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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mr.mark who wrote (14343)	3/8/1998 2:35:00 AM
From: Mang Cheng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

mr. mark, I think thestreet,com blew it this time because : 1. It jumps into an overtly bearish interpretation of the accounting readjustment too soon. While the consensus seems to hold a neutral interpretation. Like the following from the WSJ : "Analysts said the changes were purely historical, and didn't reflect the company's current business or future prospects. 3Com is set to report its third-quarter earnings later this month." 2. This is what I, a small investor, posted right after the readjustment news but before the WSJ piece (post #14285) : "Coms's readjustments of balance sheet should be just slightly negative. It does not affect current operations at all. The upgrades these few days are based on FUTURE and current strong product cycles and the 56K standards." 3. The point I am trying to make is that if the information given out is public and accessible to everybody at the same time, small investors like us can interpret the news as well as, if not better than, any anaLysts. Only when the news are inequitably distributed then we small investors are obviously at a distinct disadvantage. 4. I've to admit thestreet.com is more often right then wrong. They always go to those close-door analyst meetings and come back and tell us a little bit of what's being said. But they all had been really sneaky last November when they went to the close-door meeting with coms and heard everything about the inventory problems. They came out and didn't say nothing. Instead they all went out and had a short-coms orgy !! - Then they started lowering coms estimates and told us poor-suckers how much they hate coms on CNBC ! Mang

To: mr.mark who wrote (14343)	3/8/1998 10:07:00 AM
From: Beachbumm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. (just answering because it appeared that Mang overlooked your question) Beachbumm

To: mr.mark who wrote (14343)	3/8/1998 6:18:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

WALL ST WEEK AHEAD-More profit warnings on techs Reuters Story - March 08, 1998 18:00 %US %STX INTC CPQ HNZ FDX MOT V%REUTER P%RTR By Huw Jones NEW YORK, March 8 (Reuters) - Wall Street is bracing itself for more profit warnings this week, especially from high-tech companies after bellwether Intel Corp set the bearish ball rolling last week. "The big thing people are focusing on now are the big pre-announcements of disappointing earnings by a number of high-tech companies," said William Barker, chief investment strategist at Dain Rauscher. "It seems to me that's going to keep the market on edge." Intel, the world's biggest computer chipmaker, said last Wednesday that first quarter revenues will fall by 10 percent due to slower personal computer sales and stronger price competition. Compaq Computer Corp said after the close on Friday that it expected first quarter results to fall below Wall Street forecasts after stiff competition in North America forced the world's biggest personal computer maker to cut prices. Earnings forecasts for the nation's biggest companies have already been slashed, with more warnings expected. First Call, which collates Wall Street forecasts, said first quarter earnings for the S&P 500 companies were expected to grow 3.7 percent from the same quarter last year. In early January, growth of 10 percent was forecast. "High-tech stocks have been the driving force in this market, and when they begin to come apart, the rest of the market loses a little bit of its enthusiasm," Barker said. H.J. Heinz Co and Federal Express are to report earnings on Monday and Wednesday respectively. I/B/E/S International, a firm that tracks corporate earnings, said pre-announcements are dramatic so far because they come from high-profile companies such as Intel and Motorola Inc , which are widely held by the public. Electronics giant Motorola said Friday it expected first quarter earnings to be at least 25 percent lower than expectations of $0.47 per share due to price pressure related to Asia's turmoil. Many non-tech companies used their fourth quarter reports to dole out any bad news about the first quarter, thereby taking some of the steam out of this pre-announcement season, said Peter Crays, I/B/E/S manager of U.S. research. "Right now we are only seeing pre-announcements occuring in the technology sector on a large scale. There is sure to be a lot of news, and we will have to go through a period of some uncertainty," Crays said. The pre-announcements season is set to last this week and next before companies enter a quiet period ahead of reporting earnings from mid-April. So far, the stock market has absorbed the profit warnings well, but this may not last without some sort of pullback, analysts warn. On Friday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 41.57 points to close at 1,753.49, its second-biggest point gain. The Dow industrials closed up 125.05 points at 8,569.38. "This is a market that just doesn't want to die, it seems to be maybe in a state of denial," said Richard Smith, senior managing director at Montgomery Securities. Little major economic data are due this week to influence interest rates. The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond, a bellwether for long-term interest rates, remains stubbornly above 6 percent. The long bond closed up 19/32 to yield 6.02 percent on Friday after investors took comfort from payrolls data that showed the economy created 310,000 new jobs in February, more than Wall Street had expected, but without signs of overheating. February's producer price index, due next Friday, is expected to show another dip as wholesale price deflation continues. Reports on unit labor costs and productivity in the fourth quarter are due on Tuesday. The market will focus on the impact of Asia's problems in Thursday's report on import and export prices for February. Apart from profit warnings, window-dressing from the 15th of the month and triple-witching, or expiry of stock options, and futures on individual stocks and stock indices on March 20, will also inject volatility into stock trading through the end of the month, Dain Rauscher's Barker said. Window-dressing is the term for investment managers dumping stocks that lag benchmarks like the S&P500 index and buying better performing shares to put a better gloss on their portfolios by the quarter's end. Analysts see a tug-of-war in the market between downward pressure from profit warnings, and the uplift from window-dressing helping to keep an anticipated market correction modest. "We have been looking for perhaps a 5 percent pullback to the 8,100 level on the Dow," Barker said.