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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rupert1 who wrote (60250)	5/1/1999 9:54:00 AM
From: rupert1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Barrons: May 3, 1999 Big Money Results -- Report Card Harder Than It Looks Managers' stock picks, pans yield mixed results The sun warmed the Big Money Poll managers' November '98 stock picks -- Sun Microsystems, that is. Thanks in large part to the judicious choice of this software giant, which has rallied almost 140% since Nov. 1, the managers' favorite stocks handily have beaten the S&P 500 in both the three- and five-month periods following last fall's poll. Other top picks at the time included Philip Morris, Cisco Systems, Compaq, Pepsico, Citigroup and the market's newest hero, IBM. Note, however, that Big Blue's giant leap last month has not yet been factored into our Big Money results. The November Poll arrived in the mail in mid-October, just days after the U.S. stock market had suffered a sharp correction. Newly decimated, many stocks were ripe for the picking, as evidenced by the bull's subsequent strength. Alas, the market's powerful rally over the past few months also has lifted many stocks that our respondents deemed too rich for their taste even last autumn. The managers' November pans, led by Amazon.com, Dell Computer and Yahoo!, have been dazzling investors ever since. As a group the pans gained 78.33% in the three months that ended January 30, and an astonishing 111.35% in the five months that ended March 30. Among this group, Coca-Cola was a notable laggard, however. The stock is virtually unchanged since Oct. 30, and closed Friday near 67 1/2. The managers' other pans included Microsoft, America Online, Pfizer, General Electric and Gillette, which got a big haircut in the past two months. Over the long haul, the Big Money managers correctly have maintained a bullish stance toward stocks. They've been right about the economy's sustained strength and the downward direction of interest rates, and properly upbeat about maintaining a preference for larger issues. Yet, the managers' favorite stocks, as a group, increasingly have lagged the market, while the stocks the pros considered overvalued have hopped from peak to peak. This mixed record stems, in part, from the fact that our poll queries a fair number of value managers, and the market, until very recently, has only had eyes for growth. Thus, it has shunned the "cheap" shares our correspondents preferred, while favoring pricey issues that have grown progressively richer. Case in point: the Internet stocks, which happen to top the managers' current list of pans.