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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul A who wrote (23576)	8/24/1998 3:48:00 AM
From: Marc Newman	Respond to of 42771

Paul and Quad, the avg. cost of my current AAPL position is $14.40. :) I do believe it has a great shot at $50+ by Jan, but after the huge run-up (which I traded from $26.75 in late June to as high as $42.37 last week) I don't think it has the four-month potential of the rest of my portfolio. As far as Apple being ahead of NOVL in the turnaround dept. I give you this. Apple has now had three quarters of substantial profits where NOVL still has weak profits. Apple has a ton of buzz right now (call it hype, call it mindshare, whatever) and Novell still has little. Apple is also getting some major institutional support, as Fidelity just added a ton of shares over the summer and now owns over 12% of the co. It's these kinds of things that I don't see happening for Novell yet, but think will happen soon. Where Apple really started to turn around was getting products out on time (OS releases) and releasing the G3 line of desktops in late 1997. This started the upgrade cycle, just as NW 5.0 will start it for Novell. The iMac is more like the special sauce--like the BorderManager and NDS for NT products. Not the core biz but very important to profits and growth. A few more facts about Apple. A third-party survey showed that 28% of initial iMac buyers were either former Wintel users or buying their first computer. The leading education sales tracker said that Apple sales went up in that space for the first time in five years. Ie, Mac market share is growing. Also, Apple has the lowest inventories among any of its competitors in the channel, so the company is now very lean and mean. Final fun fact: AAPL is the best performing stock in the S&P 500 this year. :) All I ask is that the market stay flat so my picks have a chance to shine. Appreciate both Pauls' takes tonight. I felt this Russian news was not a major shock, so we'll see. There's more downside from current US levels to be sure, but I don't think we'll see things get substantially worse. Maybe 7900 Dow. S&P futures down less than five at the moment. With all the cash that's already on the sidelines right now and James Cramer saying he saw little stock for sale Friday morning, is that really a recipe for Black Monday? Hope not, Marc