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Technology Stocks : Winstar Comm. (WCII) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alejandro who wrote (8307)	9/20/1998 12:25:00 AM
From: Steven Bowen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12468

"I am wondering where our collective thoughts are going." "It seems to me that the posts indicate we have become really conservative. It's almost like some have lost focus on WCII potential and have become very defensive." Hi Ali, I imagine I'm one here you're referring to, so let me tell you where I'm coming from. I'm still very focused on WinStar's fundamentals and potential and remain very bullish. Remember, I'm the one who keeps saying that 100 in 99 is possible. I'm very happy now with the way they're building out and executing the game plan (although I think their recent announcement regarding on-net migration was meant as a warning that the numbers still might not be as high as we may expect). That said, there are many reasons to be very concerned about the market right now; 1) The world wide banking crisis, that you are very well aware of, that seems to be adding another trouble country to the list almost daily. 2) Probably 50/50 odds that Clinton's facing impeachment hearings, especially after the nation watches the tape Monday morning. 3) Earnings warning season. This will be the worst quarter in a long time, maybe forever(?). There will be a ton of warnings during the next few weeks, even with the drastically reduced numbers. 4) Earnings growth right now for the S&P 500, year over year, is a negative number. This is the lowest level of earnings growth since 1991, and nothing says that this will turn around anytime soon. 5) The market and the inverted yield curve seem to be predicting a recession for the US next year. I don't know that an inverted yield curve has ever failed in predicting a recession. 6) The budding war between Iran and Afghanistan. 7) October coming. Don't need to say much more about that. Every trader or short term investor will sit with his (or her, sorry Pam) finger on the sell button for the month, waiting for any reason to press it. (Dang, am I sounding enough like Limtex yet?) In the face of all this, in my opinion, the market is still trading at fairly lofty levels. The S&P is still trading at what, a PE of 27 or so. With the S&P earnings growing at negative rates now and maybe for the next year, how do you support a PE of 27? The ONLY savior right now is the ton of money the baby boomers are putting away for retirement. And this seems a shaky platform to be counting on to me. I remember the days when the thing to do was invest in real estate. When I was in my 20's (dang am I getting old), alot of my friends were buying rental units instead of stock (and interest rates were 12%). Now with interest rates at 6% or whatever, seems to me like decent retirement vehicles could be apartment buildings or other real estate instead of stock. How much of a bear market will it take before a lot of this boomer retirement money starts going into real estate or other investments? It's hard to say, probably none of us have ever seen a decent bear market. Now, I'm not preaching doom and gloom. But I do think that the next few months at least will be a rough time in the market, with a lot of volitility, and if I had to bet, a lot of downside potential. So I do think it's only prudent to be playing fairly conservatively (of course, conservative to me may still be risky to you). 6000 may be an easy target for the DOW. Who knows what WinStar would do if it did, but 15 or 12 or 9 could be possible (I remember telling some that I thought it was possible for PCMS to fall to 8 and ARTT to fall to 7.5, and look what happened to them, so nothing is ever not possible). But for me personally, there is no way I'd be margined much now or playing short term calls (long). Sorry for rambling again, but at least it is the weekend. Maybe I need to quit reading so much Gentleman-Boyle, maybe he's contagious (sorry G-B, just kidding, your contributions are always greatly appreciated, even the ones that go way over my head<g>). Of course, others thoughts here would also be appreciated.

To: Alejandro who wrote (8307)	9/20/1998 7:06:00 AM
From: TheSlowLane	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12468

Ali - What makes you so sure that this latest round of acquisitions is a departure from the game plan? Did you get a copy of Coach Bill's playbook? Please post it if you did! I don't think they ever said after Goodnet/Midcom/US One that they were done with acquisitions. The four companies that they picked up seem to be fairly small, relatively speaking. iCi operates in my area and I've never even heard of them. I don't know what they paid for these companies or whether they will be accretive to earnings this year or not. It would be good to get the details. Also, from what I can see from their web sites, we picked up 3 ISP's (Chicago, Indiana and Mass.) and one web-site/application/services provider (MCNY - doesn't look like they provide Internet access so much as Internet-based services). To me, this looks like WinStar beefing up the data side of the business. Finally - as far as earnings go...(well, negative earnings, anyway)...given the word we've gotten on July and August, Q3 should be a blowout quarter for WinStar. Hopefully this will contrast well with a lot of companies that are starting to struggle out there some of the problems outlined by Mr. Bowen. To be defensive, I will make sure I keep a pile of cash stuffed in the mattress to be deployed if WinStar ever does sink to $10 over the next six months. SteveG - thanks for the links...