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

To: pass pass who wrote (3937)	12/20/1998 12:37:00 AM
From: gc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4509

Because it's still overvalued. 4Q is traditionally strongest Q for psft. But its estimated eps is flat with 3Q. It tells me it's all down hill from here.

To: pass pass who wrote (3937)	12/20/1998 10:10:00 AM
From: Elmer	Respond to of 4509

Hi pass pass, I think this Alex Brown piece sums up the concerns. redherring.com It talks about the lack of guidance from management. I think aside from the conference call three months ago and presentations at brokerage sponsored events (like the Alex Brown one they dropped out of in October), the only guidance they provide is a couple of paragraphs in each quarterly earnings report (Please correct me if this isn't the case). This accounts for a lot of the reason that the analysts are so negative on the stock. Management isn't providing them with any cover so why stick your neck out with a positive rating. But why isn't management providing guidance? Management is doing everything in its power to avoid law suits through the limited guidance policy. Management also is seeing weakness in licensing revenue for the first time and being conservative (i.e., law suit averse) and has really hunkered down. This is killing the stock with the street. The down side has developed a lot of momentum here and may continue until the next guidance in the earnings report. But at some point, unless the business has become really unglued, a big opportunity will immerge in the stock. I'm continuing to buy the weakness because I'm not smart enough to spot the bottom so I just average down. But it's not a lot of fun. Others have posted that there is a lot of risk at these levels. Maybe. Often stocks that have declined for nine months straight have some sort of selling climax to shake out the tax sellers and those day traders who were looking for a couple point rebound. If this happens, it might be a down spike with big volume. As Michelle has intelligently argued here, the problem seems to be an industry thing and not specific to PSFT. If she is right, the stock market tends to start discounting the recovery six months or so before it shows in the numbers. Regards

To: pass pass who wrote (3937)	12/20/1998 3:42:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4509

pass pass, just from a pure mkt perspective, I learned last year with informix that it was best to wait until mid-December if I was trying to time the low. Dont wait too long though because these beat up stocks start to rise after Xmas. Having said that.... as I have mentioned before I feel this is an overall industry thing and there are only a few weak players such as vntv and manu that have been killed and their business is in trouble (those 2 will probably be acquired) but for everybody else sap, psft, sebl, itwo etc they are simply seeing a slowing in growth rates across the board. Psft is no worse than anybody else in backoffice as far as the overall mkt slowdown. Psft stock was punished a little more because they mishandled last qtr with the analysts etc, and psfts direct competitors (Orcl and Sap) from a stock perspective have some uniqueness which makes psft appear to be underperforming when it is not (Orcl stock is rising due to engine strength, msft/doj issues, and the fact that they finally did something with apps division, Sap was somewhat discounted in the past since they were not listed in the US). The problem I have is that it is difficult to make predictions on the eventual recovery from an entire industry slump. Psft will recover because they are strong in some mkts (such as education) that clearly are working on y2k now. And the internet has enabled business to business commerce and I feel psft,orcl and sap will benefit from that certain boom vs a new startup such as Ariba getting that biz. Business to business transactions to replace the old EDI junk will be huge. But, nobody has anything to offer there yet. The stock will probably rise in anticipation of this recovery which will be post-2000 so maybe mid next year is a good bet. Im not in psft but if I had it Id hold. Id wait to buy until the next correction probably March. It might be slightly higher then than now, but you'll get the benefit of the Jan effect on a more bouyant stock and only lose 3 mos. Im not as bearish as gc. I would like to hear from some psft consultants out there as to how business is, however. Last I heard it was pretty much status quo. Michelle