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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Shread who wrote (5567)	3/25/1998 4:10:00 PM
From: D.J.Smyth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

our office warned of rate hike last month stating that the probability of the hike is in the upper 1/4 quartile (above 75%); this was before the housing data and manufacturing data. the mold for a hike is already in the works apparently unless something drastic happens between now and then. they also warned that msft was going to top at this level, although they kept their buy rating on dell. it is difficult for me to separate msft from dell, but in the cfo's talk, he apparently did that while stating that pc growth remains strong. msft, with a "monopoly" should begin to grow at the rate of the overall tech market. dell, having no monopoly can still capture market share (as i'm told they are continuing to do). you add these factors together with the doj inquiry, and it's of concern relative to msft. this information comes from our in-house office source. it is my personal opinion (hope) that the rate change will not affect dell long term. it may have a greater impact on msft, however, given their current situation. guess we'll just have to see.

To: Paul Shread who wrote (5567)	3/25/1998 5:15:00 PM
From: Alan Buckley	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74651

Several analysts during the conference call asked exactly why MSFT was pre-announcing if the good/bad news was mixed. I was wondering the same thing. Seems to me they've beat numbers by 10% before without preannouncing. Maybe they've decided on some kind of "surprise" threshold they feel puts them at legal risk if they do not pre-announce. With all the legal hassles they've had recently, I'm sure they're looking for ways to minimize that risk. Or maybe its just a Windows98 stock management strategy to try to avoid a big spike and drop like the one around the Windows95 launch.