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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DO$Kapital who wrote (18018)	5/22/1999 12:04:00 AM
From: Jeff Sutton	Respond to of 41369

From Keith Benjamin's Weekly Internet Report, May 21 BANCBOSTON ROBERTSON STEPHENS Keith E. Benjamin, CFA AOL HOSTS AN UP-BEAT INVESTOR DAY - Following a lot of attention focused on AT&T and its quest for cable dominance, AOL's investor day was very well-attended and well-received. The company announced plans to introduce a new online shopping service, Shop@AOL, later this year. We estimate that at AOL's current new subscription levels, the company is adding approximately 1 million new online shoppers every 60 days. Last quarter, AOL shoppers spent an impressive $1.8 billion, which in our view positions AOL as eTailing's silent giant. Other than Shop@AOL there was no single piece of big, new information during the day, rather several data points indicating continued rapid growth and leadership. Most of the presentations centered around a few themes that seem to be driving the company's strategy towards becoming much larger, including continued focus on the consumer and brand-building, eCommerce, broadband, growing AOL's Web presence, AOL anywhere, and international expansion. We believe AOL continues to define the model and set the pace as the consumer Internet brand. With telephone companies soon, and cable companies possibly, it seems reasonably well positioned to help consumers reach the broadband level. With Netscape, ICQ and other acquisitions, it is reaching out to businesses. With its stock currency, it can make some bold moves on the acquisition front. As such, we believe AOL will be able to return significant shareholder value even if we're fuzzy on stock direction over the next quarter or two. We still are unclear concerning possible catalysts over the next quarter or so, though suspect it could be an acquisition or cable deal. In order for the stock to double from here, AOL would probably need to become one of the five largest companies in the world. This is no small feat, although we believe AOL is the number one player in what may prove to be the world's fastest-growing industry. We are willing to pay a lot and wait awhile for that position. As such, we keep this at the top of our list of stocks to accumulate, especially when the group is down.

To: DO$Kapital who wrote (18018)	5/22/1999 12:05:00 AM
From: Ed Forrest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

I have cable but think wireless will be the popular choice at some point in time. Ed Forrest

To: DO$Kapital who wrote (18018)	5/22/1999 9:41:00 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 41369

<<Found this on Raging Bull....any comments? >> I guess we will have to wait for the next one or two quarterly earnings report from AOL. If those reports continue to show increasing revenues and growth in membership at the rate of 1 million every 60 days, then broadband becomes a non issue. Right now there are "the so called self appointed experts" that keeping yelling broadband from rooftops. Their yells are drowning the voices of reason who are saying that broadband cable is not there yet. Somebody somewhere has to put in a lot of bucks to bring broadband to the level that the phone networks are in. Since DSL rides on the telephone infrastructure, it makes good business sense to keep concentrating on DSL for the moment. Instead AOL has decided to direct resources and capital to grow and improve content, membership, e-commerce revenues etc. and has let somebody else to concentrate on spending the bucks to build the cable infrastructure. Finally when broadband does become a essential service, guess what Uncle Sam will do? So let's not worry about broadband now. Instead, can someone confirm if the next earnings report is due out in July? What are AOL's plans for auction? Majority of AOLers who are not that computer savvy, could take part in AOL auctions if AOL offered one. Any thoughts!!!