Hi Sonny, >>>Hello Tony. I guess you are using Ann's bat now?<<<
Well, yeah, I have to. Who knows who all is included when they say "they're talking". Just the other day, the guy down the hall said to me 'I hear Sonny McWilliams thinks the market should...' He must be reading here, huh? <G>
Abby rules, we hope!
>>>Sheesh. You really have a one track mind. First all the girls on the beach, VG and
now Maria.<<<
Boy, if I ever need anyone to keep track of my mind meanderings, or something, I know who to call. The girls on the beach? Was that me? See, the memory is the second thing that goes. I didn't mean that.
Intel and MU. Intel wants to ensure good supply of the next generation of DRAM, called RDRAM, or DRDRAM, which was jointly developed by Rambus and Intel. Turns out Rambus doesn't build anything, just develops, and licenses its designs out to other DRAM companies, most of which are in Asia/Japan. I guess Intel wants a domestic source, also, hence, MU. Intel will politely ask MU to get off their a** and get on the Rambus bandwagon. To date, MU had been backing a "competing" to Rambus type of DRAM.
Pfizer. Nothing fundamental about them, just my take on some analysts' opinions that came out about their quarter. The guy next office to me owns some PFE (wife inherited), so I hear a lot about it. The other night he was lamenting as they tanked when the earnings came out. The next day, everything was all rosy again, as they recovered it all, and more. Office neighbor found a couple analysts articles on why their qtr came up short. Maybe the stock recovered as investors read those "reasons"? I kind of compared the way PFE's earnings were handled, to the way Intel's were, and concluded that one is the most "pampered" of stocks, and the other the most censored. Guess which is which?
Pfizer article #1 excuse by analyst. Well, seems they hired 1,100 salespeople during the year to go out and peddle Viagra and all their other new drugs. These added headcount had to be paid, for some reason, and blew the marketing, G&A budget. My take on this (basically the same as for the next analyst's lame excuse): didn't they see this coming (need for more salesmen)? Obviously, Viagra was years in development. When they saw it getting close, probably last year, didn't they provide for many more sales folks when doing the 1998 budget, which got prepared in 1997? Didn't they then provide guidance to the analysts about the increased headcount costs and to the bottom line? Don't they do long range planning (LRP, 5 to 10 years or so)? No provision in the LRP for this? Finally, hardest to believe and most improbable in this story is: even a company the size of Pfizer would be hard pressed to bring on board 1,100 good sales people in less than one year. The hiring process, if you do it right, is extremely time consuming and taxing on existing employees. Resume gathering and sifting, phone screening, flying people out, having multiple employees interview each candidate, meeting with employee screening folks to review candidates' qualifications, etc., etc., and doing this for multiple candidates per opening (have to) takes tons of time and gets old fast. 1,100 sales people hired in 9 months. What a joke. Oh, also, the job market has been as tight this year as I can remember. IT IS HARD AS HELL TO FIND GOOD PEOPLE. 1,100?
The second analysts "excuse" was about a big step up in R&D costs to develop and get the new products out. Again, why wasn't this budgeted for long before 3Q98?
What if Intel missed their quarter by 9%, as Pfizer did? If the best excuses/reasons that a couple of "friendly" analysts could come with were anything like this, I dare say that Intel stock would be south of $70 right now.
Tony |
