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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: c.r. earle who wrote (17739)	3/11/1999 6:36:00 PM
From: t2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

While I agree with your contentions regarding the Q3 and 4 earnings. I would temper my enthusiasm for tomorrow. The after market trading would tend to indicate that 'meeting expectations' for this quarter was less than the market expected. "Meeting expectations" does not mean "meeting expectation" when CFO Maffei is speaking!!!!! Strange but true. "Meeting expectations" means "beating expectations" by at least 5 cents as a minimum. That you learn only from past guidance. Last summer they issued a better than expected earnings pre-release (1 months before actual earnings release) saying they will hit a certain EPS target. When they actually released, it was about even 6 cents higher than their guidance. Those of us who follow MSFT closely know all their "code" words. I am happy with this report. Still bullish as ever on this stock!!!

To: c.r. earle who wrote (17739)	3/11/1999 6:39:00 PM
From: Teflon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Believe me, I have little expectation for tomorrow. If anything, when CNBC starts talking about DOW 10,000 being a given, I start getting nervous. I think it gets people thinking about taking profits, sort of like an earnings release these days. I just think people use whatever momentum swings they can find to their advantage. I am around institutional investors all the time, and I will tell you that they do use these emotional moments to their advantage; it's a practice that has been going on for years. And it will continue, even though those pain in the _ss daytraders have made it more difficult. I personally think MSFT is using this opportunity to trump INTC in case they had any ideas of preannouncing a warning, even if they new they would hit their number. MSFT is the best at managing expectations, and if anything they have told us that they see the next 2Qs being strong, so the market can relax. I do think MSFT expects others in the PC segment will piggyback all the negative preannouncements to preannounce warnings themselves. Sort of like riding the wave while most of the damage has already been done. Notice the PC market has already been smacked. What this will do is give confidence to those investors who were thinking about buying MSFT shares as we head towards the split and earnings. And that, my friends, is the truest display of MSFT's ability to manage shareholder expectation in artistic form!!!! If a side-effect of this conference call is that it flushes out all the shareholders who were expecting MSFT to tell us that they were going to beat estimates by $.07/share, then we are all better off in the long run. Think through this, it makes sense. Teflon