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

To: Stephen who wrote (20948)	4/20/1999 5:55:00 PM
From: Dan Spillane	Respond to of 74651

I too am concerned about this investments item. I am a bit confused and worried, especially going forward through Y2K ...see my earlier posts in this folder... Other than that, great company. It's in my backyard here in Seattle. Many of my friends work there. Hellish monopoly. (from the news) "On a strict operating basis, the company said earnings rose 19% to $2.22 billion. The bottom-line figure was aided by a huge jump in investment income. Investment income rose to $720 million from $190 million a year ago." (also from the news, later) Lookie here, this guy apparently shares my worry : Jeffrey Maxick, director of research, Madison Securities, said, ''Most of the numbers are actually pretty much as expected. The real variance in the earnings was more non-operating income than expected. Revenues pretty much came in exactly as expected.''

To: Stephen who wrote (20948)	4/20/1999 6:02:00 PM
From: Teflon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Stephen, The most important item here was the revenue number, and MSFT came in slightly ahead of estimates at $4.3B. This to me suggests they had a strong Q and that next Q will be awesome. My understanding is that they realized the investment income for purely "cosmetic" reasons as even though they could have cut back MSFT's Q3 EPS estimate as they did the revenue number (due to the Office revenue move), Maffei and Gates decided not to since it could have possibly given the wrong perception. Even though if they had cut EPS estimate in their guidance for this Q it would have been completely justified. Consider it an image move on MSFT's part. Remember, there were no new product releases and Asia didn't start its rebound until late in Q3. Q4 (ending June) looks to be extremely strong based on what I am reading and hearing. Teflon