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Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (158)	4/11/1998 7:32:00 PM
From: Berney	Respond to of 1722

Porcupine, A look at the DJIA ROE Much discussion occurs as to whether the Market is overvalued. Yes, by my count (at 3/31) 17 DJIA stocks were selling at a 5- year high PE ratio. Guess what, 13 of them are not! Let's look at it differently this month and consider the ratio between the ROE and PE. Many would argue that the ROE is a better method of valuing DJIA stocks because of the dominant position of the companies in their industry, etc. (More to the point, none of them sell at less than their projected growth rates so we have to justify these valuations somehow!) Wayne may be right in putting forth a very logical argument that the current ROE's are not sustainable. I tend to agree. However, many of the DJIA stocks have a substantial margin of safety between the ROE and PE, and others do not. I hope you all enjoy this analysis. 03/31/98 SYMBOL ROE PE RATIO MO 44.3 16.0 2.8 CAT 33.1 12.6 2.6 UK 26.9 10.5 2.6 GM 19.6 7.8 2.5 IBM 25.0 16.8 1.5 MMM 24.3 18.0 1.4 S 25.2 19.0 1.3 KO 56.7 46.4 1.2 ALD 24.4 20.8 1.2 DD 34.0 32.1 1.1 CHV 16.7 15.9 1.1 AXP 22.2 21.9 1.0 MRK 32.4 33.5 1.0 HWP 19.2 21.3 0.9 UTX 18.5 20.8 0.9 JNJ 26.6 30.5 0.9 XON 17.2 19.8 0.9 PG 27.5 32.3 0.9 AA 11.5 14.9 0.8 JPM 13.5 18.7 0.7 MCD 17.7 25.5 0.7 TRV 16.9 24.6 0.7 GE 23.4 35.0 0.7 WMT 17.8 32.6 0.5 DIS 11.4 37.2 0.3 GT 3.1 21.2 0.1 BA 10.0 NM NM IP 3.2 NM NM T 29.1 NM NM EK 27.2 NM NM

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (158)	4/12/1998 10:01:00 AM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1722

>Wayne: Do you think any significant portion of solving the Y2K >problem >will be recaptured through the concomitant software infrastructure >upgrade? I may be the wrong person to ask about this because as usual I disagree with conventional wisdom. I am working on Y2K right now. That is my current project. From what I can tell personally and from conversations, even though the job is massive, it is proceeding well. It is likely that there will be some significant glitches once we hit inter-company testing etc.. I am sure that we won't solve it all. I suspect on D-day there will also be problems but they will be manageable. It is guys like me who will be tortured relentlessly for a couple of months fixing them all. About new software: Many companies have stopped developing new functionality while Y2K is on except for emergency or required changes. I am not a believer in any of the massive productivity gains that some claim is a result of new software applications . I can tell you with absolute certainty that I am no more productive given my current work software than I was in the early 80's. There were some big leaps in productivity in the early 80's. Most everything that is going on in the 90's in my work environment has been a major expense that has lead to LOWER productivity of the workers. I have not seen budget numbers though. Management may be getting less bang for many less bucks. The bottom line in my mind is that most of the upgrades from Microsoft/Intel etc...are essentially useless to most people. I have a much more favorable opinion of the internet!!!