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

To: Sam who wrote (5625)	9/10/1998 3:52:00 PM
From: William Epstein	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7841

Sam; I expected to hear this kind of thing when I posted my speculation. However, large companies often know within an approximate range what their quarterly figures will be, sometimes months in advance. This is based on orders logged and posted and the manufacturing lead times necessary to complete transactions. Much of it has to do with their various methods of accounting. Some count only orders shipped while others count orders logged in their quarterly figures. Also current inventory figures can tell them what to expect. There is a tremendous amount of playing with those figures for both the profit picture and tax related issues. Even small companies can often tell what the profit picture will be as much as 1-2 quarters in advance. We know that inventories in the DD industry are get tight and that alone can give them a better advance picture of how profits will pan out. I was a CEO for 10 years for a smaller company and even I knew what our profit picture would be usually 6 mos. in advance. This quarter is 2/3 completed. I'm sure they have a pretty good idea. Retailers have a difficult time forcasting but manufacturers generally know their profit picture pretty well in advance. Even if Seagate got a monsterous order today it would probably have to be counted into next quarter's profits because of the manufacturing lead time. I might also add that large orders are often placed with very specific delivery requiremnts such as, so much this month and so much next month, etc.. This too is an aid in forcasting from quarter to quarter. William Epstein