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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David B. Higgs who wrote (12660)	2/24/1998 8:45:00 PM
From: Brian Malloy	Respond to of 77400

Well one can never tell about articles and fund manger/analyst prognostication. The article rather reminds me of some of the pieces that I have read in the past about MSFT and INTC. Similar articles were floating around about INTEL last year. Fund manager's were selling off parts of their holdings and Kurlak and Klauer and other semi analysts were talking the company down. In fact, many analysts and fund managers basically made it sound as if AMD and Cyrix were the second comming. I'm sure you can remember a few of the hatchet jobs put out by the erstwhile Barron's and the WSJ last year. What a difference a few quarters can make. Quite frankly, I like it when I see the experts doing this type of thing. It lets me know that the company probably is in good shape. Call it a contrarian position if you will. If only the experts had called the Asian collapse or been right about INTC going down the tubes, I might now be awed and impressesed by their CSCO sentiment ;-)

To: David B. Higgs who wrote (12660)	2/24/1998 9:07:00 PM
From: Mo Chips	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

<<Foster Friess's Brandywine Fund dumped its entire position of over 5 million shares in December...The Fidelity Growth Company fund likewise sold about 1.8 million shares ... in November, while Provident Investment Counsel unloaded about 1.2 million shares out of the approximately 3.2 million it held in December, Vickers' data shows.>> What's interesting is that someone had to buy these shares, who is it? And after these folks sold, we went on to new highs.... Mo

To: David B. Higgs who wrote (12660)	2/24/1998 10:04:00 PM
From: The Phoenix	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77400

Fidelity Growth Company fund likewise sold about 1.8 million shares -- more than half its 3-million-share holdings -- in November, while Provident Investment Counsel unloaded about 1.2 million shares out of the approximately 3.2 million it held in December, Vickers' data shows. Both United Income Fund and Ark Asset Management sold at least half their Cisco holdings during that time, too. Let's see November Cisco was trading in the 50 to 55 range In December Cisco was trading in the 55 to 60 range. Now Cisco's in the mid-60's, someones picked up those shares and made a quick 10-20%. Remember in November/December Cisco's friends, ASND, CS, NN, etc. were all warning the street...many fund managers were dumping their positions in technology. The question is what are their positions now and what do that say about the company now? They dumped prior to earnings with perhaps and expectation Cisco would miss, but Cisco didn't disappoint. I would be very interested to hear how these managers felt about the company today and prospects going forward. Michael Duran, an analyst with Lazard Freres, downgraded his recommendation on Cisco to Accumulate from Buy the day after it reported better-than-expected earnings. "The stock was trading outside the top end of its five-year trading range," he points out, noting that it could end up drifting back to within that range. So in effect this article says it's O.K. for analysts to ignore this very fact when in comes to MSFT, INTC, and DELL, but if it's CISCO this is an issue? Isn't this thinking somewhat curious. No, I suspect there's another reason for this position... Why doesn't this guy come out and tell us? Michael Karfopoulos, who has a Buy rating on Cisco's stock, says he "wouldn't be an aggressive buyer right now" at current price levels, despite thecompany's "wonderful fundamentals." And I suppose MSFT and DELL (not to mention AOL) has fundamentals that support thier stock prices. These guys are speaking out of both sides of their mouths. What position do these fund managers have in MSFT, INTC, DELL, CPQ, etc... Are they simply out of technology altogether or is their position unique to CSCO? This story gives no meat.... It's a bunch of short hype. I'm open to listening to possible issues which might signal weakness but simply saying that the stock value hasn't kept up with other bellweathers is a poor position. In fact, I'd argue that in fact Cisco is a buy using this theory. Cisco is a bellweather and therefore valuations will catch up .... certainly to companies like DELL that have much slimer margins and stiffer competition. Gary

To: David B. Higgs who wrote (12660)	2/25/1998 1:57:00 PM
From: JRH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

The fact that the fund managers are selling doesn't mean too much, I believe, because the article says that they were selling back in December, when the market was hurting and just about everyone on the planet was selling stocks of all sorts. I wonder what the funds were doing with their MSFT, INTC, etc... Also, CSCO is at its all time high, and I don't know if I would want it to go much higher because of its valuation. CSCO only returned the same as S&P?? Well, the author forgot to mention that the stock was down about 30% in the first half of last year, as well as all the networkers..... CSCO Long, JRH