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Technology Stocks : AULT: The unnoticed superstar -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: orkrious who wrote (292)	11/29/1998 9:53:00 PM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 369

Jay - How familiar are you with their management They are straight shooters and pretty reliable at predicting how they are going to do in the next 1 to 3 quarters. Also they are good at strategic thinking (hence getting into cable modems), but they have a weakness in predicting exactly when their strategic maneuvers are going to pay off. For instance two years ago they expected cable modems to take off in early 98, but they reassessed in mid 97 and said not till second half of '98. However, although their exact strategic timing is not perfect, it is still true that they do seem to bring in whatever they attack. This is in direct contrast to some other companies which promise new products and never sell them. Finally, Carlos (the IR/CFO)is very responsive even when the questions are embarrassing and he would clearly rather not answer. However I do not know the detailed history of the managers. . I noticed that Yahoo doesn't show research, so I am not sure any analysts follow it. Yet some of the previous links on the thread talk about earnings exceeding expectations. Whose? Have they had conference calls you can listen to to get a feel for their respect of shareholders? Yahoo used to have an analyst following it, but s/he dropped it in the drought before cable modems. As for having conference calls, they did have one last quarter and they gave out the number for the call (not just the replay) to the individual investor. I would have listened and posted but I had a conflict. I am wondering why they just use mfgr reps. You would think that with some of their products taking off, it would be worth a full-time sales staff. Outside of my realm of experience, but I'm sure Carlos will answer it. Leave a message and I'm sure he'll call back within a day or two. Let me know what you find out. What are the barriers to entry? The company only has one patent that it feels is worthwhile. Do you have a feel for how the competition stacks up? To be honest I don't understand the technology well enough to know, so all I know of the competition is what is in the 10K. Because this is not something I understand well, I watch this company much more closely than most. Hope this was of some help. I'd be interested in what you find out. Clark PS One of the main drawbacks of this company is that they are dependent on external power supplies, and that those sales tend to be somewhat erratic year over year. For example, last year it is probable that part of their lack of growth was due to modems moving inside the computer and no one was upgrading to external modems. However, even with this noise there is good steady growth since things like modern printers are moving to external power supplies, and the new STB's are always going to use external power supplies.