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

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (49964)	2/26/1999 12:56:00 PM
From: Kenya AA	Respond to of 97611

El: I think it's a little weird that EP would be talking to an analyst at the end of February about January's sales figures (which they've known about for a few weeks now) without making any comment about how February was going. This bothers me. K

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (49964)	2/26/1999 1:00:00 PM
From: rupert1	Respond to of 97611

The bet I have now is the mis-timed purchase yesterday. As you know a week ago I and even weeks before that I suggested the possibility of it going to $37 and even to $35. But not for fundamenal reasons - market meltdown reasons. I felt yesterday that it could go lower but thought $39 was the reasonable base and I could live with that. Philosophically a loss of $6 in a day is like dropping from $51 to $45. I have to beleive that the $6 loss will be reduced soon to about $3. This news appears to alter the fundamentals in a highly unexpected way. Even so, the alteration is not catastrophic and even ML and FB recommend CPQ as a buy at yesterday' closing price. Being a sceptic, I am not convinced that we have the whole story. Mason and EP said last week that they were comfotable with the street consensus for the quarter and the year - they have not taken that back, as far as I know. They have said that January was slow and that the expected sales are expected more towards the end of the quarter than towards the beginning. The FB guy reduced earnings by 5 cents. Presumably he erred on the side of caution. As to your question about $15 rise by mid-April. I concede that this news has made it problematic. But I see us getting back to $40-42 within a reasonably short time and then building up as the general market lights up no later than the last week of March. Once it starts moving, and especially if we have indications that CPQ is still comfortable with earnings estimates, then "relief" will also fuel its rise. All bets are off if some more unexpected negative announcmeent is made, or if we go lwoer from here.