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Strategies & Market Trends : Technical analysis for shorts & longs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clint E. who wrote (20302)	3/18/1999 9:41:00 PM
From: mattie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70492

CATP= sleazy management. They opened the window for the employees to sell then announced the warning. Just a month ago they said they were comfy with estimates. If I owned the stock I would sue. Here is the pr from a month back: Dow Jones Newswires -- February 4, 1999 Cambridge Tech CEO Backs '99 Net View Of $1.12/Shr By Maria V. Georgianis NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Cambridge Technology Partners Inc. (CATP) Chief Executive Jim Sims said the company is noticing improving demand for its computer services and has made itself over to focus on the fastest-growing markets. The Cambridge, Mass., company had a difficult year with declining revenue growth and reduced earnings views. In the fourth quarter, the company reorganized itself in order to regain its competitive footing. Thursday before the opening bell, the company reported fourth-quarter earnings of 26 cents a share, above the First Call Corp. estimate of 25 cents, and year-ago earnings of 17 cents, excluding business combination costs. Fourth-quarter revenue increased 24% to $160.2 million, from year-ago revenue of $128.8 million. Cambridge Technology's revenue growth rate was the lowest in the past four quarters, but in line with analysts' expectations. "We've been through a very complex year," Sims told Dow Jones in an interview. Last year was a transition year for the company, he noted, but the company's new focus is "dead on right," he said. "The structure we put together is going to allow us to be competitive in the marketplace," he said. Sims said he is comfortable with analysts' 1999 consensus estimate of $1.12 a share and 1999 revenue growth of 30%. In 1998, the company reported earnings of 92 cents a share on 40% revenue growth to $612 million. Cambridge Technology shares recently were up 1 7/8, or 6.7%, to 30 on volume of 2.4 million, compared with average daily volume of 1.5 million. Earlier, the stock climbed as high as 31 7/16. During its fourth quarter, Cambridge Technology changed its operating structure to one that was service-line focused as opposed to its former geographic-region emphasis. The changes affect the company's North American business unit. The new framework provides better coordination for Cambridge Technology's salespeople to sell services on a national basis, according to a company spokeswoman. During its fourth quarter, Cambridge's North American business unit represented 66% of the $160.2 million total and increased 17% over 1997. The company's international unit, or the balance, boosted its revenue to 41% growth. This year, Cambridge Technology Chief Executive Sims said he expects that international revenue will continue to grow faster than domestic revenue since it's a lower base. The company is comfortable with analysts' estimates of 30% revenue growth this year, Sims said. "My guidance is for steady improvement," he said. Over the past three months, there's been a pickup in the amount of services contracts that the company is bidding on or has in the works, Sims said. Furthermore, customers' spending plans for computer services in general seem to be roughly at the same growth rate as last year. The question is one of emphasizing areas where spending is expected to increase, Sims said. Cambridge Technology is accentuating higher growth services such as electronic commerce, sales force automation, supply-chain management, and enhancing customers' software to take advantage of the Internet. Cambridge Technology's Sims said the company is "actively looking again" at acquisitions, but isn't likely to make one until the second half of the year. Acquisitions are one of the key avenues for Cambridge Technology's growth. The company's key challenge is how it adapts to its new operating structure, said Warburg Dillon Read LLC analyst Moshe Katri. "At least for the first half of the year, you're not going to see any fundamental improvement," Katri said. The analyst is estimating 1999 earnings of $1.06 a share. Katri said it's a little too early for him to get comfortable with the $1.12 to $1.14 1999 earnings guidance that the company communicated to analysts. Cambridge Technology's problems, which became apparent during the company's third quarter when it lowered its 1999 revenue and earnings growth guidance several times, had a depressing effect on other systems integrators' stocks. At the time of Cambridge Technology's reduced views, analysts were concerned about businesses potentially cutting their technology budgets. These worries were exacerbated by the broader stock market's concern with weakness of global economies. Also, the year 2000 computer glitch was feared to have a chilling effect on computer services other than ones associated with preparing computers for the year 2000. The uneasiness has since moderated to the point that computer services analysts are expecting businesses will increase their spending on computer services, albeit at a more modest rate than last year. Warburg Dillon Read's Katri said Cambridge Technology's issues in the past turned out to be very company specific, rather than indicative of an industry downturn. -By Maria V. Georgianis; 201-938-5244; maria.georgianis@cor.dowjones.com.

To: Clint E. who wrote (20302)	3/19/1999 3:54:00 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Respond to of 70492

Clint, On CATP Ouch!! That's the danger of bottom fishing in this market. Other companies in the group such as SAVLY and CPWR seemed to have re-bounded a bit today though. CPWR is due to the annouced share buy back. I not sure what has SAVLY bouncing back. It looks like this group will be on the defensive for the new couple of weeks. It will take a few quarters to repair CATP's creditability problem. I think I'll leave this one for dead though. There are too many other good companies to look at that have creditable management. QCOM is on a bit of an amazing roll right now. I guess it had to finally catch up to the high valuations of the other wireless companies in the group. I guess a potential settlement with ERICY has people thinking that QCOM is a confirmed player in the future of wireless. I am still hearing about the margin pressures on the wireless infrastructure side though. NT didn't payout any bonus last year in their wireless group due to them not reaching their profitability goals. They have had a hiring freeze on so it will interesting to see if they can reach some of their delivery schedules for the Q. I still don't have any idea what is happening on their networking side. In the BAY days they were anticipating 50 % of revenues to come from new products. It will be interesting to see how fast those products such as cable modems and gigabit switching products ramp. I noticed a MOT ad in the back of the EE Times hiring team leads and engineers. It looks like MOT is finally focusing on expanding into other profitable areas after having cut and sold unprofitable divisions. The stock price reflect the renewed confidence too. Funny I never thought much of the MOT management in the confernce calls. It looks like they may be better managers than Wall Street PR people. Harry