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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (59121)	5/12/1999 10:51:00 AM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike, I liked #1. But I like to keep my conspiracy theories down to one a day. Otherwise the men in black might think I'm organizing a conspiracy against them. <g>

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (59121)	5/12/1999 11:55:00 AM
From: Alias Shrugged	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike What do you see happening in the bond market? Not just treasuries, but all the sectors you play in. Is there a long line folks trying to bring paper to the market? Regarding the equity market, we have achieved financial nirvana; current supportive market conditions will continue forever, or improve! <ng>

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (59121)	5/12/1999 12:04:00 PM
From: upanddown	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike Know you hate the regionals and wondering if you have any interest in PNC. Just got some Aug 50's at a decent price..one of your blue-light one-dollar specials.<vbg> An article in Barron's On-line last week was dissing their earnings quality. Must be bad when analysts openly question the sharp pencils..<gg> John Excerpt... Most recently, investors applauded the bank's sale of its credit-card operations and its departure from the national corporate lending business. PNC also beat the Street's consensus earnings expectations by a penny a share last month, posting a first-quarter profit of $293 million, or 94 cents per share. But lately, two Wall Street analysts have raised questions about the quality of the bank's earnings and loan portfolio. The two have red-flagged some of the extraordinary items in the company's first-quarter report, suggesting that PNC's treatment of one-time gains and losses could artificially inflate the bank's future earnings growth. A.G. Edwards analyst David Stumpf says he's "leery" of PNC's $98-million restructuring charge related to efficiency initiatives. First, it was larger than expected, and a big part of it -- accelerating depreciation for computer equipment -- loads future expenses in a quarter where there were some large offsetting gains. Cramming costs into one quarter isn't uncommon "financial engineering," he notes, but that move artificially reduces operating expenses that normally would show up in future quarters -- presumably when they wouldn't be offset by one-time gains. The result: Some of PNC's future earnings growth, he says, won't be "revenue-driven" and thus could look better than it actually is. And Credit Suisse First Boston's well-known analyst Michael Mayo takes issue with PNC's $142-million "negative valuation adjustment" for the prospective sale of about $2 billion in loans related to its exit from some corporate, healthcare and other nonstrategic lending. Mayo, who downgraded his rating on the stock to Hold from Buy after PNC's first-quarter results were released last month, called the valuation adjustment a "backdoor way of recognizing potential loan losses." "It's a bulk sale with good loans and bad loans mixed in," he says. "We can't really tell how bad the bad loans are." Neither analyst suggests that PNC's accounting was improper, but they argue that combining $290 million in gains from asset sales with an unexpectedly large $98 million restructuring charge and the $142 million "adjustment" is a questionable way of enhancing future earnings. PNC's chief financial officer Robert Haunschild dismisses Mayo's concerns, calling the valuation adjustment a "relatively common" practice based on a one-time strategic event. And about a dozen other analysts and money managers we interviewed for this story did not share Mayo's view, either. But Jay Huck, an analyst with the Center for Financial Research and Analysis, an independent consultant on accounting practices, says that while the PNC loan treatment isn't as egregious as others he's seen, loan losses are part of doing business for a bank. Hence, "we would take exception to failing to segregate nonrecurring gains from recurring ones like loan losses," he concludes. Mayo calls the valuation adjustment an operating event. He argues that had it been classified instead as a loan loss, the resulting charge-off could have reduced PNC's first-quarter earnings by as much as $100 million -- or about 33 cents a share.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (59121)	5/12/1999 12:37:00 PM
From: michael c. peterson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

MB, Do you think BubbleBoy(GS)will lower int. rates 3 more times to insure the bubble last until his term is up ? That would put the DOW around 15,000,plenty of cushion for him to bail before the economy and markets explode. MP

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (59121)	5/12/1999 1:42:00 PM
From: Joan Osland Graffius	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

MB, I am trying to evaluate the foreign markets. Do you have any thoughts on where the money will flow if one assumes foreigners start pulling money out of the US markets because of the uncertainty of the Summers policy. Joan

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (59121)	5/12/1999 1:48:00 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Respond to of 132070

MB - DB 12:13 AGASSI TO MEET RAFTER IN THIRD ROUND-AP. National Geographic serves up World Wide Wrestling on the rocks? -g- Regards, Don

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (59121)	5/13/1999 1:55:00 AM
From: jim kelley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

MB Re: " PC sales seem to be getting worser and worser." Aside from the bad English, you are wrong about IDC. IDC original estimate of Q1 growth was 14.% YOY but the actual growth turned out to be 20%. So rumors of the demise of the PC industry were greatly overstated. IDC says Q1 YOY unit sales are up 20%. That ain't bad unit growth. Now you can complain about ASP declines but not all the companies are suffering from this. You are failing to discern the winners from the losers.