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Technology Stocks : IFMX - Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Graham who wrote (10753)	5/9/1998 11:26:00 PM
From: harryl1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14631

Recent "pullback" from former highs aside, I think the market is struggling to value this company reasonably. I don't think greedy Market Makers or anyone else will hold sway for long over the price of the stock, any more than evil billionaires "cause" things like the asian financial downturn or ruin Malasia's economy. Surely, in the SHORT TERM, traders move prices. But long term, value is what matters. For tech stocks, it is often the perception of what value will be created in the future that some folks buy, and this is where tremendous opportunity and risk is found. I think the market wants to value IFMX based upon furture earnings, including the effects of GROWTH. Would anyone pay $10 for a stock that was going to generate 40 cents a year profit in a VERY GOOD YEAR, much less in some and much more in others? Not if it isn't going to grow. So just look at two lines: the top ($167MM last quarter) and the bottom (pennies a share). How fast will they both rise? Not much data to go on; stealing market share from ORCL on DataWarehousing and capturing a good sized chuck of internet related e-commerce and database driven webs COULD provide the opportunity for significant growth. But gaining against MSFT and ORCL can be tough. A few highly visible wins (too bad Amazon went REDBRICK for DataWarehouse -- sure hope IFMX gave it their best shot!) in their key markets would be nice, but we are going to see clearly in the next few quarters where the top line is going and how fast. I think it will be VERY hard to justify a much higher stock price to investors, but I don't think just fear or MSFT, etc will do nearly as much as the reality of SALES. SQL Server 7.0 promises to be a great product for many uses (in terms of price and performance and features); IFMX needs to focus on where ORDBMS and high end scalability and performance really matter --- and how big a market is that? Any thought about how fast revenue can grow if they steal it from ORCL and SYBS market share? any reason yet to think they can? Also, folks seem to forget that Bob F has ONE MILLION options at $10 per share; he got no benefit from "manipulating" anything just so he could bring the share price up from the 5-6 level... or is there somethink new in the SEC filings I missed?