Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : EMC How high can it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dennis michael patterson who wrote (4694)	3/5/1999 4:32:00 PM
From: Boplicity	Respond to of 17183

To: Bretsky (51413 ) From: rudedog Wednesday, Mar 3 1999 8:25PM ET Reply # of 51813 That is a fascinating article, thanks. For the record, I like EMC as a company, I like the people. I knew the early players personally when they were very small - that was a looong time ago. They are an 800 lb. gorilla compared to NTAP. I think EMC will continue to be a good investment for some time, and frankly was a lot better than CPQ over the last few years. But the author of this article ignores a number of key points and is just not being honest, or is misinformed. As the two leaders fought to protect their established market, EMC ate their lunch, and today EMC is the top maker of computer memory hardware and software for mainframes This is just not true - Come on, has this guy looked at IBM's last earnings statement? I assume he is talking about storage and not say CPU memory or OS software. Also he evidently does not know how to roll up the storage numbers (which is not easy at IBM but can be done). But a detailed analysis is not needed. EMC did less than $4B TOTAL revenue in 1998. Even if every nickle of that was IBM mainframe storage sales, they still would not be the 'top maker'. And we know that most of it was not even mainframe revenue, let alone IBM. Just not credible, Facing impossibly higher costs, the competitors either go out of business (Digital Equipment) Digital did not 'go out of business', they were bought by Compaq, along with their successful storage business, which was not Dinosaur technology but was advanced multivendor RAID which was both more advanced and less expensive than EMC's. Their cost model used to be about 40% of EMC's, I don't know what it is now but it is probably less since CPQ has the best volume purchasing in the business. CPQ's storage business is more than twice EMC's gross revenues. EMC had an unproven technology called RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) that used a collection of smaller disks Compaq was pushing RAID two years before EMC's first offering (The SystemPro used RAID-based storage). So it was pretty well proven by the time EMC picked it up. When an author puts out facts which are just hopelessly wrong, it makes me question the rest of his information too. I think EMC has some risks coming up, but, like DELL, mostly because of the high expectations that are set for them. But there are similar risks for every tech stock I hold, and in fact few have performed as well as EMC. Good luck with it.

To: dennis michael patterson who wrote (4694)	3/5/1999 5:34:00 PM
From: SJS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17183

I get the sense that we won't penetrate 110 in 2 weeks. If we do, it won't be my much. I've obtained almost all the premium out of the 115's that I can, since I sold them close to 2 (and bought them back for 1/4). Now, the goal would be to attempt to hone in on a lower strike (110's) where much premium still exists. This makes the spread even more profitable. I wanted to execute the 110 sell at 1 3/8 or higher before today closed (to get the weekend erosion), but I didn't get it off. I am just long the 100's without a short side. I'll try to sell the 110 after watching EMC and the market open on Monday. EMC sort of struggled today. Either we are being toyed with, or.....there are some real sellers that need to be reckoned with. This stock should have held 105 alot better than it did. The rockets were there all day, yet it traded like it was unsure of itself. I didn't see the larger blocks I normally see, so I assume that this was mostly "retail" not institutional. I'd prefer the latter. Steve