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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pierre-X who wrote (4785)	6/27/1998 8:32:00 AM
From: Joe C.	Respond to of 16960

Pierre-X, I appreciate your legwork in checking out the retail outlets. I also take the tour (live in NY) and have found the opposite but then that's been covered. Obviously what we're doing makes us feel better (or not) but is not scientific. One thing I've tried to do is look at the other boards. It didn't help 'cause there are two few and they don't seem to be selling much at all :) I try to remind myself that this is summer (worst time of year for this stuff) but its' hard given the stock prices. Another suggestion might be to track the hottest selling games. I've tried this and found that even with the really good games, they don't move as much as they did around Christmas. Another idea might be to talk to the pc people. They probably can give you a better sense of how important gaming is to their customers. Next time ago I'm gonna ask if they heard of Banshee. Have fun. Joe C.

To: Pierre-X who wrote (4785)	6/27/1998 9:45:00 AM
From: Michael G. Potter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

I used to live in a beach-burb of L.A. (in the South Bay) as well and had a job with high travel so I saw computer stores all over the country. The L.A. area is not typical, it has a large number of PC companies and it seems to get shipments from Asia well before the rest of the country does. There also is a large choice of retailers to go to for computer equipment. Most other places in the country only have one or two large stores, the L.A. area has tons. What that means is that each of these stores orders in the hot items. Larger stores like Fry's (if you haven't been to a Fry's, you don't know what you're missing) tend to get hardware first and then sell it too the early adaptors. The rest of the stores then get their stock and eventually there is saturation and you get stocked shelves and steady sales vs. boom sales with stock-outs. The initial stocking period is good for the board makers because they get a bunch of large orders to put products on the shelves. In the long run, the steady sales are what counts. If sales slow down (as you seem to think they are), then the retail stores cancel orders and sell of their shelves. The board makers then cancel orders for chipsets and 3dfx gets hit. Even with good store management, it takes a while before the oem gets hit so I'm hoping that the current quarter will not be hit too hard. What worries me the most about this quarter's release is not the results for the past quarter, but the outlook for the rest of the year. If they have good numbers but say "sales are slowing" or something to that effect then the stock could go down even with good results released. Michael