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Biotech / Medical : VISX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yosid who wrote (716)	10/12/1998 12:48:00 PM
From: Toby Zidle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1754

Shorts can make lots of money playing a volatile stock like VISX -- provided they know where to cover. It's got to be almost like day trading. Nonetheless, VISX is a great stock for long-term investors who don't care to lose money via ill-advised attempts at market timing.

To: yosid who wrote (716)	10/12/1998 12:51:00 PM
From: Toby Zidle	Respond to of 1754

Why do you think vision centers are on the skids? It still takes weeks to get an appointment for the laser-surgery procedure.

To: yosid who wrote (716)	10/12/1998 5:18:00 PM
From: John Binford, Jr.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1754

Shorting any stock last Monday would have worked. Visx has held up as well or better than the other laser vision stocks (compare percentage drops.) As for what price is justified if Visx turns out $.60/sh, I don't know. If we take $.60/sh * 4 = $2.40/sh, then $60 is 25 times earnings. If the stock is growing at > 30% per year (recently it has been growing at 100% per year) then maybe it should have a P/E of 30 or more, which would result in $72/sh. So my rule of thumb is to take the fully taxed operating earnings and multiply by 100 to 120 for a reasonable price level. Analysts have 6 to 9 month targets around $80 to $85/sh.