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Technology Stocks : QUANTUM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Rolfe who wrote (8363)	1/22/1999 1:03:00 AM
From: Henry W Singor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9124

What's the deal? On Jan 4th of this year I checked estimates for Qntm. The estimate was for 30c and the stock stood at $22. On Jan 09 99 or sometime prior to that analysts had reduced their estimate to 24c/share and the stock was trading at about $25-$26. The whisper estimate at the time was 23c so even after reducing their estimate analysts or whisper mongers thought they might not hit the newly reduced number. Qntm traded mostly in the $26- $28 range for the next ten days. Then Qntm comes out with earnings near the original estimate and considerably better than the revised number and the stock takes a hit. What's up with that? Notice Maxtor's good number. Maxtor was aggressive in committing to a 4.3GB/platter MR program and their gamble paid off. Notice in Read Rite's Press release that they boasted about the success they had getting good yields early in their 4.3GB/platter program. Had this not been the case Maxtor would have had component shortages for it's 4.3GB/platter platform. Component shortage problems are no stranger to this industry. Quantum fell a little behind the density curve last summer. I believe this was due to the transition to a Shock Protection System for their drives. They have come up the density curve quickly with 2.1GB, 2.5GB, 3.2GB and now 4.3GB/platter programs following in rapid succession. I believe the playing field has been leveled and Maxtor's areal density advantage was only temporary. Quantum was carried by their DLT business for the past year but as their Disk drive business returns to profitability, as they return to a leadership role, I think overall results will impove significantly from what is not a bad number even with 72% of their business near break even. Henry