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To: yousef hashmi who wrote (29645)	2/12/1998 9:01:00 AM
From: Gabriel008	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Street.com with comments re. goldman tech conference. Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: Cramer on the Goldman Tech Conference By James J. Cramer 2/12/98 7:45 AM ET Every few weeks I try to get away from the short squeezes and the S&P futures ramps and deal with the reality of the paper I trade: the companies themselves. Normally, my partner, Jeff Berkowitz, plays field marshal, and I hang back directing resources, assessing exposure, analyzing risk, the troika of variables that make or break a given year. I dial into my share of conference calls, read all the research and the quarterlies, and I take one-on-ones (Wall Street parlance for meetings with management) when they shlep to my office. But conferencing, ah, now that's too rare a luxury. For the last two days, however, I have had the treat of hearing an array of technology companies speak at Goldman Sachs' massive parley in midtown Manhattan. The presentations, I say, knowing full well that I'm spreading butane all over this fire, were nothing short of dazzling. Just when I thought that Gateway couldn't be exceeded in terms of robust demand for January, Compaq blows me away with reports about a Europe that is so robust that it is off-setting East Asia handily. It didn't hurt that CPQ's CFO Earl "The Pearl" Mason, who in his next life should come back as an announcer for the NBA, had mouths gaping with stats like how his company now makes $95,000 a minute! I bought both of these stocks from my cell phone at the meetings, causing cautious Jeff to wish that I stuck by my trading turret instead of venturing uptown. Then it was off to PeopleSoft. I went to hear this young aggressive enterprise software company because, in a knee-jerk way, I slammed it and some other high-priced brethren in a gratuitous shot at Art Samberg from the Barron's Roundtable. Art, for what it's worth, I owe you an apology big-time. Could there be a company better positioned than these guys to deal with issues like Year 2000 and the dreaded EMU? I don't think so. You're dead right on this one; I showed my ignorance in that piece and I am sorry for being wrong. PSFT was another cell phone buy special from the back of the audience. Intel, BMC Software, Texas Instruments, I could go on and on; exciting, intriguing stories, with good momentum and a quantified Asia problem. At worst, on plan; at best, on fire. Last year tech had roared from January 1 right on into the conference and then came out like a shorn lamb. I remember gagging on my Ascend in mid-speech last year, flushed with perspiration as I talked about losing money hand over fist in the darn thing. (It had declined seven points while I was on a panel.) This year tech more or less backed into the conference and is coming out with a full head of steam. I, for one, was grateful to hear that East Asia, while far from over, is being quantified and explained in ways that makes me more comfortable than I have been any time since this flu set in. No, nobody said Asia is getting better. Nobody told us an exact date when it will turn. But they did assure us that much of the negative news is discounted fair and square. Ah yes, not everything was positive. I sat on a panel with a bunch of pure tech managers, solid, great guys with lots of experience. They were all pretty much negative or worried or scared. Made me double down when I got back to the office.