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Non-Tech : Gillette (G) - Even Buffett Justify This One -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robert duke who wrote (496)	3/5/1999 2:54:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 684

I'll take a plug where I can compliantly get one! Wrong! Mar 04, 1999 Y2K Spending Is Done By James J. Cramer As I was putting my Y2K-compliant toothpaste on my Y2K-compliant toothbrush, a thought flashed through my Y2K-compliant head. I fleshed the thought out while I applied my Y2K-compliant shaving cream to my Y2K-compliant face, in preparation for shaving with a Y2K-compliant Mach 3, having long since decided that my old Gillette ( (NYSE:G - news) ) Sensor could never cut it in the new millennium. And by the time I had applied my Y2K-compliant deodorant and a dab of Y2K-compliant Chapstick -- I don't know, remind me to check the authenticity of the latter -- I knew what the problem with computer spending in 1999 was: Everybody who was anybody got compliant last year! Yep, the reason why we have this awful slowdown is that unless you were Noah John Rondeau, the hermit of the Adirondacks, you got new equipment in the third or fourth quarter. That Y2K bubble virtually pulled through about three quarters' worth of buying. Nobody, including my Krackel-hoarding 7- and 4-year-old daughters hadn't been scared into buying new stuff already. Sure there will be outliers, as certainly as there will be food hoarders and people who will take the train or the stairs on Jan. 1, 2000. But the boom in computer spending in 1998 to solve Y2K is leading to a bust of a 1999, as it should, because Y2K is one of those Spacelab-like problems -- everybody expects it to land on his or her head, so we all have already moved inside. Oh sure, there are other reasons. The Web kind of makes all of these hertzs seem like a rent-a-car commodity, like "Who cares how fast the darn processor is, I just want a quick phone line!" And there is the inevitable: How many $700 PCs can one house have? Not to mention that we are still a year or two away from new computer appliances that make it so you can read TheStreet.com in the bathroom or on the train easier than you can read that Conde Nast magazine, in part because it won't have any of those nagging subscription cards falling out of it or enough perfumed pages to mask an M-80-powered stink bomb. And it doesn't help, of course, that Latin America must be making planters of Pentium II machines in order to get the inventory moving and that Europe is frozen for some reason having to do with a currency that nobody wants just a few months after it got issued. But, in the end, the big letdown in spending has to do with how scared we all were at the corporate/enterprise level by Y2K. And now that that spending is done, you can bet that personal-computer stocks aren't going to do the rapid U-turn we are all so used to seeing right about now. That's why instead of bottom-fishing all at once in this sector, I am going to nibble in tiny amounts -- and mostly on things that have to do with the Web, because now that we have all of these shiny new Y2K-compliant computers, we have to do something with them, so we might as well go surfing. That's where you will find me today. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At the time of publication, his fund was long Gillette, though positions may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column by sending a letter to TheStreet.com. © 1999 TheStreet.com, All Rights Reserved.