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Technology Stocks : Ciena (CIEN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David B. Higgs who wrote (4357)	10/16/1998 3:56:00 PM
From: Doughboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12623

Morris has an excellent record as a fund manager, but Science & Technology has been in the doldrums for a couple of years. I know this because I recommended that a friend buy SciTech after it had a bust-out 1996 return of 60%+. Since then it has been negative, and my friend won't let me forget it. As recently as this Spring, however, Smartmoney Magazine recommended SciTech as a fund to own. As for the comments on Ciena, the reason I think that it is conceivable that Morris is the one making those comments is that Morris was very, very frank in the conference calls with Birck and Nettles about Lucent and AT&T. I recall from that call that he intro'd himself as "Chip Morris" and then went into a long harangue about what plans did TLAB and Ciena have to mete out revenge. I thought it was just a deranged shareholder who somehow snuck into the meeting. He was angry and venting a bit more than a typical analyst would. Then when Birck and Nettles referred to him a couple of times as "Chip," I put two and two together and realized that it was probably Chip Morris of T Rowe Price. As for "institutional managers" in Baltimore, there are not many, Legg Mason, Alex Brown, and T Rowe Price come to mind, so that narrows the suspects--but by no means is it possible to say 100% that this is Morris. That's just my thinking. Having said all that, if the bottomline question is whether you should go out and buy Ciena now because it sounds like Chip Morris is buying, then I would say that you should be cautious. Morris and T Rowe Price are quite a bit closer to Ciena then other companies. Ciena is based right outside of Baltimore, so I would surmise that TRP was an early investor in it and probably has a very tight relationship with management. TRP is probably really licking their wounds over the cratering of the TLAB/Ciena merger. It is a little more personal for Morris, too, and he and the TRP analysts might have less perspective on this investment opportunity than others. It must be galling to them that a local-company-made-good was taken down by some really underhanded tactics by two giants 50 times the size of Ciena. Finally, they may still have significant money invested in Ciena that they want to rescue. I don't think that the posting on Yahoo was dishonest, but, if it is true, it should be seen as an attempt by a fund manager to promote the stock of a company that he has invested in. Hope that helps, Doughboy.