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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Spruiell who wrote (2195)	1/10/1999 10:58:00 AM
From: Larry S.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 41369

a question about AOL's future. hello thread. I am a long time investor in NSCP and a recent one in AOL. I consider AOL, YHOO, and MSFT the three musketeers of the internet. I also own and follow ATHM, TWX, and UMG (Media One, TWX's partner in Roadrnner cable modem service). I have used cable modem for 1 1/2 years, and think it is the internet connection of choice. Now, here is my qe\uestion: making the assumption that cable modem connection will be an ever growing segment of the internet copnnection choice, how much of a threat does this pose to AOL and their reliance on paid subscribers? I pay $35/mo for my cable modem, and still pay $10/mo for AOL. And I understand that AOL offers a very convenient internet access as well as a user friendly approach to on-line. But if one was paying for separate ISP connection, or had cable modem, then wouldn't the additional monthly charge for AOL start being an unnecessary expense. YHOO, LCOS, XCIT, NSCP, etc offer very nice portals to go to the places people want to g9o. AOL is not necessary. I would appreciate what others have to say about this. larry

To: David Spruiell who wrote (2195)	1/10/1999 1:35:00 PM
From: FR1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

They already told us that all stocks that enter the SP500 drop 15% within a month of entry.....Are we the leader in a pullback or just SP500 control? I think a little of both. Prediction: down to $133 ad a slow rise back to $155. The saying going around a lot is: this is not your father's market. There are two things going on. One is the gold rush to the Internet by both investors and on line shoppers/businesses. No one can deny this. You expect stocks to go up and stay up. They will level off and drop once everyone has a good (academically solid) feeling about how this new market works. I think that will take about 2 years max. The second thing is that control has been taken, to a large measure, out the hands of the few brokerage firms that used to control and run the market. What has happened is that we now have "critical mass" in the public with 55 million on line people who are willing to shop. The #1 thing people want to do on line is make money. Consequently, there has been a enormous surge of on line stock buying. Look at e-trade and Schwab. So the experts have a hard time trying to force a stock down. They do so at their own risk. If you sell off AMZN and it goes through the roof, your shareholders are going to want to know why you pushed the button and why your competitors fund is way up and you are flat. The quickest way to a pink slip is to sell against the public tide. After all, you are hired as the expert that knows how to go with the public tide and make money. Anyone can save money - just buy T-bills. Having said all that, IMHO there is a reason for AOL being flat and going down a little. One is that nothing spectacular is happening. What has AOL said recently to make the stock go up? The next big thing they can do is make some kind of broadband agreement with ATHM or T or someone. The other reason, slightly related, is that AOL is getting some heat from advertisers. Because of bandwidth problems, AOL tends to cache some of its pages. This helps cut down on traffic but advertisers are not getting what they paid for. AOL needs to address the problem somehow. Again the best solution is for some kind of broadband agreement. I'm long on AOL but they need to come up with some kind of splash every 3 months or so or the stock flattens out. Great Internet Pullback of 1999 IMO 1999 is more like the D-day invasion of WWII - I wouldn't call that a pull back.