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Technology Stocks : Ciena (CIEN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bh who wrote (6604)	2/24/1999 5:39:00 PM
From: Adrew Thanh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12623

Where do you get the afterhour quote?

To: bh who wrote (6604)	2/25/1999 1:03:00 AM
From: bh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12623

Street.Com says........ by: semigold 42523 of 42535 Is Ciena Acquisitive Again? Can Ciena (CIEN:Nasdaq) really be on the prowl again? Even after Ciena's M&A activity led to a horror movie of a summer last year, there was talk of more M&As for Ciena at its packed presentation Wednesday at the Robbie Stephens conference. Ciena's stock rose 11% to 27 1/4 amid the buzz. "Are they being built up to be sold or can they really get back to where they were before the Tellabs (TLAB:Nasdaq) mess happened?" asks Nicholas Moore, a money manager at Jurika and Voyles. "Can they really take $34 a share from another company after they were worth $90 a share to Tellabs last year? I don't think so." Moore has no position in Ciena stock. Ciena CEO Patrick Nettles talked about products during his 15-minute speech, especially the MultiWave 4000. "This product will make up a significant part of our business by the end of our fiscal year (in October)." Nettles also highlighted the company's first-class reputation, as if it were looking for partners to dance with. But it's the financial numbers that Nettles didn't discuss that concern managers such as Moore. "The big issue is gross margins, which were in free-fall mode over the last two quarters," he says. Ciena's margins were hurt last year by pricing cuts from Lucent (LU:NYSE) and Nortel (NT:NYSE) in its wavelength division multiplexing products that boost bandwidth in fiber-optic networks. But now business seems to be improving. Gross margins increased to 34.5% in its first fiscal quarter ending in January 1999 from 31.2% in its October 1998 quarter. This kind of news has some money managers optimistic about Ciena's future. Esmond Goei of Mountain View-based ETG Associates says he came away convinced that Ciena "has its act together again." BancBoston Robertson Stephens analyst Paul Silverstein also did his part to help make Ciena more attractive by upgrading the stock to a buy from long-term attractive before the presentation, writing that in the past three weeks "we have seen signs of improvement on the gross margins." At the end of the presentation, however, it was clear that fund managers were once again interested in Ciena. The legendary tech fund manager, Jon Gruber of Gruber McBain, was hanging on Nettles' every word as the two headed to the breakout session. -- Eric Moskowitz This should get very interesting in the days to come ladies and gentlemen! Posted: Feb 24 1999 11:41PM EST as a reply to: Msg 42507 by tre_factor TAKEN FROM YHOO.