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Technology Stocks : The Learning Company (TLC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JOHNNY DOLLAR who wrote (4376)	4/3/1998 9:29:00 PM
From: Carmine Cammarosano	Respond to of 6318

Johnny, you can make your comments about any stock that has had a run...TLC has a great future...the first quarter's earnings are history and anyone making a decision to buy or sell TLC on that is crazy...the sub $1K PC will increase the demand for TLC's products(and for that matter AOL's and MSFT's products)...one hit product per year will allow TLC to grow themselves out of debt...the bears on this thread still don't get it! When TLC broke out of the $20 resistance level on good volume, we knew it was the real thing...the bears on this tread were warned that TLC was going up from there, and yet they persisted in their inability to see a trend and their inability to look forward...In the last year it almost didn't matter where one bought TLC, one has made money...We are going higher!!!

To: JOHNNY DOLLAR who wrote (4376)	4/3/1998 9:49:00 PM
From: Obewon	Respond to of 6318

I agree with you JOHNNY that TLC has not been a great growth company. Internal revenue growth has been pretty staid for a couple of years while the industry consolidates. I put TLC solidly in the value camp. Most will agree by now that TLC was a sceaming buy down in the single digits. I for one think that it is pretty much fully valued now but it has momentum and I expect it to continue its run for awhile. I'm not about to say that TLC couldn't become a growth company but I think it will need several catalysts for it to do so: 1) Prices must stabilize without the killer discounts we've been seeing lately. 2) The company comes out with a "killer ap" that can make using computers in the classroom almost mandatory. 3) CyberPatrol becomes the "de facto" standard for all Internet Control programs and TLC starts getting a significant recurring revenue stream from users (ie updated CyberNOT lists). (While this is what they are trying to do, the program hasn't been out long enough to know whether people will pay each year.) OB

To: JOHNNY DOLLAR who wrote (4376)	4/3/1998 10:26:00 PM
From: Thomas C. Donald	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6318

Johnny: Compared to Paul Richards, you are a breath of fresh air. There is certainly room for disagreement about any company. I appreciate your adverse position. It helps us all keep everything in perspective. For you and all who share your feelings (excluding crazies like Richards), it might be helpful to look back over what happened in 1Q97. This is my take on the situation. I have no evidence to support this, but it seems to be a reasonable explanation. Leading up to and during Jan-97, TLC was losing market share as a result of some unwise decisions regarding pricing policies. One or more large institutional investors (including J. P. Morgan) became uncomfortable and decided to substantially reduce their positions. This intention was discovered by Oppenheimer & Company who advised its clients and subsequently downgraded the stock in advance of the pending selling pressure, causing the crash and subsequent decline of the stock price to below $6. In retrospect, the decline in market share can be seen to be a brief artifact. There was never a significant deterioration in TLC's fundamentals. Thus, it follows that the decent of the stock price into the valley of the shadow of death was a stock market anomaly. All who have followed this thread know that we agonized over what was wrong with TLC and came up with all kinds of elaborate explanations for Wall Street's treatment of the stock. Your position, Johnny, is probably a remnant of this soul searching. In my opinion now, TLC was simply unlucky in its treatment by investors last year. It has been and continues to be a healthy contributor in its sector. TLC and Cendant control most of the market. TLC is a pure play for investors. Cendant Software is an unwanted step-child in the CUC/HFS merger. If you believe that there is a place in our economy for a mega-publisher of consumer software focused on the education of our children and other consumer applications, then TLC seems like an obvious winner. With its clout, TLC should grow. A 20% to 25% growth rate is not unreasonable, nor is a P/E of 20 to 25. We might see yet another round of increases in analysts' target prices in the short term.

To: JOHNNY DOLLAR who wrote (4376)	4/4/1998 12:57:00 PM
From: Buzz Lightyear	Respond to of 6318

Johnny, I'd like to touch on your horse track comparison here. As an avid ex-race handicapper. There is a bit more of a science to the track then you are giving credit too. If you take a stakes horse that looses a few races because of a bad diet, drop it way down in class, clean-up its diet and notice the horse work-outs and timing improving, you are almost guaranteed to have a winner through each class until it is a stakes contender again. Along the way you will still have the fans who either placed a bad bet, or witnessed this horse through its sickness, they will usually be placing their bets against the horse. With the belief that its drop in class was due to the horse going lame. When in-fact it was due to its bad diet. Well sorry to get off subject here, but for the all successful handicappers out there, I thought I'd add a little support. Cheers all. Hope TLC runs the route wire to wire.