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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (41817)	4/1/1998 10:44:00 AM
From: blankmind	Respond to of 61433

from a wsj article: IBES International estimates that of the 92 negative earnings "pre-announcements" recorded in the first quarter, technology companies accounted for 37%. Estimates of first-quarter profits for computer and semiconductor manufacturers, for example, have fallen between 9% and 19% since January and are now below year-ago levels. Software-company profits, thanks to the enormous weighting of Microsoft, are still expected to grow 32%. The picture isn't much better for the overall market. Analysts have slashed expected first-quarter profit growth for companies in the S&P 500 from 5% two months ago to just 0.9%, which would be the weakest quarter since the 1990-91 recession, says Joseph Abbott, U.S. research manager at IBES. Even if companies report results that are higher than their projections, as they usually do, it would only lift expected profit growth to between 2.5% and 3%, he says. So has the market put the bad news behind it or is it irrational? It depends on whom you ask.