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Technology Stocks : Command Systems, Inc. (CMND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Floyd who wrote (319)	4/29/1998 2:30:00 PM
From: BACRDI	Respond to of 1956

Command Sys -2: Cites Infrastructure Investments NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Shares of Command Systems Inc. (CMND) lost as much as 65.5% of their value Wednesday despite a mostly positive first-quarter earnings release. Investors may have been spooked by one comment from Edward G. Caputo, president and chief executive of the information-technology software and services company. "The recent investments we have made in our sales and delivery systems are positioning the company to shift an increasing percentage of its business focus from IT staff augmentation to a project orientation," Caputo said in a news release. "As we strive to increase our project business, we expect to encounter short-term variations in both revenue and earnings growth, primarily due to the timing of necessary additional infrastructure investments relative to the commencement of new projects." Command Systems' first quarterly earnings as a public company were $455,000, or 4 cents a diluted share, after $260,000 in preferred stock dividends, compared with a loss of $271,000, or 6 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $7.9 million from $5.1 million. But Caputo's comment may have been enough to send Command Systems shares as low as 5, well below the previous low of 13 set March 17. The stock originally priced at $12 a share on March 12 with Cowen & Co. serving as lead underwriter. Shares recently changed hands at 7 1/4, down 7 1/4, or 50%, on volume of 1.6 million, compared with a daily average of 133,000. Command Sys-3: Volpe Downgrades Stock, Cuts Estimates But in a research note, Volpe Brown Whelan & Co. analyst Christoper Paul said the company intends to provide more non-year 2000 services, including application maintence and legacy code conversion. In preparation, the note went on, the company expanded the capacity of one of its development facilities - capacity that may exceed its needs. "The company's subsequent inability to secure the needed (new) business has resulted in a gap in (the facility's) backlog which we expect will seriously disrupt revenue and earnings projections," the note explained. Those concerns prompted Volpe to lower its rating on the stock to neutral from buy and preliminarily cut earnings estimates to between 23 cents and 28 cents a share for 1998, from an earlier estimate of 42 cents, and between 32 cents and 37 cents a share for 1999, from 61 cents. But Stephen Willcox, chief operating officer of Command Systems, said while the company has not closed any expanded project contracts yet, he added it appears the company's efforts to move toward more non-year 2000 services will bear fruit soon. "The project business requires a different sell from our sales staff, and it takes more time to build those kinds of relationships," he said.

To: Robert Floyd who wrote (319)	4/29/1998 3:13:00 PM
From: Robert Floyd	Respond to of 1956

I answered part of the question: $260,000 first is taken out of earning to be distributed as preferred stock dividends. For earnings per share, (455,000-260,000)/4,938,000= .0395. This leads to new questions: 1. Are the preferred stock numbers included in the 4,938,000 total weighted average number of shares outstanding or are they in addition to it? If they are in addition, how many of these shares are outstanding? 2. How does one determine how much of earnings goes toward preferred stock dividends and how much will go towards the shareholder equity?