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Technology Stocks : PSFT - Fiscal 1998 - Discussion for the next year -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (2781)	10/16/1998 2:31:00 PM
From: Elmer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 4509

Hi MH, I'm worried as well about 1999 but I'm puzzled why you aren't long PSFT. Not that the recent experience hasn't been a considerable hurt. It has. But your posts have made some of the the most intelligent cases for ownership. For example, you said that you thought it will gain share on SAP and eventually be the market leader. I think you may be right. I seldom hear anybody bad mouthing the product or the organization. The only problem seems to be Y2K related and some saturation of the ERP market. It's harder in the future. Every business gets that way. But there isn't anything (that I know of right now) wrong with the organization or its products. And contrary to the "commodity" argument made this week, it's not a commodity. ERP companies own their clients because the cost of switching is too high. Now, if you buy the above, the market is offering you an opportunity to buy the stock at price to sales and price to earnings multiples that haven't been available for 5 years. And 5 years ago, it was a much smaller company that warranted lower multiples. I certainly can't provide any assurances that the stock won't get hammered the day after earnings, but even so, it is too good a business to stay down forever. And if that happens, it becomes cheap enough to be acquired by Gates or even Oracle. I have to admit that I'm concerned about my position. LLcoolG has correctly pointed out that it has lost its sponsorship (GS) and it will take a while. But if we get an earnings hit, I'll sell something else to buy more of this stock unless the conference call says that the PSFT world has changed completely since the call last month. Having said that, I would feel awful if you bought and it just kept going down. So, sorry to unload. Misery loves company.:-) David

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (2781)	10/16/1998 2:32:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4509

Michelle, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Timing the market is a loser's game. I think you are playing with fire. [And since we both care about whales, I care about you!]. Just look at how rapidly sentiment has swung in just the last couple of weeks. We went from a state of shell shock as PeopleSoft spiraled down to the high teens to a state of resignation about potentially lower earnings to some euphoria today -- All on NO NEWS!!! This truly amazes me. The worst case scenario is that some projects will be deferred, and that will make business explosive a year from now. I think this is really a microcosm of the market as a whole. BTW, I just heard a teaser on the news suggesting that Asian problems seem to be diminishing. If so, and if fears of a domestic recession subside then the market could explode in the next month or two. TTFN, CTC

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (2781)	10/16/1998 4:29:00 PM
From: RetiredNow	Respond to of 4509

No, Michelle. I really don't share your views or those of the market in general. There are two reasons why I think the most recent ballyhoo is excessive and overdone. There are two major longer term trends and one really short term trend driving our economy. The ST trend is obviously the Y2K problem. This has diverted a tremendous amount of human and currency capital towards fixing a problem rather than investing in the future. The LT trends are the PC market coming back out of its slump (as evidenced by recent excellent reports and foward guidance from INTC and CPQ, not to mention Dell), and the next wave of technology boom which will be driven by telecom/networking companies. Y2K issues are serious, but most of the majors can not afford to slow down there spending in the areas of networking and the Internet, otherwise they will be left behind. Networking is hot now and will heat up even more in the next 2 years. Surely everyone has noticed the rapid consolidation going on in the telecom marketplace. Every telecom, networking, cable, software, and hardware company is jockying for position in order to reap the huge financial opportunities (in terms of cost savings and new markets) that the Internet represents. The Internet is a bulldozer that will drag the naysayers into the new millenia kicking and screaming. I don't see a slowdown. I see the economy chugging along as it always has. Sure the international problems will slow some sectors of our economy down, especially financial services companies. But as always, the place to be is in the tech sector. The nice thing about the most recent crash is that it is giving those with cash the rare opportunity to buy into revolutionary companies like Cisco, Broadcom, Rambus etc, at decent valuations. Actually, it may already be too late for some companies. Prognosis. The US economy is fine. 9 months from now, this will all be a bad dream.