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Technology Stocks : Phoenix Technologies (PTEC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Brophy who wrote (3222)	4/11/1999 5:42:00 PM
From: Tim Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3624

A big fund manager will likely establish (some by committee?)optimum buy/sell prices using some combination of technical and fundamental analysis. If his trade is relatively large compared to the trading volume of the stock, of course he'll try to "disguise" his intentions. You know as well as I do that some large funds make sure they get their trades through before their analyst makes his new upgrade or downgrade recommendation which may or may not make any difference anyway. One of my earlier problems with having so much of my portfolio in PTEC was that Kopp had a relatively large position relative to total PTEC volume, yet their position in PTEC was a very small percentage of THEIR portfolio. If a fund decided to suddenly sell half of a 1 million share position in a stock, representing only 3% their portfolio and the stock plummeted 50% because the market couldn't absorb it, their portfolio would be down less thn 1.5%. MOST large funds are like this, so the answer is that they likely do their best to get the best price possible with the reality that they've diversified enough that it wouldn't hurt them nearly as much as a small trader like me with only a few stocks. That's why it's probably valuable for small investors to track fund activity fairly closely especially if the stock in question is a momentum stock. I'm not currently in PTEC, but the fundamentals concern me more than the technical chart right now. Here's their business model as I see it: STANDARDS=COMMODITIES=NO PROFIT. Show me the economies-of-scale merger payoff or the significant value-added products/services, both which have been heavily advertised by PTEC, and I'll at least be interested. The earnings report will tell a lot this time.

To: Mark Brophy who wrote (3222)	4/12/1999 12:48:00 PM
From: John B. Dillon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3624

Is CPQ pulling PTEC down? I just saw that CPQ blamed their commercial PC business for their shortfall. Is that the division PTEC sells BIOS to? jd