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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BGR who wrote (48997)	2/25/1999 7:03:00 PM
From: Mike M2	Respond to of 132070

BGR, Merrill like any Wall St firm has a vested interest in putting a positive spin on any analysis. While I have no special knowledge of securities law IMO any firm is safe if they err on the side of optimism within reasonable limits. In addition if things don't work out as forecast it is usually covered by some discussion of the risks of unforeseen events or adverse economic conditions and other legal speak to cover themselves. I am not aware of any Wall St research ( there may well be but...) which forecast the current DRAM glut or the slowdown in tech companies earnings well in advance. In fact, in 1995 i recall hearing many forecasts of DRAM shortages until the year 2000 and double digit revenue growth for the PC industry. I don't recall hearing any forecasts that semiconductor revenues were peaking in 1995. I have followed Mike's commentaries over 4 years and I have more confidence in him than any street analyst. I'm sure there are many capable individuals on the street but the theme over the past few years has been see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. As companies reported evidence supporting the case for a slowdown in PCs or semis the street bulls called in company specific and I don't know how many times the bottom has been called. Mike

To: BGR who wrote (48997)	2/26/1999 12:11:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

BGR, Nice to see you still never read the original documents and only quote misstated summaries. Here are Steve's actual words about growth last year from the Merrill research notes: "Revenue growth was just 6 percent in 1997 and 1 percent last year, according to Dataquest." No, I do not read 5% as 1%. I do read 1% as 1%. Reuters somehow mangled the numbers or they averaged 1% and 6% and got 5%. <g> More likely, they are talking about the market growing in the future according to Merrill's forecast, which is how I read it. CBS Market Watch got it right in their report at 10 AM yesterday. I have no URL for Merrill, just hardcopy. I'm sure if a big hitter like you drops by the office, somebody will give you a copy. Your typically nasty comment about legal fiduciary requirement is nonsense. Merrill is a stock flogger. I am not. Merrill is quoting Dataquest. Dataquest is wrong. As usual. They cannot sell negative growth reports to the industry, so they fudged the "estimate" and came up with 1%, which is as low as they can go and still sell product. End of story. He also said, in the original research report, that he did not think these predictions of double digit growth in revenues by the market research firms were likely to come true. You really ought to do some research before writing such flapdoodle. <g> MB