time premiums will totally disappear from these options given that the deal is likely to go through soon. This especially true for the Jan '00 $50's, which have a premium over the February or April $50 calls. Based on the closing bid prices, I think that this might have started to happen to some extent. I am still holding my DEC common shares. DEC has been one of my best stocks and I will be sad to see it go. I have gotten lucky on this one several times, both with common shares and with call LEAPs. Over the last four years, there have been some very bit swings from $30 to $18 to $75 to $25 to $55 to Mid 30's and now to $55 or so. I have made money on every upswing in the past 4 years, and had no money in DEC during the fall from the mid 70's to the mid 20's. What great luck! Part of that success comes from getting an excellent tip from you on this very thread. I know I already commented on this before, but I thought I would bring you up to date since I finally closed out my last position in DEC today. Here is the summary of these trade I did after you pointed out the low premiums in the DEC LEAP's: Jan '98 30's Bought: 4-Apr-97 for $3.5, Sold: 2-Aug-97: for $15 7/8 Jan '99 40's Bought: 4-Apr-97 for $3.5, Sold: Today for $19 1/4. Thanks again. I hope that the praise that I am showering on you does not go to your head - after all some praise is due to me, since it was me who decided when to take the profits! I also had another LEAP call which I bought on the latest dip, just before the earnings were released. I did this so that I could establish a second call position, to replace the Jan 98 30's I had sold last August. I selected the Jan '00 $60's. I closed this out today: Jan '00 50's Bought 2 wks ago for $6.625, Sold Today for $16.25. Getting into DEC LEAP's was a good thing. I will have to try to find another stock that swings around like this one does, or rather, did ;-( Any suggestions? --- Although I make an effort not to get emotionally attached to a stock, I must admit that I have a certain fondness for DEC. The first computer I ever programmed, back in the late 70's was a DEC PDP-11. The first computer I ever owned was an old PDP-11/03. My first real employment as a computer programmer I had was on a PDP-11. I use DEC VAX and PDP-11 hardware in my work as a real-time computer systems design engineer. Work bought me an Alpha server to play with. I have a Micro PDP-11 and a Micro VAX in my house. You get the picture ... I think that DEC has developed some really great technologies starting in the late 50's with the PDP-1, and Later with PDP-8, PDP-11, DEC and VAX systems. Also other lesser-known architectures such as the earlier PDP's and the System 10's and 20's. I think that projects like Alta Vista and Alpha show that they can still innovate, and have the potential to develop powerful networked applications in this increasingly networked world. On reflection, this last sentence looks a bit of advertising copy, or some B.S. from an annual report, but I also think that it is accurate. I hope that under Compaq's rule DEC will be better able to translate these innovations into increasing sales and profit, something that the past and current managements seemed unable to do. I also hope that CPQ allows DEC to continue to develop leading-edge microprocessors (i.e., future alpha generations) and architectures (i.e., galaxies), but I am by no means certain to what extent they will. I saw the CEO if CPQ on The Nightly Business Report tonight, and he seemed to indicate that the main thing that they were buying when they bought DEC was its customers. Also, IMO, we need to have competing architectures in order to promote innovation in a market increasingly dominated by INTC (Note: this is not intended as a knock against INTC in any way). Alpha looked like it was a good contender. Maybe with CPQ's support and marketing experise... BTW, I saw Palmer in the same Nightly Business Report interview where I saw the CPQ guy. Basically he appeared to say that his job now is to deliver to CPQ the value that it got. IMO he is being an A H*. I thought his job was to deliver value to his shareholders! But we know all about Mr. Palmer - his past accomplishments speak for themselves. The DEC profits will make up for my losses in my resource stocks. I get the feeling that some of these stocks are mad at me for some reason - the way they've been treating me lately ;-) I apologize for the length of this post, but it might well be my last one to this thread. Regards, John Sladek