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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bsl113 who wrote (13868)	1/5/1999 9:36:00 PM
From: t2	Respond to of 74651

Bryan , Good Analysis. There is greater ownership of stocks(among the general public) and people's opinions can be affected by their holding a stock or a mutual fund with a strong position in a stock -- ex MSFT. I don't think this situation existed in the past when AT&T was being split up. Considering all of the negative publicity MSFT has gotten (just watch CNN --Lou Dobbs), there should have been more of an anti-Microsoft feeling among the general public. I am told that opinion polls are favorable to the company. Maybe people just like the company and its products as well as its business practices. However, it is possible that about 10% of the people can be swayed (because their mutual funds hold the stock as its top holding) to being pro MSFT. I am just guessing with the numbers. I believe big pensions are turning to big cap index funds -- and 'joe average' will look at his statements once in a while and remember the number one stock (maybe not the number 4,5,or 6). All I "remember" at this point is that MSFT is one, GE is 2. I think that Coke and Intel are somewhere in there - that is about it. I think they may not even remember GE -- it is hard to associate a product with the name (people know it as NBC and that is not in the statement). IMHO, MSFT would benefit if it stays at number 1 --- which I think will happen. There is no harm in the stock going up at this point. In the past they have misled analysts to keep the stock under control. Analysts don't believe them anymore anyways. Therefore, they can try to control the stock price by issuing cautionary statements about the future but not many people will fall for it. The market will price the stock at what people think it is worth not what the company wants it to trade at (because of their employee stock options).