To: Bill Lotozo who wrote (1518 ) 6/7/1998 7:02:00 PM From: Ariella Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 2349
Dear Bill, venture capitalists are going by planeloads to Israel, not only from the West, but also from the Far East. They know a good thing when they see it -- excellent R&D capability (out of a staff of 235, VocalTec has 170 employees engaged in R&D), creativity in product and launch (think Mirabilis), less expensive engineers. Yet, one must think hard about why these stocks often do less well than American technology stocks (that is, of course, when the tech sector is hot . I can only come up with the answer that they fall between the cracks to the American investing public and analysts, as well as their perceived vulnerability to political situations in the mid-east. They are US companies (but not really cause many times they just have a tiny US home office and everything else is in Israel.) They are foreign stocks (but not really cause they're not ADRs and they are incorporated in the US so they don't even have a sponsor bank in the US). They sometimes have managements who still need to learn a lot about PR and how to treat clients as if they're going to be around for a long time (the companies and the clients). They still have to learn how to seduce the American analysts and investing public. As a group, they seem less well financed and often (like PARS) must resort to private placements with groups that don't care whether the stock price goes us as long as they can also hedge their bets by shorting and the heck with the individual investor. They also don't lend themselves easily to Western style investment techniques. Very often, when Israeli companies report great eps, the stocks nosedive. Time and again I have seen SI enthusiasts scratching their heads after buying on good eps only to have their investment evaporate beneath them like ice in hot tea. So I've learned to buy when no one wants the stocks and hope that volume, hence, investment interest, will pick up. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But except for past couple of weeks, Israeli stocks have been my best investments this year. One must surf the trading channels and try not to get caught as the crest of the wave rolls back on itself. BTW -- sometimes you need, as the Talmud says, to scratch you left ear with your right hand to understand what's happening. On the surface, Friday's good news, but the stock's downtick on volume looks bad. But this is not huge volume stock and someone who has amassed size needs a day with good news and buyers to unload shares to log a profit. Perhaps we'll have a better week next week. I found this part of the Digital news the most encouraging: <<The value of contacts in this area may start at $150,000 and run up into several millions of dollars for the VocalTec software, excluding the cost of services and maintenances contracts, Ganor said. Tom Mercer, director of business development for Digital's systems integration business, said Digital was seeking to build up business in the fast-growing Internet communications market. ''We saw VocalTec as the market leader in this area,'' he said. Mercer said Digital plans to act as a ''preferred systems integrator'' for VocalTec and has been granted distribution rights for VocalTec software. After installing VocalTec software, Digital would continue to provide 24-hour, seven-days-a-week support services to phone carriers and corporations. >> Discounting its R&D staff, VOCLF has fewer than 70 people to run a global company. I think they figured out that collaboration is the way to go. Regards, Ariella