Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (19675)	12/4/1998 1:58:00 AM
From: Jeffrey Lee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

Cisco An excerpt from Argus Independent Equity Research's "Action Facts AM" for Friday, December 4, 1998. (Disclaimer - I receive these twice a day. As it covered CSCO, I thought you all would appreciate the post of a recent "opinion" or as a source of info. NOT attempting to vouch for Argus's accuracy or reliability. I am long CSCO and have been for the past two years.) Excerpt: We are boosting the 12-month target price on the CSCO shares of Cisco Systems to $100. We are raising our EPS estimates to $1.54 from $1.53 for the current fiscal 1999 and to $1.95 from $1.93 for fiscal 2000. While the CSCO shares are trading at a premium valuation to the market on a forward P/E basis, we believe that the stock justifies this valuation because the company is very well positioned to benefit from the rapid growth of data and Internet-based communications over the public carrier networks. We believe that the company can maintain sales and earnings growth rate in the 30-40% range. We see Cisco gaining market share because of its technical expertise, its ability to provide complete solutions and its desire to out hustle competitors to gain new contracts. Cisco, which is featured in the Argus Portfolio Selector, provides many crucial hardware, software and connective components for the Internet. The company's products enable computer networks to connect with each other so that corporate customers can communicate with their suppliers and customers. These products also extend the corporate network to more remote parties such as sales people on the road and telecommuters. From just $69 million in sales in 1990, the year of the company's initial public offering, Cisco has zoomed to nearly $8.5 billion in 1998 and established dominant market shares in the corporate and enterprise networking industry. Now it is taking this data networking expertise to invade the telecom world, which is moving to converge voice, data and video traffic to digital networks. This route will put Cisco on a collision course with telecom giants such as Lucent, Nortel and Alcatel. While these competitors are bigger than Cisco, the convergence to a digital network plays squarely to Cisco's strength in data net- working. We are not predicting who will win this battle, but we do point out that the telecom data market, which is estimated to grow to some $140 billion by 2002, represents a much bigger opportunity than the enterprise networking market. The need of the telcos to increase digital capacity will drive domestic sales for Cisco. Besides the U.S., sales to a deregulated European market will provide an additional engine for sales expansion. Deregulation on the Continent is spurring the emergence of new service providers that want the most up-to-date communications equipment and systems. In fiscal 1998, sales to European customers jumped an impressive 475%. The company is aggressively hiring engineers and sales staff to maintain product deliveries and selling and marketing efforts. The BUY- rated CSCO shares traded late Thursday at $78-7/16, up 3/16. JL