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

To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (20454)	6/5/1999 4:26:00 PM
From: Ed Forrest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

> Of course our AOL is fear proof.< The price dropped about 40% in 2 months,somebody was fearful.I'm not trying to start anything ,its an observation that I am compelled to make.I also do not believe we will get a rate hike. Ed Forrest

To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (20454)	6/5/1999 4:55:00 PM
From: Steve Robinett	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

TA, Re: the Portland ruling, you comment that you suspect that next week we will get an Internet stock rally based on the ATT verdict. I'd guess Monday's an up day to say, 124-5, area but volume is really what I want to see. Friday's volume was only a little above the average for the last month. If next week's volume is average (around 24 million/day), I would guess Wall Street is taking a second look at the Portland court's ruling and tempering its enthusiasm. On the substance of the Portland District Court's ruling, a lot of questions come to mind that might cause a bit of dampened enthusiasm and slow any upside move. The court said a franchiser (Portland) could force the franchisee cable company to give open cable access to all ISP's as a condition of allowing the cable company to do business in that locality. 1) Can the city mess with the cable content and require the cable company to have certain content or can they just accept or reject the entire cable package? I have no idea but it may get talked about on an appeal. 2) After the 1996 Telecommunications Act, does a locality even have jurisdiction to control cable content at all or is that all Federal? Again, I don't know. 3) Will AOL be forced to go around to every city in the country and try to get hitch-hike rights on the local cable companies? If so, that would be very expensive, very iffy. 4)Even it AOL can get on other people's cable, how much will they be charged for it? Can AT&T, for example, charge AOL so much that it becomes an economic disincentive to customers to subscribe to AOL but not to ATHM? Who knows? On the other hand, if volume is high, especially Monday--say, 35-40 million shares--and remains high, I would guess that Wall Street is judging any problems with the Portland ruling to be small. Since this is not the definitive statement on the question, I would guess the initial enthusiasm might fade quickly. But volume's the key. Best, --Steve