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

To: Brian Malloy who wrote (22882)	5/18/1999 8:01:00 PM
From: randmiser	Respond to of 74651

Hi two questions for all. Did I hear that MSFT court date has been moved up to Monday? Second can someone post a link to after hours quotes? Thanks

To: Brian Malloy who wrote (22882)	5/18/1999 8:05:00 PM
From: Sir Francis Drake	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

The question is what is driving the pricing action in MSFT at the moment. Is it the broad market - interest rates, FED talk etc., company specific news events (DOJ case, Baller on TV, etc.), or industry-related news (great earnings from IBM, HWP etc.). Or perhaps some bigger technical action (Teflon's idea). So, we can try to forecast (v. short term) future movement based on any or all of these factors. Broad market - Just how bad was the FED thing? From the look of today's action, it didn't seem horrible. As to inflation fears... housing starts dropped pretty big (which helped bonds briefly today), so how many institutions/individuals are going to start dumping stocks because they are terrified of inflation? Not many, I suspect. Options volatility going into this Friday, but otherwise nothing much else. All MSFT related news seems good - positive noises on the trial front, good publicity for Ballmer, lot of deals closing. Industry - HWP earnings were good news. Dell is a question mark - personally, as I read through the announcement, it seems all great for MSFT - expanding sales, Michael Dell doesn't see any Y2K slowdown on the consumer level of sales, business booming. OTOH, I guess they didn't blow away the analyst #'s - smack in the middle, and so it's trading down in after hours. From the point of view of MSFT, Dell profit margins are irrelevant, what is relevant, are absolute sales, since MSFT gets their cut no matter what Dell's margins are. So, judging by this, you'd think this is great news for MSFT. But I don't exclude stupid downward pressure on MSFT from Dell's trading, if it tanks. Technically, many TA guys, especially the chartists see May 19 as a top of sorts, and are advising their flock to get out of the market. I don't know what their influence will be, if any, but FWIW... In looking at all these factors, it seems the most important determinant has been the broad market recently. But any way you slice it, if you look at the factors above, none of them seem especially bearish. Of course, if there are other, more important factors in the short term, then none of the musings above amount to a hill of beans. Does anybody see other factors for the short term? Morgan