Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : THREE FIVE SYSTEM (TFS) - up from here? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Noblesse Oblige who wrote (1535)	5/29/1998 2:01:00 PM
From: voyager.ed	Respond to of 3247

Noblessse, This company has no idea how to 'spin'! They have always had that ability or lack of ability as a weakness. To spin you need a PR machine and Liz and company are way too busy for that. My sense is that TFS runs very very lean. regards, Ed P.S. I thought 16 3/8 & 16 1/2 was a good buy range, and promptly turned up the heat on myself. Hopefully, I did not push out my retirement a few years.......

To: Noblesse Oblige who wrote (1535)	5/29/1998 2:14:00 PM
From: dfloydr	Respond to of 3247

<< in all of our interests that this release came now rather than on or about July 10th>> Amen. But I still feel they could have done better. Remember, you have often pointed out that stock P/E's are better when a company conducts itself and its business in a predictable way. Part of that is keeping a smooth flow of news so that there are few surprises. We have to accept that Jeff B. did, as raefon reports, just talk to MOT yesterday ... but I bet the tenor of that call was something along the lines of "Hey, are you guys ever going to want this pile of inventory we are holding for you? You know we can not crank out $4mm worth of stuff, ship it to Manilla and back and deliver in this quarter even if you give us the go ahead this instant!" In otherwords, given what must be normal TFS lead times, this "news" must have been apparent weeks ago ... we just were not told ... except through the stock price. What TFS needs, to be believable, is not to tell us after the price has fallen, but to tell us before scuttlebut starts to get around. Wedenesday 5/27 at 17:02 Liz sent me a note stating "Basically, if an item is material, it is announced. That will continue to be the case." The implication of her entire note was that nothing untoward was on the radar at TFS. Less than 24 hours later they talk to MOT and the whole quarter is off by $4mm which I take to be material, and which I suspect was already very visible on their financial radar days or even weeks ago. Note that several on this thread complained that TFS was not responding to anyone over the past month. Seems they find it hard to talk about bad news just when they should. Looking forward: We have to hope that MOT does not stiff TFS another four or five months. Basically TFS is carrying MOT's baggage (inventory) waiting for MOT to decide where they are going. MOT has just reported that they lost three phone system satellites and they seem still not to know where they are going with their ground based digital effort. There was also a distracting scare last week when Siemens was rumored to be planning to buy MOT. In all, MOT seems to be a jumbled mess at this time. Another few months delay is not out of the question. Somewhere here TFS better find a way to get paid by MOT for standing around or turn that inventory into someone else's product. Thanks to all for your various efforts to fill in the TFS story. I trust there will yet be a good outcome. It is almost week end and time for all of us to get a life. Enjoy! Floyd