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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Phoenix who wrote (19191)	11/9/1998 7:58:00 PM
From: Dennis	Respond to of 77397

Thread, Just saw this...... Cisco as Microsoft C-K News of the Week by Al Levit (alanl@ix.netcom.com) Glendale, CA (Nov. 9, 1998) -- The Cash-King portfolio did well last week, picking up an even 5%. We ended the week ahead 16.75% for the year, and over 3 full percentage points above the S&P 500 and over 5 percentage points above the Nasdaq. It may seem like just a distant memory, but it was just a month ago that we were losing money for the year, and that the C-K portfolio was only slightly better than the S&P. On a stock-by-stock basis, this is how the portfolio performed last week: Cash-King Last This Change Gap Inc. $60.13 $67.13 + 11.6% AmEx $88.09 $97.31 + 10.5% Coca-Cola $67.63 $72.63 + 7.4% Cisco $63.00 $67.44 + 7.0% Intel $89.19 $95.44 + 7.0% S Plough $102.88 $107.25 + 4.2% Microsoft $105.88 $109.31 + 3.2% Pfizer $107.31 $109.31 + 1.9% T. Rowe $35.56 $35.75 + 0.5% Fool Four Last This Change GM $63.06 $67.06 + 6.3% Exxon $71.63 $73.50 + 2.6% Chevron $81.50 $83.31 + 2.2% Kodak $77.50 $78.00 + 0.6% S&P 500 1099 1141 + 3.8% Total C-K $24,295 $25.519 + 5.0% Now let's take a look at what happened with the companies. I will go with my usual format and examine the companies by industry groups. I'll start with the technology group of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO). The big news out of this group last week came from Cisco, which released earnings after the market closed on Wednesday. Cisco beat consensus estimates -- no surprise there. Earnings for the first quarter of 1999 were $0.34 a share vs. $0.26 a share for the first quarter of 1998. The First Call consensus estimate was for $0.33. More importantly, the company also performed well on a few of the "secondary" items that analysts were looking for beyond the earnings, namely: Its book-to-bill ratio exceeded 1.0, indicating that orders exceeded booked sales. It made nice gains in networking switches. Analysts have been worried about this area ever since rival Ascend (Nasdaq: ASND) reported a dip in sales in the previous quarter. Days sales outstanding was cut to 47 days from 50. The balance sheet was also very tidy, with a flowie of 1.13, Phil's new pure flowie of 1.17, and debt equal to that magical number: $0. This earnings release is another example of how, in my opinion, Cisco is becoming the Microsoft of networking. The Fools who know me know that I don't toss around compliments like that without meaning them.