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

To: 18acastra who wrote (7541)	3/18/1998 1:18:00 PM
From: still learning	Respond to of 9124

let's not go over the lip here. QNTM earnings YTD: 1.26 (diluted 1.05) w/o charges $1.50 YTD Q4 estimates:.27 last Q .29 (-.24 w/ charges) projected 1.81 (should me more like 1.70-1.75 PE (@ $21 shr = ranges from 11.6x to 12.35) even at 1.50 for FY98 PE is only 14x. last year's earnings: .54 through 3 qtrs (.46 fully diluted) Seems like, despite the bad near-term news QNTM does have a bright side. If I wan't fully invested I would consider it a good buy at $18, and we are near there now.

To: 18acastra who wrote (7541)	3/18/1998 1:20:00 PM
From: Bleeker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9124

At a recent Goldman Sachs conference call a top Quantum executive reportedly said that he expects the company's Digital Linear Tape business to be up as high as 10% for the most recent quarter. That may explain why the company has come up from its 52-week low. Why is this company better at generating revenues in a tough market compared to IOMEGA. I get the sense from the conference call that management is hinting at a very positive earnings surprise. Up 10% is stellar given the deterorating fundamentals behind the sector. Bleeker

To: 18acastra who wrote (7541)	3/18/1998 1:21:00 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9124

"nobody wants to buy a no-earnings disk drive business where things are only getting worse. you have got to be kidding me." While I am inclined to agree with you, let me try this out on you: Demand is still strong--it is supply that is the problem, and companies like Maxtor, Fujitsu and IBM that each want to become one of the Big Three. Demand is still projected to grow enormously over the next few years. Even at the 12-13% growth rate for next year that TrendFocus projects (down from the 18-20% projections prior to the Asian flu mess), a company that is more than half the size of QNTM will be added to the demand side. One may presume that, unless computers go out of style or there is a severe worldwide recession, demand will pick up even more in later years. If, e.g., Fujitsu or IBM want the drive business to be healthy again, and also want to be part of the Big Club, what better and quicker way to do it than to buy assets at less than 1x sales ($30 is about a .75 PSR, I think, doing the math quickly in my head, using 150 million shares as the share base, and $6 billion as revenue assumption), get a major competitor out of the way, plus get DLT as one kicker, and the Terastor stake and patent rights as as a more speculative kicker that could be worth even more as time goes by. Of course, if DLT is suffering along with drives, then the kicker could be the kickee. But if QNTM gets taken out by one of its aspiring competitors, then the drive business could get much healthier quickly as quickly as it got sick. When IBM bought Lotus, it looked like a typically bad IBM deal. While I can't say that I have followed how it has gone very closely, it is at least my impression that it has helped rather than hindered them, despite a lot of sneers at the time. If you have a long term goal to be one of the leaders in the drive business, you could do worse than buy QNTM now or relatively soon. That said, I'm probably just whistling a happy tune with this.