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Non-Tech : Any info about Iomega (IOM)? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sheila rothstein who wrote (46859)	2/4/1998 7:52:00 PM
From: Linda Pearson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

News after the close: www1.newsalert.com www1.newsalert.com www1.newsalert.com Linda

To: sheila rothstein who wrote (46859)	2/4/1998 8:54:00 PM
From: Naggrachi	Respond to of 58324

<<Gottfried, why is everyone tracking the block volume; what is the significance of doing that? >> 'guess that puts you and I in the same league. :-)) Zead

To: sheila rothstein who wrote (46859)	2/4/1998 9:13:00 PM
From: Zakrosian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58324

I have one thought about the advertising, I'm in favor of that. Advertising is a fact of life. Sheila - I agree 100%. The recent spate of articles and reviews makes clear that there will be a high capacity replacement for the floppy. At the moment, the Zip is the clear front-runner, but there are alternatives that are getting better reviews and apparently are being offered as options. I'm pleased to see that IOM is not assuming that their installed base of 13 million drives guarantees that they will be victors, and are taking the steps necessary to ensure that more and more PC buyers add a Zip, regardless of whether they know whether they'll use it. Then, when the OEM's compare the demand for the different removable storage options in order to determine which becomes the standard, the decision should make those of us who continue to hold IOM very happy.

To: sheila rothstein who wrote (46859)	2/4/1998 11:28:00 PM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 58324

Sheila, * block volume and First Call error * Cruncher started tracking blocks of greater than 50,000 shares because a 50k sh block represents about $ 1/2 million, too large for most individual investors. The assumption is that these blocks were probably traded by an institution. On an up day, maybe these blocks were buys. Let me explain what I mean by that: when a trade is initiated by a buyer (with a bid), I'd call it a buy. So when the total large block volume rises while the price rises, maybe that means institutions are buying, and that's good. Some stocks, like AMAT, are owned over 70% by institutions. For Iomega, institutional ownership percentage is much lower. I'm a little nervous when the institutions own too much of a stock, because if they decide to take profits, the stock may tumble in spite of good fundamentals. ---------------------------------------------------------------- And here is a NYT article about an error by First Call. Scary. BTW, subscription to NYT is still free. February 4, 1998 Data Error Causes Overstatement of Growth By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER First Call Inc., a Boston-based firm that tracks earnings estimates by analysts around the country, said Tuesday that it had a data error in its first-quarter 1998 estimates that led to a significant overstatement of earnings growth. Chuck Hill, director of research, said First Call data showed that analysts expected first-quarter 1998 earnings for the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index to rise by 6.2 percent from the 1997 first quarter instead of by 12.6 percent. First Call has had an incorrect estimate out since early December. The forecast then was for 17 percent first-quarter earnings growth. It was later lowered to 12.6 percent as analysts cut their expectations after more companies than usual reported fourth-quarter earnings that were lower than expected and warned of disappointments in the first quarter, in part because of the Asian drag. The revised number gives a sharply less robust view of the first quarter. It also brings the First Call estimate into line with the forecast of the other major firm that tracks earnings, IBES International Hill said the mistake was made because a full-year earnings estimate for a very large company in the S&P index was used as the estimate for the company's first-quarter earnings estimate. Hill would not name the company but said its market capitalization -- the total shares outstanding times the price of the stock -- was in the top 10 of the index. Because the S&P index is weighted in favor of the companies with the highest value of outstanding stock, the error for one company led to a major error overall. Hill said First Call was putting in new procedures to prevent the mistake from happening again.