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To: NeverRight who wrote (9565)	2/2/1999 10:03:00 AM
From: MikeD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14266

It DOES seem to be overly volatile lately, doesn't it? We start to make a move up, only to get slammed back down, on no news either way...

To: NeverRight who wrote (9565)	2/2/1999 1:06:00 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Respond to of 14266

Mattel Posts 69% Drop in Earnings, Hurt by Expected Weakened Sales Dow Jones Newswires Mattel Inc., struggling with a slowdown in orders from toy retailers, on Tuesday reported a 69% plunge in fourth-quarter net income and a 4.3% drop in sales. The profit drop came as no surprise. In December, the world's biggest toymaker stunned shareholders with an announcement that sales for the year would fall $500 million short of expectations, mainly because retailers were cutting their inventories. Mattel said net income in the latest fourth quarter totaled $59.5 million, or 20 cents a share. That included a charge of $4 million, or a penny a share, to settle a lawsuit stemming from Federal Trade Commission action. Excluding the charge, the company earned 21 cents a share, which matched the mean estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call. Mattel, which dominates the toy market with Barbie, Hot Wheels and other megabrands, said sales slipped to $1.54 billion in the latest quarter. U.S. retail sales of Barbie products rose 10% in 1998 despite a 14% drop in the amount of Barbie products shipped. The litigation settlement in the latest quarter involved charges that Toys "R" Us brokered agreements with Mattel and other toy manufacturers to withhold popular items from warehouse stores, which tend to sell the items at prices below the big toy stores. In an effort to get in on the online-retail explosion, Mattel last month said it would buy Learning Co., the maker of such hit software titles as Carmen Sandiego and Myst, in an all-stock transaction. Learning Co. is the world's second-largest consumer-software company behind Microsoft Corp. The toymaker is striving to reduce its reliance on standard distribution methods by beefing up its ability to sell direct to the consumer through the Internet and other channels. In June, Mattel agreed to pay $700 million for the maker of the best-selling line of American Girls dolls that are sold exclusively through catalog. Looking forward, Mattel said it will cut costs to bring them more in line with historical ratios, and that it is confident it can achieve at least $1.50 a share in earnings for 1999. The mean estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call is for earnings of $1.51 a share for 1999. ---- This might explain todays negative movement although I can not explain the week or more downward drift. Jim