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Technology Stocks : Altera -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: joe smith who wrote (1577)	3/10/1998 5:34:00 PM
From: nealm	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2389

Joe, I think there are several forces at work in ALTR's price. First there is a huge overhead supply of stock from last year that will constrain any rally in this stock. Add to that the number of short players both old and new and pull backs in ALTR is inevitable, perhaps desirable. On the upside ALTR and XLNX are fundamentally different than semis that supply PCs and other consumer products. Those chips are basically commodities and live in their own highly competitive environment. For example memories and pentiums/586 from different companies are almost interchangeable on the same circuit boards. The programmable chips made by ALTR and XLNX are in heavy demand by companies generating new products. Typically these products have to be quickly designed and brought to market, and its these programmable devices which facililates that. Also these companies are typically young companies who themselves have high growth potential and their suppliers are going along for the ride. Now some of these growth companies are in Asia, but I feel there are even more in Europe. I used to work for a networking company in Northern VA and the pattern seemed to be always the same, that is "what can the new ALTR/XLNX chips bring to our new products". Another factor is that historically ALTR used second tier process tech. from their chip suppliers. Now their starting to use the first tier process which makes them more competitive with nonprogrammable devices. Now lets say one day the ALTR pessimists both those who have been burned in the past going long or those who currently are short realize the value of ALTR then I think you'll see movement to the $50s but its going to take awhile and there will be pull backs along the way. It will also be important not to pay too much at any time since trading prices will be heavily influenced by the MMs. good luck ... neal m.