From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from npac.syr.edu (foxhome5.npac.syr.edu [128.230.163.25]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA09117 for ; Sat, 15 Apr 2000 16:52:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <38F8E022.33CE93A1@npac.syr.edu> Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 17:33:22 -0400 From: Xiaohong Judy Qiu X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gcf@npac.syr.edu Subject: Re: After hours set up INTC MSFT SUNW PALM References: <200004152049.QAA16981@boss.npac.syr.edu> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------8C0FD4D7D8A58155F05DA603" Content-Length: 1754 --------------8C0FD4D7D8A58155F05DA603 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There will be a list of companies in all area have earning reports from next Monday. IBM and Intel will be next Tuesday. http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/markets/earnings/920569.html Geoffrey Fox wrote: > http://quotes.nasdaq-amex.com/quote.dll?page=afterhours&mode=frameset&symbol=SUNW%60&symbol=PALM%60&symbol=MSFT%60&symbol=INTC%60&selected=INTC%60 > > Note all but MSFT went UP after hours! > > Geoffrey Fox gcf@npac.syr.edu gcf@cs.fsu.edu > Phones Cell 315-254-6387 Syracuse Office 315-443-2163 FSU Office 850-644-4587 --------------8C0FD4D7D8A58155F05DA603 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There will be a list of companies in all area have earning reports from next Monday.
IBM and Intel will be next Tuesday.

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/markets/earnings/920569.html
 
 
 

Geoffrey Fox wrote:

http://quotes.nasdaq-amex.com/quote.dll?page=afterhours&mode=frameset&symbol=SUNW%60&symbol=PALM%60&symbol=MSFT%60&symbol=INTC%60&selected=INTC%60

Note all but MSFT went UP after hours!

Geoffrey Fox  gcf@npac.syr.edu gcf@cs.fsu.edu
Phones Cell 315-254-6387  Syracuse Office 315-443-2163 FSU Office 850-644-4587

--------------8C0FD4D7D8A58155F05DA603-- From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA24716 for ; Mon, 17 Apr 2000 15:14:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 8923 invoked from network); 17 Apr 2000 18:06:58 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 17 Apr 2000 18:06:58 -0000 Date: 17 Apr 2000 14:06:57 -0400 Message-ID: <20000417180657.31481.bulk_mail.11030@192.168.24.32> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 17, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 12467 TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 17, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Datek GET 5 FREE ONLINE TRADES! When you open a DATEK ONLINE account. Click Here Now! http://www.datek.com/advert/email/thestreet/april00.html Datek Online - Low Commissions | Streaming Real-Time Quotes | Fast Executions ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of 4/17/00, 1:39 PM ET: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,368.44 up 62.67, 0.61% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,333.16 up 11.87, 0.36% o S&P 500: 1,360.07 up 2.76, 0.20% o TSC Internet: 695.28 down 18.59, -2.60% o Russell 2000: 444.61 down 9.11, -2.01% o 30-Year Treasury: 105 21/32 down 27/32, yield 5.835% ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Midday Musings: Living in Limbo: Traders Watching Warily as Market Bounces Around o Herb on TheStreet: Lessons From an Overheated Market ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: Cramer's Crash Course: Part 1 The introduction to a five-part series that outlines how to survive and thrive after the crash of 2000. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/wrongtactics/921125.html ____________________________________ SiliconStreet.com: The Individual Investor Speaks The buy-the-dip crowd is favoring Cisco while others are cashing in their retirement accounts. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/siliconstreet/921484.html ____________________________________ Banking: Repayment Demand Expected to Deepen Concerns About Conseco's Cash Flow The demand from two large creditors for early loan repayment is the latest in a series of woes. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/banking/921656.html ____________________________________ Dear Dagen: Some HOLDRs Turned Out to Be Folders In fact, some of the recent HOLDRs turned out to be pretty good indicators of a market top. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/deardagen/921574.html ______________________________________________________________________ Midday Musings: Living in Limbo: Traders Watching Warily as Market Bounces Around By Justin Lahart Associate Editor 4/17/00 12:56 PM ET Everybody on Wall Street knew that one of two things was going to happen this morning. The bell would ring and everything would be called down massively, continuing Friday's rout, which would mean it was time to step in and buy. Or stocks would run higher at the open -- an idiot bounce -- and it would be time to sell. But neither of those things happened, and now the Street is stuck in a morass of doubt, where nobody has any conviction on where the market is headed, and nobody wants to do a damn thing. "Sitting on our hands," is how Sam Ginzburg, Gruntal's senior managing director of equity trading, put it. "It's quiet, the phones are quiet. All we have right now for trades are real short-term -- sometimes 10 seconds." The open was one of the most confusing in recent memory. Stock index futures fluctuated wildly in the overnight Globex electronic trading session. After being down as much as 24 points, the S&P 500 futures managed to briefly trade higher, before dipping a bit below the flat line ahead of the open. The Nasdaq 100 futures whipped wildly, swinging over 150 points. They started out the Chicago session to the downside, but quickly turned. "There was pretty good two-way flow early on, and then the Nasdaq futures took off," said Brad Benshop, equity futures trader for J.P. Morgan Futures. "I don't have a sense if it was short covering or real money. I guess my gut sense is that it was real money." But Benshop doesn't see a whole lot of belief behind that buying. "This time around is different than all the previous dips," he said. "Confidence has been shaken." That lack of confidence may mean that the market has further work to do on the downside, said Morgan Stanley Dean Witter technical strategist Phil Roth. When investors see that stocks have not made a V-shaped bottom, that it is not off to the races again, they will become disheartened. So far, thinks Roth, there hasn't been any of the real fear that chartists like him like to see before they call a big selloff over. "Clearly, complacency is being shaken out, but we're not seeing the capitulation you see on a good bottom," he said. "The real pessimism comes in when the market fails to rally." Roth reckons that it will take a couple of weeks for that to happen, and that once the final selloff sets in, the average stock will go down much less than the glamour stocks that until last month were blowing the doors off the market. "I think the bubble's burst in the speculative favorites of 1998 and 1999, and it will take some time to clear the air," he said. For Ginzburg, too, the market looks fragile here. He reckons the only thing keeping the market up here is a hope that earnings reports, which will begin coming out in earnest tomorrow, will somehow save the day. Let's hope so. "If earnings come out good and they sell them off on the earnings," he said, "see you later." The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately was off 55, or 0.5%, to 10,251, having traded as high as 10,462.13. The S&P 500, which had also been in the green earlier, was down 9, or 0.7%, to 1347. The Nasdaq Composite Index also slipped into negative territory, and lately was down 34, or 1%, to 3287. It traded as high as 3454.70 earlier. TheStreet.com Internet Sector index was off 29, or 4.1%, to 685. Market Internals New York Stock Exchange: 857 advancers, 2,034 decliners, 639 million shares. 7 new 52-week highs, 113 new lows. Nasdaq Stock Market: 1,250 advancers, 2,887 decliners, 1.36 billion shares. 5 new highs, 512 new lows. _______ For a look at stocks in the midsession news, see Midday Movers, published separately. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Netstock Direct TSC ShareBuilder offers dollar-based investing in over 2,000 stocks and 32 index products. No account or investment minimums, no annual fee, and only $2 per recurring transaction. Setup a TSC ShareBuilder Plan today! http://thestreet.sharebuilder.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ Herb on TheStreet: Lessons From an Overheated Market By Herb Greenberg Senior Columnist 4/17/00 6:30 AM ET Nothing like Monday morning quarterbacking, but in retrospect here are 10 warning signs, in order of occurrence, that would've let you known (and in the future, could let you know) that this market was (or is) headed for something we'll tell our grandkids about: o Interest rates start to rise. (Rising rates are never good for stocks, even if their impact isn't yet being felt.) o The exec of a company whose stock is overly heated gets named Time's Man of the Year. (Jeff Bezos deserves plenty of credit for starting Amazon.com (AMZN:Nasdaq), but Man of the Year?!) o Making money (and I'm talking high-double digit returns) in the stock market simply became too easy. (Whatever happened to being pretty damn happy to get an average annual return of 10%?) o My Hostile React-O-Meter seems to be spinning outta control, outta control, I tell ya, with an unusual frequency. o The latest controversy over whether value is dead (remember JJC's comments just before the market's top?) and, in the same breath, that Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A:NYSE) Warren Buffett is being characterized as a rusty relic. o The yield curve turns inverted. (Never good when you're getting paid more to take less risk.) o My column is suddenly feeling (to me, at least) irrelevant (and I start mentioning how irrelevant it feels, in the column, every now and then). o Biotechnology stocks rally. (I'm a big believer in biotech, but when they start rising indiscriminately just because they're biotech, that cannot be good.) o I write that my email has fallen to a trickle (anybody out there?), I satirically write that I'm throwing in the towel about being the resident bear (remember my month-early April Fool's joke?) and Cramer -- yes, Cramer! -- writes over and over about how important it is to take money off the table. o My short-selling sources start talking about closing up shop. (None did, but in recent weeks I learned never to start a conversation with the customary, "Howya doin' " because none of them were doing particularly well.) Short Positions >From the shameless self-promotion department: If you haven't already done so, don't forget to check out my weekend piece that took apart Cramer's Manifesto No. 5. It prompted Joel Reingold to write: "It begs a question you -- and perhaps only you -- can someday answer: What are reasonable time frames to expect the fundamentals to eventually overwhelm the gamesmanship?" Joel, it can go on for years and it only stops when they can no longer fool their auditors (who force them to restate prior financials), customers (who cut down on purchases because they're already too stuffed with merchandise) or investors (who throw in the towel because the company finally warns that the gig is up and it can't meet estimates). o Ancor's Away: Can't help but remember the heat I took when I wrote (and mentioned on our Fox show a while back ) that maybe Ancor Communications (ANCR:Nasdaq) should change the spelling of its name to "Anchor" Communications (because of where its stock was headed.) Took tremendous heat; even Cramer, on our Fox show, suggested I was wrong! He cited the company's recent deals with Sun Microsystems (SUNW:Nasdaq) and Intel (INTC:Nasdaq); Intel had actually invested in that company. Let's just say I hope nobody is counting on Ancor's stock to help the investment gains portion of Intel's earnings statement when it reports on Tuesday. So far this year Ancor has fallen 70%, and the fall isn't just because all of tech has fallen. Remember? It preannounced a few months back that it would miss fourth-quarter sales and earnings estimates. o More later: Really, look for more from me later today if this market continues to gyrate. Herb Greenberg writes daily for TheStreet.com. In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, though he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. He welcomes your feedback at herb@thestreet.com. Greenberg also writes a monthly column for Fortune. Mark Martinez assisted with the reporting of this column. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Now part of TheStreet.com network -- ipoPros.com -- providing high quality IPO calendaring and research for individual and professional investors. Click on http://www.ipopros.com for your free 2-week trial. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. 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If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from boss.npac.syr.edu (boss.npac.syr.edu [128.230.117.20]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA26157 for ; Mon, 17 Apr 2000 17:49:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (psf@localhost) by boss.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA20448 for ; Mon, 17 Apr 2000 17:49:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200004172149.RAA20448@boss.npac.syr.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: boss.npac.syr.edu: psf@localhost didn't use HELO protocol Reply-to: psf@npac.syr.edu To: gcf@npac.syr.edu Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 17:49:37 -0400 From: Pamela Fox Content-Type: text Content-Length: 201 dad! SUNW came back! Pammela Fox psf@npac.syr.edu http://www.foxsden.org wheres yur fancy shtuff? cty page: http://www.foxsden.org/psf/cty/cty.htm JD: http://www.foxsden.org/JD/ phone-3156827945 From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pwebl01.thestreet.com (pbulk01.thestreet.com [209.191.134.144]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id WAA28689 for ; Mon, 17 Apr 2000 22:51:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 989 invoked from network); 18 Apr 2000 02:13:18 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pwebl01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 18 Apr 2000 02:13:18 -0000 Date: 17 Apr 2000 22:13:18 -0400 Message-ID: <20000418021318.5058.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 18, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 19642 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 18, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Sponsored by InvestorPlace.com Cisco. Intel. Oracle. Microsoft. Is now the time to buy or sell these and other top technology holdings? Find out now FREE in tech expert Michael Murphy'sJUST-RELEASED FREE REPORT: http://www.ppi-orders.com/index.htm?promo_code=40K188 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/17/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,582.51 up 276.74, 2.69% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,539.16 up 217.87, 6.56% o S&P 500: 1,401.44 up 44.13, 3.25% o TSC Internet: 727.16 up 13.29, 1.86% o Russell 2000: 459.26 up 5.54, 1.22% o 30-Year Treasury: 104 14/32 down 2 02/32, yield 5.908% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Texas Instruments (TXN:NYSE) DoubleClick (DCLK:Nasdaq) Lucent (LU:NYSE) Global Crossing (GBLX:Nasdaq) Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Networking: Lucent Tries a Little Optical Illusion o Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: A Rocky Rally o Evening Update: Asian Indices Jump in Early Action; DoubleClick Meets Estimates o Bond Focus: A Day Late, Treasuries Get Their Thrashing Thrashing _______________________________________________________________ _______Adam Lashinsky on Fox News ChannelTuesday, April 18 Adam Lashinsky will be appearing on "Fox and Friends" Tuesday, April 18 at 7:20 a.m. EDT. ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Mutual Funds: Biggest Fund Losers Look to Cisco, Sun For Relief Now that small-cap tech stocks are out of favor, some managers say they'll move into bigger-cap plays. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/funds/922143.html ____________________________________ Tech Savvy: Tell Me When ... or Tell Me Why In search of answers about the last week's events, investors need to ask the right questions. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/techsavvy/921757.html ____________________________________ Internet: Tossing Out the Baby With the Bathwater Buy-siders believe that plenty of good tech stocks are getting lumped in with weak ones in the selloff. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/922145.html ____________________________________ Mutual Funds: Past Month's Mutual Fund Winners Focus on Financials, Consumer Staples Financials have been down for more than a year, which means these funds are in the red on a 12-month basis. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/funds/921936.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Investec Guinness Flight The future is arriving daily. Wired Index Fund. Wireless World Fund. internet.com Index Fund. Click here to invest in your future with Investec Guinness Flight! http://www.gffunds.com/930 ______________________________________________________________________ Networking: Lucent Tries a Little Optical Illusion By Scott Moritz Staff Reporter 4/17/00 9:19 PM ET Hoping to charm skeptical investors prior to a crucial earnings report this week, Lucent (LU:NYSE) Monday flashed the magical phrase "optical switching." But the company's announcement has far less substance than meets the eye. Lucent says Global Crossing (GBLX:Nasdaq) agreed to buy its WaveStar LambdaRouter optical switch, Lucent's first micro-mirror device used to redirect fiber-optic traffic. While Lucent's release expounds on the gear's huge capacity gains, it fails to mention that Global Crossing is only test driving the switch, and that it won't be commercially available for several months. Lucent says the announcement was important because it shows the company is moving ahead in the key optical-equipment market. And its stock opened higher after the optical-switching announcement, then moved in line with the market much of the day before closing at 54 1/8, up 2 1/8. While it may seem that Lucent was playing to individual investors enamored by the word optical, seasoned Lucent watchers say talking up products still in development is typical behavior for the nation's largest and perhaps most beleaguered equipment maker. "This is standard Lucent, always at the 'forefront,' " says CIBC World Markets equipment analyst James Jungjohann. "But the key is really in the delivery." (Jungjohann's firm hasn't performed underwriting for Lucent. He rates the stock a hold.) And it was delivery, or actually the lack of it, that hammered Lucent last quarter. Its January earnings warning knocked a third off the stock and shattered the Street's confidence that it could execute in a fiercely competitive market. Lucent won back some of its detractors with its March 1 plan to unload slow-growth businesses, but its stock is still down 28% for the year and more than 36% from its 52-week high. Lucent is the first of the big network gear makers to report earnings and will likely set the tone for the rest of the pack. Demand for network equipment is at an all-time high, and many of the networking outfits are expected to show strong fundamental growth. Analysts expect Lucent to report Wednesday morning that it had $9.7 billion in sales and a 22 cents per share profit for its fiscal second quarter ending March 31, a 31% increase over the same period last year. Nortel (NT:NYSE), which is scheduled to report April 25, is expected to post a 33% increase in profits from the same quarter a year ago. And Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq), whose quarter ends this month, is expected to report a 38% profit increase over the year-ago quarter when it releases earnings May 9. But given last quarter's fiasco, Lucent has to make the most of it this time around. The Street needs signs that the company has been able to capture some of the market it lost when it fell behind on the demand for high-capacity switches. So it's little coincidence that Lucent is tooting the optical horn so close to its earnings release, says Wit SoundView's Truc Do, who has a buy on Lucent. Wit SoundView has no banking ties to Lucent. "This is an announcement of a new product, and I don't think they have a product yet," says Do. "I'm skeptical of any announcement right before they report the quarter; To me that's not a good sign." And what a difference a quarter makes. Before last quarter, Lucent's earnings track record allowed it to enjoy the benefit of the doubt among those in the investment community. But now the post-warning Lucent will have to do more than simply promote new products. ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: A Rocky Rally By James J. Cramer 4/17/00 4:24 PM ET "No rally, no job, No rally, no job!" Yes that's the Bob Marley song ("No Woman, No Cry") being sung with new lyrics by our head trader Todd-o Harrison. And he got the rally; he keeps the job. We are stunned at the downturn in some groups that had been rock steady. The media stocks, like CBS (CBS:NYSE) and Infinity(INF:NYSE), are in free-fall as dot-com ad spending gets vaporized. Or the oil-service stocks. I mean, like, what the heck is the matter with those? They should have good quarters. I understand why the Razorfishs (RAZF:Nasdaq) and the Scients (SCNT:Nasdaq) are getting hammered. Check that, obliterated. But what is up with Home Depot (HD:NYSE)? How about E*Trade (EGRP:Nasdaq), which reported that great quarter and is now being carried away in the Webvan(WBVN:Nasdaq)! Or how about Global Crossing(GBLX:Nasdaq), which is lugging around that stock from the underwriting like a steamer trunk on its back? There are still no prisoners being taken in the four-letter newbies. But the rest of this market is ramping. A complicated imbalance of common stocks is occurring as Arco (ARCO:Nasdaq) comes out of the S&P and Altera (ALTR:Nasdaq) goes in. It is producing a lot of stock to buy. That couldn't happen if a lot of the forced selling weren't out of the way. A good day for the bulls. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund had no positions in any stocks mentioned. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: Asian Indices Jump in Early Action; DoubleClick Meets Estimates By Eileen Kinsella Staff Reporter 4/17/00 9:35 PM ETAsian traders are following through on the big Monday rally in the U.S. In early Tokyo trading, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 240.48, or 1.3%, to 19.249.12. Smaller bourses were faring even better, with Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted index up 2.8%, Singapore's Straits Times index up 3.4% and Korea's Kospi up 5.9%. Elsewhere in the Pacific region, Australia's All Ordinaries index was up 2.6% and New Zealand's NZSE 40 was up 2.1%. _______ Texas Instruments (TXN:NYSE) reported first-quarter earnings of 55 cents a share, above the 27-analyst estimate of 53 cents and the year-ago 34 cents. The company said strong demand for wireless communications chips helped boost net income by 69%. Texas Instruments said it expects robust growth to continue in its semiconductor business, driven by strength in communications end-equipment markets, including wireless and broadband. For more on Texas Instruments' earnings, see separate coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. _______ Internet advertising giant DoubleClick (DCLK:Nasdaq) reported a first-quarter loss of 11 cents a share, in line with the 22-analyst estimate, but wider than the year-ago loss of 6 cents a share. The company posted a net loss of $13.1 million, compared with a loss of $6.1 million a year ago. However, revenues nearly tripled, to $110.1 million compared with $39.4 million in the year-ago period. The company recently iced a plan to identify and distribute the names of Web site visitors amid mounting criticism over how some Internet companies gather and use personal information. For more on DoubleClick's earnings, see separate coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. _______ Go2Net (GNET:Nasdaq) posted second-quarter pro forma earnings of 18 cents a share, well above the six-analyst estimate of 11 cents and the year-ago 3 cents. The Internet portal said revenues quadrupled and daily viewing of its Web sites nearly tripled. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Earnings/revenue reports and previews Acuson (ACN:NYSE) warned it expects first-quarter earnings will fall short of the seven-analyst estimate of 12 cents a share due to late orders from customers. The company said first-quarter earnings will be between 5 cents and 7 cents a share. Digital Island (ISLD:Nasdaq) reported a second-quarter loss of 66 cents a share excluding charges. The six-analyst estimate was for a loss of $1.51 a share, while the year-ago loss was $1.28 a share. Including the charge, the company's loss in the most recent quarter was $1.49 a share. First Data (FDC:NYSE) posted first-quarter earnings of 39 cents a share, beating the 11-analyst estimate of 37 cents and the year-ago 32 cents. IdaCorp (IDA:NYSE), the parent of Idaho Power, announced that it expects to surpass estimates for the first-quarter by 10%. The current three-analyst estimate calls for Ida to report 77 cents a share. The company said profits will beat that level even before considering a $14 million pre-tax gain on its sale in February of the Hermiston Power Project. Lone Star Tech (LSS:NYSE) reported first-quarter earnings of 29 cents a share, well above the four-analyst estimate of 21 cents and the year-ago break-even results which the company said were anti-dilutive. Packaging Corp. of America (PKG:NYSE)" posted first-quarter earnings of 22 cents, ahead of the four-analyst estimate of 20 cents and the year-ago pro forma loss of 14 cents a share. 7-Eleven (SVEV:Nasdaq) said same-store sales rose 9.9% in March. Southern (SO:NYSE), a holding company for public utility companies, posted first-quarter earnings of 37 cents a share, a penny better than the 13-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 32 cents a share. The company also said it was proceeding with the expected sale of Southern Energy stock to the public. Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures Financial services company Conseco (CNC:NYSE) has agreed to acquire long-term care insurance firm Associated California State Insurance Agencies, the third-largest U.S. organization of its type, from Fortis, another financial services business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Integrated electronics maker Sanmina (SANM:Nasdaq) agreed to acquire competitor Hadco (HDC:NYSE) in a stock swap valued at about $984 million. Sanmina said each share of Hadco stock will be converted into 1.4 shares of Sanmina stock. Offerings and stock actions OneSoft, a McLean, Va.-based company which makes software for online retailers, asked securities regulators to withdraw its planned IPO, citing unfavorable conditions. OneSoft had planned to net about $53.1 million through the sale of 4.5 million shares for $12 to $14 a share. Miscellany Wal-Mart (WMT:NYSE) said Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq) President and CEO John Chambers is expected to join Wal-Mart's board, pending approval by its shareholders. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: A Day Late, Treasuries Get Their Thrashing By Elizabeth Roy Senior Writer 4/17/00 4:45 PM ET The Treasury market sold off hard on light volume today, lifting yields to their highest levels in a week or more, as investors regained their appetite for stocks and riskier bonds. In the only economic news of the day, the Housing Market Index rebounded very slightly in April off the two-year low it hit in March. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 1 11/32 to 103 12/32, lifting its yield 17.8 basis points to 6.038%, the highest since March 30. Other Treasury yields rose by somewhat smaller amounts. The five-year yield rose 16.1 basis points to 6.272% as its price fell 20/32. The two-year yield rose 11.2 basis points to 6.351% as it lost 5/32. And the 30-year bond fell 2 5/32 in price, hiking its yield 14.7 basis points to 5.934%, the highest since March 29. At the Chicago Board of Trade, the June Treasury futures contract fell 1 10/32 to 97 5/32. The stock-market rebound was the main catalyst for the selloff, market analysts said. On Friday, Treasuries rose in prices despite bad news on the inflation front in the form of a hotter-than-expected March Consumer Price Index because outflows from the stock market sent money their way. "The stock market was the key prop under the Treasury market Friday," said Josh Stiles, bond strategist at IDEAglobal.com. A Treasury market that ought to have gotten trashed because of the CPI. In today's action, Stiles said, "It got trashed a day late." The hotter-than-expected CPI is negative for the bond market because it suggests that inflation is accelerating in spite of the Fed's efforts to head it off by hiking the fed funds rate five times over the last 10 months. Treasuries went down hard in part because Friday's action in stocks left Treasury investors "scared to death to be short" in case stocks would resume their slide today, Stiles said. A short base -- a pool of buyers-in-waiting -- would have provided a cushion for the market as it fell today. Also at Treasuries' expense, riskier bonds rallied today. A proxy for those bonds, the 10-year swap spread, narrowed to 122.50 from 130, indicating that investors are willing to settle for a smaller yield premium over the comparable Treasury yield for an instrument involving more credit risk. "Spread product caught a bit of a flavor," said a trader at a primary dealer firm. Technical analysis indicators suggest that the weakness in Treasuries is likely to persist at least through the end of this week, the trader added. "Maybe you get 6% on bonds to complete this phase of the correction," he said. Economic Indicators The Housing Market Index rose to 62 in April from 61 in March, which was the lowest reading since January 1998. Mortgage rates reached a three-year high in mid-February and have since retreated. Freddie Mac (FRE:NYSE) 30-year mortgages hit 8.38% in mid-February, and had dropped to 8.20% by the end of the first week of April. Currency and Commodities The dollar fell against the yen and gained against the euro. It lately was worth 104.43 yen, down from 104.80. The euro was worth $0.9522, down from $0.9619. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's new Currencies column. Crude oil for May delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to $25.89 a barrel from $25.57. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index rose to 211.99 from 211.15. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $284.20 an ounce from $284.60. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Announcing the new TSC store, powered by Starbelly.com, the leading e-commerce provider of custom-decorated promotional products and logo’d merchandise. Now you can purchase TSC custom designed t-shirts, sweatshirts, bags and more. Just go to http://shop.starbellyorder.com/thestreet/index.jsp and start shopping today. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id WAA10080 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2000 22:21:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 2515 invoked from network); 19 Apr 2000 01:39:00 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 19 Apr 2000 01:39:00 -0000 Date: 18 Apr 2000 21:39:00 -0400 Message-ID: <20000419013857.20144.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 19, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 23700 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 19, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Sponsored by InvestorPlace.com Our Internet experts promise their clients AT LEAST 50% profits a year. They delivered 145% last year. Discover their winning strategy in their latest report. Click here to reserve your FREE COPY: http://www.ppi-orders.com/index.htm?promo_code=59A154 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/18/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,767.42 up 184.91, 1.75% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,793.57 up 254.41, 7.19% o S&P 500: 1,441.61 up 40.17, 2.87% o TSC Internet: 836.53 up 109.37, 15.04% o Russell 2000: 486.09 up 26.83, 5.84% o 30-Year Treasury: 104 24/32 up 10/32, yield 5.912% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Data Transmission Network (DTLN:Nasdaq) Orbital Sciences (ORB:NYSE) CDNow (CDNW:Nasdaq) barnesandnoble.com (BNBN:Nasdaq) America Online (AOL:NYSE) Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Internet: Value Managers Eye Bargain Basement E-Tail Stocks o Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: The Trials of Tibco o Evening Update: Evening Update: It's an Earnings Cavalcade! o Bond Focus: Treasuries Shrug Off Rising Stock Prices ______________________________________________________________________ Ask Cramer Jim Cramer will answer your stock questions this week on "TheStreet.com" on Fox News Channel. We're taping a day early this week, so you have to call Thursday, April 20, at 6:45 P.M. ET to get on. The number to call is 1.888.TELL FOX. (1.888.835.5369). ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Hardware/PCs: IBM Beats Estimates, Despite Revenue Decline Earnings rose 3%, despite the revenue backslide. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/hardware/923029.html ____________________________________ Market Features: Rally Changes Moods but Doesn't Change Everything A fresh focus on the fundamentals has driven the market's rebound, but keep your eye on those fundamentals before leaping in. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/marketfeatures/922898.html ____________________________________ Herb on TheStreet: Fear and Loathing on Wall Street, but Not Main Street What readers have to say about fear ... or the lack thereof. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/herbonthestreet/922651.html ____________________________________ Internet: PurchasePro.com CEO, COO Forgoing Compensation Until Profitability The B2B company's top officers make a statement as their employers reports another quarterly loss. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/internet/923094.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Duke-Weeks Realty Corporation Looking to Re-Balance Your Portfolio? If so, take a look at Duke-Weeks Realty Corporation (NYSE/DRE) on The Street.Com. We have the longest record of double-digit growth in the industry and dominate most of our markets. http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/advertise/reit/duke.html ______________________________________________________________________ Internet: Value Managers Eye Bargain Basement E-Tail Stocks By Katherine Hobson Staff Reporter 4/18/00 4:52 PM ET Cheap is as cheap does. As everyone already knows, the e-tailers have had a miserable few months. Many of their stocks now trade in what analysts politely call the mid-single digits, 70% and 80% off their 52-week highs. At these levels, one would wonder if value managers, most of whom have so far spurned Internet companies, are finally getting in. Well, not exactly. When it comes to the e-tailers, most value managers still aren't sure there's any value there, even as longtime Internet fans insist this is a chance to pick up some sector leaders on the cheap. "We can get beyond the lack of a bottom line," says Rick Lawson, manager of Weitz Hickory, a mid-cap value fund which has invested in money-losing tech stocks like Data Transmission Network (DTLN:Nasdaq) and Orbital Sciences (ORB:NYSE). "But you have to ask yourself: If you have a chance to buy this business with the expectation of holding it forever, what is it worth? And [with the e-tailers] you're making some pretty heroic assumptions about how the business will develop." While it's hard enough to get analysts and investors to agree on a way to compare all these companies, some number crunching is illustrative. For all its well-publicized travails, CDNow (CDNW:Nasdaq) trades at about 0.7 times sales on a trailing basis. Musicland Stores (MLG:NYSE), roughly its off-line equivalent, trades at just 0.1 times sales. barnesandnoble.com (BNBN:Nasdaq) trades at 1.2 times sales; plain old Barnes & Noble (BKS:NYSE) trades at 0.4 times sales. eToys (ETYS:Nasdaq) trades at 3.6 times sales to Toys R Us' (TOY:NYSE) 0.3. Amazon.com (AMZN:Nasdaq), often called the Wal-Mart(WMT:NYSE) of the Internet, trades at 10 times sales to Wal-Mart's 1.5. Is Cash Really King? This comparison isn't perfect, since it's on a trailing basis and the e-tailers' appeal was always about their potential for huge growth. But it gives some sense of the premium at which even the most battered e-tailers are trading compared with their landlubber competitors. In addition to ratios like price to earnings (not applicable to the vast majority of e-tailers due to lack of earnings) and price to sales, value investors also look at the amount of cash on a company's books. But even investing in companies that trade at or near their cash-per-share value isn't a no-brainer, explains Randy Befumo, an analyst with the Legg Mason funds. Because so many e-tailers are still guzzling cash, it doesn't make sense to buy them on the basis of their current cash position, but on what their cash will be when they become cash-flow positive, he says. And that time horizon isn't clear. In many cases, it's not even clear whether companies will ever become cash-flow positive, let alone profitable. Befumo prefers Amazon, with its broad merchandise focus, and a focus on building a brand name instead of competing on price alone. (Legg Mason Value Trust got a lot of attention when it invested in Amazon and America Online (AOL:NYSE).) Traditional math has kept many value investors, particularly those adhering to strict investment criteria, out. Merrill Lynch's Basic Value, Special Value and Phoenix funds aren't eyeing e-tailers, says a company spokeswoman. Lauren Cooks Levitan, an analyst with Robertson Stephens, says that while investors have bailed on some companies with promising business models, prices still aren't low enough so that value investors are beating down her door. Bill Gerlach, manager of the MAS Mid-Cap Value fund, isn't biting. Adds Bill Nygren, manager of the Oakmark fund, which adheres to strict value criteria, "My perspective on most of the Internet valuations is that you'd have to move the decimal over one spot before they'd become cheap." There are exceptions: Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto says that for the first time he's been contacted by a number of value investors looking to get into e-tail. Because of the huge drops these stocks have taken, they meet the investing criteria of some value managers, he says. Established Brands And while the purest of the pure value managers may be unconvinced, it's not like all value-conscious investors are turning up their noses at the potential of the Internet. Rather, many say they're putting their money behind established brands, which are moving to use the Internet as another sales channel (yes, the over-repeated "bricks-and-clicks" strategy). While Nygren says he has no desire to bargain-hunt in the pure-play e-tailing sector, he likes companies such as Toys R Us, which he owns. Legg Mason's Befumo prefers Hollywood Entertainment (HLYW:Nasdaq) and Consolidated Stores (CNS:NYSE) (which owns most of KBKids.com), both of which he owns. All these companies are inexpensive enough to qualify as value plays, but also have Internet businesses. Analysts, meantime, are talking up familiar names like Amazon, eBay (EBAY:Nasdaq) and priceline.com (PCLN:Nasdaq). "These companies have established brand names, sufficient capital, evidence of scalability and a differentiated position," says Goldman's Noto. And because they have a larger institutional ownership, they're not quite as subject to the ebb and flow of hot money as some of the smaller e-tailers (eBay, Amazon and priceline are down a respective 19%, 30% and 33% so far this month compared with far larger drops for other e-tailers). Noto also continues to recommend Webvan (WBVN:Nasdaq) and eToys, both of which have fallen more than 40% this month, for their long-term positioning. (His firm has done banking for all of these companies except for Amazon.) But when it comes to plain-vanilla, single-category e-tailers, it's hard to find anyone getting too excited, even at these lows. Even industry cheerleader Forrester Research has changed its tune, predicting that because of weak financials, competition and investor flight, most Internet-only retailers will be out of business by 2001. And with that sentiment gaining a foothold in the markets, even the most downtrodden e-tailers may still look too rich for value investors' blood. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement DLJdirect RECEIVE $100 CASH!!!!! When you open a DLJdirect Account. Click Here for Details http://www.dljdirect.com/dljd/homead.htm?OITSCCSEM ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: The Trials of Tibco By James J. Cramer 4/18/00 2:09 PM ET Opportunity really knocked in those five minutes of trading that were the open yesterday. But the opportunity was illusory. Let's take the Tibco Software (TIBX:Nasdaq), which is trading right now at 60. Yesterday some hapless margin clerk tossed about 30,000 shares of Tibco to the wolves at the opening at 33. I was one of those wolves. I spotted the trade immediately. Down 8. I told Todd-o Harrison, our trader, to get down there immediately and take 10,000 Tibco. I told him he could use a 36 top -- 3 points from where the trade was on. As soon as he went down, the market maker said it was no longer there. His limit wouldn't work. Nothing was trading. But to go up 10% and not be enough, I mean, what was necessary to get in that stock? So I said, take it up 5, get in it up 5. Still nothing. Finally I said, I am willing to pay up 7 for Tibco. But nobody had any. My next move would have been to buy it unchanged, but the only reason I wanted to buy it was because it was down 8 and I would then be taking my whole motivation -- not to mention my profit -- away. So we gave up. Today the stock is at 60. I should have paid 40 for sure. Second-guessing makes you rich. (LOL.) So who did get the Tibco? I think it was a sweetheart trade at 33 with the buyer arranged, maybe a market maker who was short the stock. The trade stunk out loud. But before you kick yourself for not catching the bottom, remember from this Tibco story, there was no bottom to catch. Which is why you had to buy them Friday, as I pointed out on Friday, because that was the only time the market-makers would let you in. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund had no positions in any stocks mentioned. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: Evening Update: It's an Earnings Cavalcade! By Eileen Kinsella Staff Reporter 4/18/00 8:36 PM ET America Online (AOL:NYSE) reported better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter, topping estimates by 2 cents. The Internet giant posted earnings of 11 cents a share, or $271 million, vs. 4 cents, or $104 million, in the same period a year ago. Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial projected earnings of 9 cents. AOL posted revenue for the quarter of $1.84 billion vs. $1.25 billion a year ago. For more on this story, see coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. _______ Chip giant Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) reported first-quarter earnings of 88 cents a share, which includes a tax benefit of 17 cents a share. The 32-analyst estimate was for 69 cents a share and the year-ago earnings were 58 cents. Revenues rose to $8 billion from $7.1 billion in the year-ago period. _______ Qualcomm <(QCOM:Nasdaq) reported first-quarter earnings of 25 cents a share, a penny better than the 18-analyst estimate of 24 cents and the year-ago 8 cents. The company said it expects market demand for code division multiple access chipset and software solutions to continue to grow significantly, despite future quarterly fluctuations. Qualcomm predicted earnings per share in the second quarter to meet or exceed this quarter's earnings. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Earnings/revenue reports and previews Covad (COVD:Nasdaq) a wholesale provider of digital subscriber line Internet access, reported a first-quarter loss of 73 cents a share, 6 cents less than the 79-cent estimate but more than double the year-ago loss of 37 cents. Computing giant IBM (IBM:NYSE) reported a 3% rise in its first-quarter earnings, exceeding Wall Street's estimates. The increase was driven by strength in the company's server business, and Internet application software and business services units. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company's first-quarter net income rose to $1.52 billion, or 83 cents a diluted share, compared with $1.47 billion, or 78 cents a share, a year earlier. A poll of analysts by First Call/Thomson Financial had forecast earnings of 78 cents a share. For more on this story, see coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. RealNetworks (RNWK:Nasdaq) reported first-quarter pro forma earnings of 5 cents a share, excluding goodwill, above the 22-analyst estimate of 4 cents and the year-ago pro forma loss of a fraction of a cent. Including goodwill and charges related to its recent acquisition of Netzip, the company lost 12 cents a share, compared with a 1-cent loss a year ago. The company said its user base grew by 20 million worldwide, and its RealPlayer media player now has 115 million unique registered users. Siebel Systems (SEBL:Nasdaq) reported first quarter earnings of 19 cents a share, a 90% year-over-year increase and four cents better than the 15 cents analysts expected. Travelocity (TVLY:Nasdaq) reported first-quarter pro forma losses of 38 cents a share, better than the four-analyst estimate of a 43 cent loss per share. Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures AT&T (T:NYSE) said it will get cable television assets in Massachusetts from Cablevision Systems (CVC:NYSE) in exchange for its cable systems in suburban New York, as well as about $1.1 billion in AT&T stock and cash. The swap is part of the cable industry's ongoing effort to swap cable assets to allow each cable company to dominate certain geographical areas instead of serving far-flung regions. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Treasuries Shrug Off Rising Stock Prices By Elizabeth Roy Senior Writer 4/18/00 4:36 PM ET The Treasury market managed to hold its ground today, even to gain a little ground in places, in spite of the fact that stocks retraced another big portion of last week's crushing losses. In light of how much Treasury prices ran up last week as stock prices fell, they might have been expected to retreat today. Part of the reason they didn't, market analysts said, is that they fell so hard yesterday. "We had a pretty good selloff yesterday," Warburg Dillon Read economist Jeffrey Palma said. There was some marginally positive economic news in the shape of the March housing starts report. But more important to Treasury traders was the Treasury Department's spur-of-the-moment announcement that the third installment of its buyback program will take place on Thursday, and that it will target $2 billion of 30-year bonds issued between 1990-95. In general, the buybacks, which are being funded with federal government surplus funds, have driven the prices of the long-maturity issues the program targets higher. But today's announcement actually prompted selling, because the $2 billion total is smaller than many market analysts were expecting based on the strength of April tax receipts, said Kevin Flanagan, money market economist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. "I think there's disappointment it wasn't a bit more aggressive," he said. Still, the buyback announcement provided some support to Treasuries today, Flanagan said. "There just continues to be this notion that Treasuries -- due to scarcity, shortgages or whatnot -- will continue to trade at these premium levels." Intermediate- and long-term Treasury yields, while well off their best levels of the year reached last week, are still 75 basis points lower than they were in mid-January, largely due to the start of the buyback program. Another possible reason why the Treasury market held in despite the rebound in stocks is that it is overly optimistic that the Fed will hike interest rates only once more, said Michael Ryan, senior fixed-income strategist at PaineWebber. "A lot of people are now locked into the thought process that everything is off the table but 25 [basis points] in May," he said. If and when they resume discounting the chances of yet another 25-basis-point rate hike in June, short-maturity yields will move higher, Ryan predicted. Yet another possibility: The stock market's bounce isn't thoroughly confidence-inspiring. If it were, maybe more people would sell Treasuries for the same reason they bought them when stocks were falling. "Most people are saying they don't think the rally [in stocks] of the last few days is on firm footing," said Richard Schwartz, senior vice president at New York Life Asset Management. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note ended down 2/32 at 103 8/32, lifting its yield 1.1 basis points to 6.053%. The five-year note was unchanged at 98 13/32, its yield 6.278%. The two-year note gained 3/32 to 100 10/32, trimming its yield 4.8 basis points to 6.320%. And the 30-year bond rose 7/32 to 104 22/32, dropping its yield 2.2 basis points to 5.914%. At the Chicago Board of Trade, the June Treasury futures contract fell 2/32 to 97 3/32. Economic Indicators Housing starts fell 11.2% in March to an annual pace of 1.604 million, the slowest since June 1999. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a pace of 1.729 million, on average. Building permits, a leading indicator of housing starts, also fell, dropping 4.5% to a pace of 1.579 million. The drop in housing starts was the largest since January 1994. The slowdown is welcome because it suggests that economic growth may slow. But on the other hand, the slowdown was not broad-based. A drop-off in multi-family housing starts (a.k.a. apartment buildings) was entirely responsible for the slowdown. Single-family starts, which better represent the trend, were barely changed. Meanwhile, the February pace was revised to 1.807 million, the highest since December 1986. Housing starts accelerated even as mortgage rates climbed to a three-year high in mid-February. And they have since retreated. The 30-year mortgage rate offered by Freddie Mac (FRE:NYSE) peaked at 8.38% the week of Feb. 18 and had retreated to 8.12% by Friday. In other economic news, the weekly retail sales reports were strong but below-plan. Easter-related sales are goosing the numbers, but bad weather last week kept shoppers at home, the reports said. The BTM/Schroder Weekly Chain Store Sales Index rose 0.5% after gaining 0.9% the previous week. And the Redbook Retail Average found that sales during the first two weeks of April exceeded March sales by 1.4%. Currency and Commodities The dollar rose against the yen and the euro. It lately was worth 104.71 yen, up from 104.54. The euro was worth $0.9469, down from $0.9522. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's new Currencies column. Crude oil for May delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to $26.11 a barrel from $25.89. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index rose to 212.75 from 212.00. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $282.70 an ounce from $284.20 TO VIEW TSC'S ECONOMIC DATABANK, SEE: http://www.thestreet.com/markets/databank/920121.html ______________________________________________________________________ Cory Johnson on AOL's MarketTalk, Wednesday, April 19 Chat with Cory Johnson on AOL's MarketTalk, hosted by Sage at 4:00 p.m. EDT. MarketTalk is hosted by Sage Online. (Keyword: AOL Live) ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Investment Challenge Round 6 is on. To register to play, go to: http://www.investmentchallenge.com/thestreet As TSC's Investment Challenge presents another round of share trading strategies with other competitors on the Investment Challenge message board. Check out our message boards at http://www.thestreet.com/cap/faq.jhtml. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id WAA20615 for ; Wed, 19 Apr 2000 22:53:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 5999 invoked from network); 20 Apr 2000 02:03:10 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 20 Apr 2000 02:03:10 -0000 Date: 19 Apr 2000 22:03:10 -0400 Message-ID: <20000420020308.4340.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 20, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 22256 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 20, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement These 15 tech stocks have locked-in advantages that will allow them to dominate for years to come. Get their names with your FREE trial to Intelligence Report: http://www.investools.com/c/go/XINT/STREET-XintTC6?s=S600&D=XPAA ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/19/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,674.96 down 92.46, -0.86% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,706.41 down 87.16, -2.30% o S&P 500: 1,427.47 down 14.14, -0.98% o TSC Internet: 806.86 down 29.67, -3.55% o Russell 2000: 486.23 up 0.14, 0.03% o 30-Year Treasury: 105 19/32 up 27/32, yield 5.844% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Chase (CMB:NYSE) Triton PCS (TPCS:Nasdaq) Lucent (LU:NYSE) Commerce One (CMRC:Nasdaq) Nortel (NT:NYSE) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Banking: Chase's Great Quarter May Be Tough to Match o Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: Buzz Pumps the Market o Evening Update: Evening Update: Apple Scores Big as a Slew of Earnings Reports Hit o Bond Focus: Bond Focus: Stocks' Malaise Drags 10-Year Yield Below 6% ______________________________________________________________________ Ask Cramer Jim Cramer will answer your stock question this week on"TheStreet.com" on Fox News Channel. We're taping a day earlythis week, so you have to call Thursday, April 20, at 6:45 P.M. ET to geton. The number to call is 1.888.TELL FOX. (1.888.835.5369). ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Internet: Commerce One Report Could Foretell B2B Fortunes One analyst says a fumble by this B2B leader could mean bad things for other stocks in the sector. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/923612.html ____________________________________ Media/Entertainment: CNET Turns a Profit Half a Year Ahead of Schedule The company also announced a buyback of shares in the face of a drastically fallen stock price. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/media/923933.html ____________________________________ Herb on TheStreet: Why Lucent's 'Beat' Doesn't Impress the Shorts Let's just say the quality of these earnings doesn't pass the sniff test. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/herbonthestreet/923738.html ____________________________________ Telecom: Pennies From Somewhere Lucent ekes out a penny surprise but questions plague its accounting practices and competitive position. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/telecom/923924.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Ameritrade Online trading companies are everywhere, but only Ameritrade has 25 years of discount-brokerage experience and offers a low $500 minimum balance to open and fund an account. http://www.ameritrade.com/o.cgi?a=xby&o=rfg&p=/html/a.fhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Banking: Chase's Great Quarter May Be Tough to Match By Peter Eavis Senior Writer 4/19/00 3:43 PM ET Chase's (CMB:NYSE) first-quarter profits sailed comfortably above expectations, thanks chiefly to revenue from its capital markets businesses. Recent market turmoil, however, could reduce the amount of investment riches at Chase in the coming quarter. Bank executives conceded as much during a conference call Wednesday when they disclosed that public securities in its venture capital unit are suffering a $930 million market loss so far this quarter. In addition, first-quarter numbers show that the bank is performing patchily on Main Street, as well. Its credit card division is sluggish and the bank announced Wednesday that it took a $100 million charge in its auto loans business in the first quarter, shaving 8 cents off per-share profits. In the first quarter, Chase generated net income of $1.36 billion, or $1.59 per fully diluted share, which is a 20% increase over the year-ago period, when it earned $1.32 per share. Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial expected Chase to post $1.55 per share in the first quarter. Early afternoon Wednesday, Chase's shares were down 3 1/2, or 4.35%, to $77. They are 24% off their 52-week high. Chase didn't comment. The main sources of earnings in the first quarter were Chase's trading desks, which achieved $1.02 billion in revenue in the first quarter, a hefty 65% above the $618 million registered in the year-earlier period. In addition, investment banking fees more than doubled to $648 million from $317 million the year before. Private equity gains from the Chase Capital Partners division, examined by TheStreet.com recently, were $500 million, way below the previous quarter's $1.31 billion, but also higher than $325 million in 1999's first quarter. Combined, these three volatile sectors accounted for 55% of all noninterest income at the bank. Charles Peabody, a banks analyst at New York-based Mitchell Securities, says Chase had a pretty good quarter, but wonders whether the markets-based revenue will continue to be strong. "This is going to be a very hard quarter to repeat," he says. (Peabody rates Chase a sell and his firm hasn't done any underwriting for the bank.) Dina Dublon, Chase's finance chief, said during the conference call: "We will have quarter-to-quarter volatility on private equity gains." But she stressed that most of Chase Capital's strong long-term returns have come from realizing, or selling out of, companies, rather than market gains in the public companies in its portfolio. The $930 million loss in the value of Chase Capital's public companies so far this quarter does not flow right through to the bottom line. Dublon said it would be offset by $130 million from the sale of its position in Triton PCS (TPCS:Nasdaq); the bank applies a discount to its gains or losses in the unit, which would bring the mark-to-market loss down to $480 million so far this quarter. Because of the sluggish credit card division and the auto loan charge, the $348 million in first-quarter operating profits at Chase's consumer bank -- which accounts for a hard-to-ignore 40% of revenue -- were 12% below the year-earlier number, and nearly 20% below the fourth-quarter figure. Cards themselves earned $107 million, which was 7% off first-quarter 1999 earnings. The shortfall was due to higher interest rates that reduced the profitability of credit card loans, the bank said. Dedicated credit card companies, however, have racked up huge growth in first-quarter profits, leading some to wonder whether they are growing at the expense of banks like Chase. "The monoline [credit-card only] companies are better at adapting and acquiring customers than the banks that have been in cards for some time," says Brian Divney, manager of Cherry Hill, N.J.-based Timberline Financial Partners, a hedge fund that has no position in Chase. The $100 million charge was to so-called auto lease residuals. Chase bundles up its auto loans and leases and sells them as bonds, a process called securitization. The retained portion of these securitizations are called residuals, and banks usually value them based on a range of assumptions they make themselves. Chase apparently made the charge because prices in the used-car market had not been as strong as it had estimated. Also potentially worrying, Chase's costs exceeded revenue in the first quarter. Expenses were 19% over the year-earlier number, while revenue was 16% higher. "Expenses were too high for the level of revenue growth," Chase's Dublon said, but added, "We are taking advantage of good times to invest" in recruitment and technology. ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: Buzz Pumps the Market By James J. Cramer 4/19/00 12:09 PM ET Editor's note: The following is an addendum to an earlier mock interview that James Cramer conducted with a fictional portfolio manager named Ben "Buzz" Gould. We pulled up with Buzz Gould during a marketing tour in Las Vegas, Nev., this morning. He was his old effusive self and it was a pleasure to hear him back in his offensive mode. Here are the results of the Q&A. Cramer: Buzz, how did it go yesterday? Buzz: We rallied 16% in the aggressive growth mutual fund and I could have made it 18%, but I decided I had moved Liberate (LBRT:Nasdaq) and Portal Software (PRSF:Nasdaq) enough for a day. My only regret was that I didn't walk BEAS (BEAS:Nasdaq) back up to my basis of $85. Maybe that will be today's business. (Grabs cell phone, hits 1, gets trading sidekick Batch Hammer: Batch, get Goldman (GS:NYSE) short, some BEAS -- take it up to $85 and then nail it to $90 with Instinet. Blitzkrieg the thing, Batch, just like the old days. Back to Cramer.) Cramer: So now you are up again for the year? Buzz: Oh, we're back and bigger than ever. In fact I have grown quite bullish on the prospects of the market here. Cramer: Hey Buzz, aren't you worried about the Fed getting tougher now that your kind of stocks are coming roaring back? Buzz: My investors don't care about the Fed. My bosses don't care about the Fed. What is the deal with the Fed? Who cares about the Fed? The Fed only impacts P&G (PG:NYSE) and USG (USG:NYSE) and some of those companies my grandparents used to trade. Get a life, Cramer. That guy who called you an idiot yesterday -- yeah, I read your column -- he may have had a point. Oh yeah, thanks for boosting AOL (AOL:NYSE) for me today. I was able to blow out a bunch of stock right into your hype! (Laughs.) Cramer: So what happens now, the Nasdaq just goes right back up as if nothing ever happened? Even though some of your compadres are down 40% to 80%? Buzz: We are concerned about some of the weaker hands in our mutual fund buying club. Monday night at Privilege (special emergency meeting of the Young Turks) we agreed to do what we call a "Marshall Plan" to bail out our weakened compatriots. You saw some of our handiwork yesterday with all of those highflying Nasdaq stocks we walked up. We all go in and buy a ton of the hammered fund's top 10 holdings. We put those guys back up on their feet so they can do some buying in no time. I wouldn't worry. Our Marshall Plan buyings always work. We are seasoned at bailing out our buddies. We have to do it a couple of times a year, but it sure does spook the shorts. Hoo-hah! Betcha Julian wished he had a Marshall plan going. But who can walk up Letter U (U:NYSE) and Bowater (BOW:NYSE). P-U! Cramer: How about IBM (IBM:NYSE) and Intel (INTC:Nasdaq)? Are they going to hurt you today? Buzz: How much is Intel down? Cramer: Five points right now. Buzz: Hmmmm, let me take care of that. (Flips cellphone back on. Batchy. Batchy Hammer, listen, go buy 2000 Intel April 125 calls -- I don't care that they go out tomorrow -- try to get Morgan Stanley short. Then take 1000 calls from Goldman, same contract. Makes sure you are doing it simultaneously. When they are in trying to cover their short, go into Merrill as a size buyer, take 250,000 and then bid it at $126 in the Box!) Jim, I don't think you will have to worry much longer about Intel. What was that other company? Cramer: IBM. Buzz: Well, why don't you just ask me about Bessie Steel (BS:NYSE) for Pete's sake? Hey listen, I would love to shmoooze more here, but I gotta money show I have to give where I am predicting Nazzdog 6000 and I just want to check my charts out before I give my recommendations. Back to ya! James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long BEA Systems, Intel, and America Online. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: Evening Update: Apple Scores Big as a Slew of Earnings Reports Hit By Eileen Kinsella Staff Reporter 4/19/00 9:32 PM ET Apple (AAPL:Nasdaq) soared 6 11/16 to 127 13/16 in postclose Island action after posting second-quarter earnings of 88 cents a diluted share, beating the 19-analyst estimate of 81 cents and up from the year-ago 84 cents which includes items. Revenues rose to 27% to $1.94 billion from $1.53 billion and gross margins rose to 28.2%, up from 26.3% a year ago. The company also set a 2-for-1 stock split. For more on Apple's earnings, check out coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Earnings/revenue reports and previews E-commerce leader Commerce One (CMRC:Nasdaq) said its first-quarter losses were 9 cents a share, which beat the 19-analyst estimate of a loss of 12 cents for the quarter and matched the year-ago per-share results. Earnings were adjusted for its 2-for-1 stock split effective today. For more on Commerce One's earnings, check out coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. CNet (CNET:Nasdaq) reported first-quarter earnings of 2 cents a share, surprising analysts who had expected a loss of 6 cents. The company said strong growth in traffic was responsible for the unexpectedly profitable quarter. CNET Networks expects to stay in the black for all of 2000. Previously, the company had predicted operating income only for the fourth quarter Excite@Home (ATHM:Nasdaq) reported a first-quarter pro forma loss of 1 cent a share, short of Wall Street's expectations that it would break even but narrower than the year-earlier pro forma loss of 2 cents a share. The Internet-service company posted a net loss of $676.5 million, or $1.75 a share, compared with a loss of $18.1 million, or 8 cents, in the 1999 quarter. Revenue rose 75% in the latest quarter, to $138 million, from $78.7 million a year earlier. The company said the number of new subscribers had more than tripled, to 1.5 million. Informix (IFMX:Nasdaq)reported first-quarter earnings of 10 cents a share, better than the five-analyst estimate of 8 cents . The company said when 307 million shares are assumed outstanding, earnings before charges are 9 cents a share. Excluding a gain, year-ago earnings were 3 cents a share. Playtex (PYX:NYSE) posted first-quarter earnings of 25 cents a share, in line with the five-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 22 cents a share. The company said earnings before amortization of intangibles were 32 cents in the latest first quarter compared with 29 cents a year ago. Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch (TMCS:Nasdaq) posted a first-quarter loss of 14 cents a share, excluding goodwill. The results are wider than the year-ago report of an 8-cent loss. The three-analyst estimate, which included goodwill, expected the company to report a 58-cent loss. Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures Cigna (CI:NYSE) unitCigna HealthCare and Cardinal Health (CAH:NYSE) said Cigna expects to purchase nearly $3 billion of pharmaceuticals from Cardinal over the next three years. Wal-Mart (WMT:NYSE) said it increased its ownership of Mexico's largest retailer, Wal-Mart de Mexico, by 6% to almost 60% for about $600 million. Offerings and stock actions Citizens Utilities (CZN:NYSE) authorized the repurchase of up to $100 million of its common stock. The company also said in a statement that it authorized the purchase of up to $25 million of Electric Lightwave (ELIX:Nasdaq). Electric Lightwave is an 82%-owned subsidiary of Citizens. Clayton Homes (CMH:NYSE) said it approved a 15-million share buyback. Goldman Sachs priced 46.3 million shares of 360Networks (TSIX:Nasdaq) at $14 each, the top of the expected $12 to $14 range. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company builds fiber-optic networks. Zomax (ZOMX:Nasdaq) set a 2-for-1 stock split. Miscellany Following an earlier announcement from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY:NYSE) that it voluntarily pulled an FDA application for its hypertension drug Vanlev, the company said four patients among thousands in clinical trials required breathing tubes because of severe reactions to the medicine. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Bond Focus: Stocks' Malaise Drags 10-Year Yield Below 6% By David A. Gaffen Staff Reporter 4/19/00 3:11 PM ET It was a reasonably subdued session for bonds, but a bit of positive influence from the poor action in equities this afternoon sent the benchmark 10-year note's yield below 6% in the last hour of trading before the 3 p.m. EDT futures close. Excepting that, traders' were chiefly concerned with movements in the yield curve, as participants sold short-dated securities and bought long-dated securities in anticipation of upcoming supply on the short end, and buybacks on the long end. The benchmark 10-year Treasury bond was up 13/32 to 103 22/32, dropping the yield up to 5.998%. The 30-year bond was higher, up 28/32 to 105 19/32, yielding 5.852%. The day's only major economic release was the international trade deficit, which -- surprise -- reached an all-time record of $29.2 billion in February. The market shrugged off the report, however. Equity weakness in the afternoon was a marginal contributor to the strength in the long end of the bond market today. Early in the day, only the 30-year bond, which has been influenced by declining supply, was higher, but most maturities on the yield curve stabilized and rallied into the afternoon. "There's some benefit flowing into bonds" from equity weakness, said Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist at Miller Tabak. "The market's come to grips that the stock market has stabilized, and it's already factored in notion that stocks will be a little more stable, so I don't think that we're going to get too much more of a negative downdraft" when equities rally. Meanwhile, the two-year Treasury note gained just 1/32 to 100 1/32, yielding 6.315%, narrowing the spread between two-year notes and bonds to 46 basis points in terms of yield, compared with 55 basis points one week ago. The Treasury said today it will auction $12 billion at its regularly scheduled two-year note sale next week, and traders have begun selling the two-year to cheapen the note up. And they're buying long-dated securities, as the Treasury Department will buy back $2 billion in bonds with maturities ranging from 2020-25 tomorrow. That amount, announced yesterday, was a bit of a disappointment for a market expecting more in the way of buybacks, due to the heft of April tax receipts, but the bond has recovered somewhat today. Economic IndicatorsThe international trade deficit widened to a record $29.2 billion in February, as imports increased 1.5% while exports fell 0.2%. On a year-over-year basis, exports are increasing -- up 9.5% -- but imports outpaced that, rising 18.8%. Currency and CommoditiesThe dollar rose against the yen and the euro. It lately traded at 104.8 yen, up from 104.71. The euro was worth $0.9394, down from $0.9469. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's Currencies column. Crude oil for May delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to $27.40 a barrel from $26.11. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index rose to 213.66 from 212.75. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $282.5 an ounce from $283. TO VIEW TSC'S ECONOMIC DATABANK, SEE: http://www.thestreet.com/markets/databank/920121.html ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion NYNMA'S VENTURE DOWNTOWN 2000 May 1, Hilton NY -- Full-day venture capital conference - 26 cutting-edge new media companies - 800 investors & decision-makers - Previous presenters include About.com, Yoyodyne, EarthWeb, Agency.com, Juno, SiteSpecific, Medscape, LivePerson, Flooz.com, Kozmo.com - Tens of millions in venture money raised. http://www.venturedowntown.org -- Register Now. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. 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If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pwebl01.thestreet.com (pbulk01.thestreet.com [209.191.134.144]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id XAA00979 for ; Thu, 20 Apr 2000 23:16:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 32290 invoked from network); 21 Apr 2000 02:33:26 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pwebl01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 21 Apr 2000 02:33:26 -0000 Date: 20 Apr 2000 22:33:26 -0400 Message-ID: <20000421023326.21727.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 21, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 19332 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 21, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Sponsored by InvestorPlace.com Attention Vanguard investors! How to beat the Index 500 and other strategies revealed in a FREE report: "Well Kept Secrets Every Vanguard Investor Should Know": http://www.ppi-orders.com/index.htm?promo_code=59R114 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/20/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,844.05 up 169.09, 1.58% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,643.88 down 62.53, -1.69% o S&P 500: 1,434.54 up 7.07, 0.50% o TSC Internet: 791.13 down 15.73, -1.95% o Russell 2000: 481.84 down 4.39, -0.90% o 30-Year Treasury: 105 31/32 up 12/32, yield 5.825% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) McDonald's (MCD:NYSE) Apple (AAPL:Nasdaq) Ingersoll Rand (IR:NYSE) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o The Coming Week: Past Microsoft, Big Economic Data Lurk o Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: The Perpetual Allure of Old Tech o Evening Update: Equity Mutual Funds Get $6 Billion in Inflows o Bond Focus: Third Treasury Buyback Lifts Long Bond ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Telecom: A Powertel Deal Is Probable Analysts say this cellular-phone company's days are numbered, and that VoiceStream is the likely acquirer. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/telecom/924328.html ____________________________________ Online Brokers: E-Commerce Researcher Gomez Advisors to Go Public The firm, known for rating online brokers, will join 300-plus others in the IPO hunt. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/trading/924801.html ____________________________________ TSC Tax Forum: E-Filing Glitches Compound the Stress of Tax Season If the IRS has its way, someday we'll all e-file. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done first. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/taxforum/923627.html ____________________________________ Tish on Tech: Those Swingin' Internet Singles The days of CFO monogamy are over as Internet executives swing from boardroom to boardroom. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/tish/924424.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement TC2000.com Get your FREE TC2000 CD-ROM right now, and we'll include our popular CD-ROM video "Easy Tips for Finding Stocks Fast"... absolutely FREE. Free Software, Video, and a LIVE Training Class in a city near you! http://www.stockfinder.com/tc2000/default.asp?R=STREETE ______________________________________________________________________ The Coming Week: Past Microsoft, Big Economic Data Lurk By Justin Lahart Associate Editor 4/20/00 8:14 PM ET One of the hard things to figure out about the recent bludgeoning the stock market underwent is how it could have happened in the midst of such a strong earnings season. Company after company, from McDonald's (MCD:NYSE) to Apple (AAPL:Nasdaq) to Ingersoll Rand (IR:NYSE), has posted strong results. (Microsoft's (MSFT:Nasdaq) Thursday report is one of the few real disappointments.) More than half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported so far, and they've been beating analyst estimates by an average of 6.4%, according to First Call/Thomson Financial. Year-over-year earnings growth is tracking at 28%. But that phenomenal growth doesn't come from nothing. The economy was frightfully hot in the first quarter -- many economists have upped their gross domestic product forecasts to near the 7% level -- raising the possibility that the Federal Reserve will hike rates aggressively. Since the strong March inflation report, there has been a lot of debate on the Street over the possibility that the Fed may raise its target fed funds rate by 50 basis points at its May 16 meeting. This makes the coming week an important one. Microsoft's miss may dominate the early part of the week, but Thursday brings first-quarter GDP, the first-quarter Employment Cost Index -- the final word on wage inflation -- and a speech by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. By the time that day is over, the debate on what the Fed's going to do next might be pretty much over. Is Greenspan Behind the Curve? "What it's going to come down to is whether or not the Fed chairman believes he's behind the curve or not," said Mary Dennis, senior economist at Merrill Lynch Government Securities. If he does, he's going to have to let the markets know that the Fed may hike by a half point, and soon. The Fed does not like to disrupt markets, and never less than in the present case. Maybe the biggest reason not to go 50 basis points is that, with the fragile state of the market, stocks could turn sharply lower. This could, in turn, basically tie the Fed's hands, precluding it from tightening further. Worse, it would send a message to investors that Uncle Al will always protect them in the end. If there's a reason for the Fed to stick to gradualism, said Dennis, that's it. A red-hot economy and a big debate on how far the Fed is going to go is not very favorable for stocks, particularly after all the recent volatility. "Going forward, I think we have a tough environment here over the next three to six months," said Allen Ashcroft, a money manager with Allied Investment Advisors. Interest rates aren't the only problem, says Ashcroft. Seasonally, it's just not a very good time for stocks, particularly tech names. The Tech Trader's Worrisome Prayer And tech has other problems, too. Many players were hurt badly in the selloff, and many may exit the market if they see stocks come up to where they bought them. It's the familiar prayer: "I will sell my stocks and be kind to animals and visit Aunt Millie and go to church, God, if you just make me whole again." This creates a sort of natural resistance in the market, and may mean that it will be sometime before tech stocks reach their old highs again. In the meantime, other stocks may come to the fore, but it will be a seesaw effect, with money shifting back and forth between New Economy and Old Economy stocks. "We're going to have some more chop," said Brian Conroy, head of listed trading at J.P. Morgan. "It will be a rotational chop rather than a macro-direction chop, out of tech and banks and into some of the defensive names. It's going to be a little bit of a tug of war." Ashcroft, though he believes that the rotation will continue into some of the old economy, and though he reckons that some of the highflying Internet and biotech issues will never reach their old highs, says that tech's long-term prospects are good. "I still think tech is going to be where you're going to get your long-term growth," he said. "The fundamentals of some of these companies couldn't be better. That's why I think we're going to get through this." That doesn't mean there won't be some scary moments. With the coming week's big economic reports, one can easily imagine stocks dipping back toward the lows they hit during the selloff. If that happens, the important thing will be for the old lows to hold -- dip below them, and people start to worry. Laszlo Birinyi, president of Birinyi Associates, thinks that it will not. While some technicians have said that April 14's selloff didn't include the kind of fear they usually associate with a bottom in the market, he notes that toward the end of the day it looked very much like capitulative selling, with institutions in particular shedding holdings at a rapid pace. Technology looks good to him right now, as do financials and selected drug companies. Whether those things will still look good after Thursday's big economic reports -- well, that's what the coming week is all about. ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: The Perpetual Allure of Old Tech By James J. Cramer 4/20/00 3:32 PM ET The only thing that makes me want to buy a little stock here is that everyone is so negative. I can't find a soul who likes this market. As for me, I like old tech plenty. Intel (INTC:Nasdaq), well why don't they just slaughter the darn thing over a penny?. Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq)? Give me a break. So it is not cheap. It has never been cheap. Does somebody really have a problem with Corning Glass (GLW:NYSE) or with the fiber or wireless stories? So we buy a round of fives (5,000) just because it is so negative, I know it can't be right. Maybe we can't go back to where we were before last week's crash, or even to Tuesday's high, but stocks down two or three or four that I like -- Nortel (NT:NYSE) for instance -- get bought here, not sold. I just wish the drugs would come in. Those are for buying, too. ******** James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long Cisco, Corning Glass, Intel and Nortel. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: Equity Mutual Funds Get $6 Billion in Inflows By Eileen Kinsella Staff Reporter 4/20/00 8:32 PM ET Inflows to equity funds totaled $6 billion for the week ended Wednesday, with 60% going to growth funds, according to AMG Data Services. International equity funds reported inflows to all regions except Latin America, while inflows to technology & Internet funds continued to slow. Redemptions returned to large-cap equity index funds, for the seventh time in nine weeks. Taxable bond funds reported outflows from all sectors, totaling $1.7 billion. _______ As reported earlier, Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) posted third-quarter earnings of 43 cents a share, 2 cents ahead of the 24-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 35 cents. Revenue was $5.66 billion, up from $4.6 billion a year ago. In a statement, CFO John Connors said demand for business PCs was light in the most recent quarter and said the company was guarded about near-term growth. Connors said the company expects to post only single-digit profit growth in the fourth-quarter, saying the strong year-ago quarter will be tough to beat. For more on Microsoft's earnings, see coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. And for a look at Microsoft's tumble in after-hours trading, see The Night Watch. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Earnings/revenue reports and previews Fleetwood (FLE:NYSE) said fourth-quarter earnings will fall as much as 30% to 40% below estimates of 52 cents a share, due to weakness in the manufactured housing market. The current five-analyst estimate is for 55 cents a share. SGI (SGI:NYSE) posted a third-quarter loss of 9 cents a share, 2 cents wider than the 13-analyst estimate but narrower than the year-ago loss of 21 cents. Xilinx (XLNX:Nasdaq) posted fourth-quarter earnings of 22 cents a share, a penny better than the 24-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 12 cents which includes items. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Third Treasury Buyback Lifts Long Bond By Elizabeth Roy Senior Writer 4/20/00 4:17 PM ET The Treasury market ended an abbreviated session narrowly mixed, as the third installment of the Treasury Department's bond buyback program failed to have a lasting impact on prices. So did the day's economic news. The weekly count of initial jobless claims hit a new generational low, indicating extreme tightness in the labor market. And the Philadelphia Fed Index printed considerably higher than expected. Traders now retreat for the long weekend to contemplate how next week's slate of economic reports may affect the monetary policy outlook, and how a changed monetary policy outlook may -- or may not -- affect the prices of Treasury securities. That slate includes a couple of biggies -- the first-quarter Employment Cost Index and the first estimate of first-quarter GDP, both on Thursday. In today's trading, only the 30-year Treasury bond ended higher. The benchmark 10-year note was unchanged at 103 21/32, its yield 6.000%. Shorter-maturity issues lost a bit of ground. But the bond rallied 9/32 to 105 29/32, trimming its yield 1.8 basis points to 5.831%. At the Chicago Board of Trade, the June Treasury futures contract gained 2/32 to 98 2/32. The market was uniformly stronger early in the session as traders anticipated Treasury's latest buyback. The department is using government surplus funds to pay down debt by buying old, high-interest bonds back from investors at market prices. In the latest operation, it accepted $2 billion of offers of 30-year bonds issued from 1990 to 1995. Dealers tendered a total of $8.525 billion. In the last buyback on March 16, the department accepted $1 billion of offers, and dealers tendered a total of $6.446 billion. There's no objective criteria for evaluating the buybacks, but market participants said the price action after offers were accepted at 11 a.m. EDT suggested that relatively few dealers had their offers accepted. Prices turned down because dealers whose offers weren't accepted were trying to sell some of the bonds they expected the Treasury to buy, they said. "A couple of guys were more aggressive than most, leaving a lot of guys with stuff to sell," said Bill Kirby, head of government bond trading at Prudential Securities. "The average person involved in the sector didn't sell as much as they expected to." But prices came off their lows after a key technical support level held, Kirby said. The key question at this point is whether long-maturity Treasury yields can remain at relatively low levels even if next week's economic data give the Fed reason to envision hiking the fed funds rate at least twice more in the coming months, said Jim Kochan, senior bond strategist at Robert W. Baird. Investors in long-term Treasuries "don't seem to be very concerned that the funds rate is going higher, maybe significantly higher," Kochan said. The fact that long-term yields have stayed relatively low while the short-term rates determined by the Fed continue to rise, suggests that investors believe that falling stock prices will be sufficient to slow the economy. "It's an interesting experiment," he said. "Can there be enough tightening to slow the economy without producing much pain and suffering in bondland? That will be a first." Economic Indicators Initial jobless claims fell to 257,000 last week, the lowest total since December 1973. The four-week average of initial claims also hit a 26-year low. Meanwhile, the Philly Fed Index rose to 27.2 in April, the highest since July 1996, from 25 in March. A sub-index measuring prices paid by Philadelphia-area manufacturers eased slightly from the five-year high of 33.6 it reached in March, to 33.5. But another sub-index measuring prices received by the manufacturers leapt to a five-year high of 18.2 from 8.7. That's "alarming," Miller Tabak bond strategist Tony Crescenzi opined in a research note, because "the prices that manufacturers receive are a reflection of their pricing power and the willingness of buyers of manufactured goods to pay those prices." If the trend continues, look for more big gains in the core Consumer Price Index, Crescenzi said. Finally, the federal budget for March showed a larger-than-expected deficit for the month. The government ran a $35.380 billion deficit in March, compared to a $22.409 billion deficit last March. But six months into the fiscal year, the government is in a better position ($35.6 billion in the red) than it was at the same point last year (when it was $48.8 billion in the red). The government is expected to end the fiscal year with a $142.5 billion surplus. Currency and Commodities The dollar rose against the yen and the euro. It lately was worth 105.73 yen, up from 104.80. The euro was worth $0.9375, down from $0.9403. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's Currencies column. Crude oil for May delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to $25.88 a barrel from $25.80. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index fell to 212.88 from 213.49. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $281.50 an ounce from $282.50. TO VIEW TSC'S ECONOMIC DATABANK, SEE: http://www.thestreet.com/markets/databank/920121.html ______________________________________________________________________ Street Sightings: Vern Hayden will appear on CNBC beginning at 11:00 p.m. EDT, Friday, April 21. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Check Out TheStreet.com's Portfolio Tracker TheStreet.com's Portfolio Tracker now automatically calculates stock splits, tracks the latest news about your holdings and keeps you apprised of your holdings' events. The Tracker even delivers the latest news about your portfolio straight to your in box everyday. 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If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id HAA13105 for ; Sat, 22 Apr 2000 07:10:47 -0400 (EDT) From: members@thestreet.com Received: (qmail 28658 invoked from network); 22 Apr 2000 11:10:42 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO papp02) (192.168.24.61) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 2000 11:10:42 -0000 Message-ID: <453192405.956401842004.JavaMail.root@papp02> Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 07:10:41 -0400 (EDT) To: gcf@npac.syr.edu Subject: The Latest on Stocks Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain Content-Length: 2254 THE NEW YORK TIMES CALLS US "THE WEB'S BEST FOR INVESTMENT ANALYSIS." 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To customize our email bulletins, go to http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pwebl01.thestreet.com (pbulk01.thestreet.com [209.191.134.144]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id UAA21168 for ; Sun, 23 Apr 2000 20:13:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 20318 invoked from network); 23 Apr 2000 23:52:55 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pwebl01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 23 Apr 2000 23:52:55 -0000 Date: 23 Apr 2000 19:52:55 -0400 Message-ID: <20000423235255.3345.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 24, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 26845 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 24, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement It takes courage to BUY NOW, but that's how fortunes are secured. Got courage? Get the internet's most "mission critical" stocks super-cheap with a 30-day FREE Trial to Schaeffer's Internet Stock Alert: http://www.investools.com/c/go/SISA/STREET-sisaTC1?s=S600 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/21/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,844.05 unchanged 0.00, 0.00% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,643.88 down 62.53, -1.69% o S&P 500: 1,434.54 unchanged 0.00, 0.00% o TSC Internet: 791.13 down 15.73, -1.95% o Russell 2000: 481.84 unchanged 0.00, 0.00% o 30-Year Treasury: 105 31/32 unchanged , yield 5.825% ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Editor's Letter: The Coming Week on TSC o Market Features: Will Microsoft's Malaise Sicken the Nasdaq Again? o The Coming Week: Past Microsoft, Big Economic Data Lurk o The Coming Week in Europe: U.K. Mobile-Phone Licenses Up for Sale ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: Buzz and Batch and Microsoft-Monday The trader plays fly on the wall as the guys go over the game plan. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/wrongrear/925212.html ____________________________________ This Week in IPOs: First-Day Pops: Fewer and Not Quite as Loud It may be too early to tell, but a pickup in deal performance is not in the numbers. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/ipoweek/925012.html ____________________________________ The Coming Week in Asia: Will Hikari's Numbers Mean Market Hari-Kari? Also, investors look to Oracle Japan's move to the Tokyo Stock Exchange for a tech jump-start. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/comingweekasia/924824.html ____________________________________ Jim Griffin: Economy and Market: A Help Wanted/Bid Wanted Cycle It looks like the market's period of anxious bedside attendance has only just begun. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/jamesgriffin/925062.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Netstock Direct TSC ShareBuilder offers dollar-based investing in over 2,000 stocks and 32 index products. No account or investment minimums, no annual fee, and only $2 per recurring transaction. Setup a TSC ShareBuilder Plan today! http://thestreet.sharebuilder.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ Editor's Letter: The Coming Week on TSC By Dave Kansas Editor-in-Chief 4/23/00 4:13 PM ET It doesn't get any easier. After another up-and-down, albeit thankfully short, week, Microsoft(MSFT:Nasdaq) sent us into the weekend with a dourish earnings report. Could more trouble be in store come the opening bell on Monday? If our television program is any guide, the pessimism in the market is climbing. Though the Elian Gonzalez case pre-empted the show in many areas, the heart of the program was a bunch of dark thinking. The mood underscored the nervousness that has taken hold of the investment populace. And that mood shows little indication of lessening. Of course, there's a contrarian view that such overwhelming pessimism can mark a bottom. The theory goes that when everyone's negative, the selling's been done. During the program, guests remarked on the strong negative consensus, wondering if we might be at such turning point. Are we? The coming days will provide some clues, but it will still be some time before this market sorts itself out. The bears have scored some powerful blows in the past few weeks, and the bulls will need to regain strength over a number of sessions, not all at once. As you prepare for the week ahead, let me point you to a couple of special features. One is our new Streetside chat, this week featuring guest Peter Canelo, a strategist with Morgan Stanley. He offers a cogent bullish case on the market, which makes for some good reading. Also, check out our Special Report: The Wild Ride -- Where Stocks Stand. Both of these specials are essential reading for those seeking more wisdom in this market. And this Thursday, James J. Cramer will participate in a chat on AOL at 5 p.m. EDT. His thoughts are especially crucial at times like these, and for non-AOL members we'll have a transcript up promptly after the chat's conclusion. As ever, we'll be on the case all week, prowling for any hints of recovery, shining a light on areas that are weathering the storm and warning you about the pitfalls that still might be ahead. If you've got concerns or questions, don't hesitate to email me at dkansas@thestreet.com or our very able customer support staff at members@thestreet.com. We'll make sure your issues get handled. Now get ready for another intense week on TheStreet.com. We're digging in hard to help you figure out this confounding market. L'Etoile du Nord Dave Kansas Editor-in-Chief Dave Kansas is editor-in-chief of TheStreet.com. In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, though he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. He welcomes your feedback at dkansas@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement BravoGifts.com 13 There's still time to make your assistant's day this Wednesday with the perfect gift from BravoGifts.com! Choose from an assortment of gifts like desk fountains, chocolates and more! Order today and receive FREE overnight shipping! http://www.bravogifts.com/admin_collection.cfm?rc=C&sk=TS202 ______________________________________________________________________ Market Features: Will Microsoft's Malaise Sicken the Nasdaq Again? By Adam Lashinsky Silicon Valley Columnist 4/23/00 6:26 PM ET Once again, nervous tech investors approach Monday's session with a single question in mind: Will Microsoft(MSFT:Nasdaq) bring down the rest of tech with it? Late Thursday, when most people were heading out for the long holiday weekend, Microsoft kept investors and analysts after class, issuing a third-quarter earnings report that, as usual, exceeded the consensus estimates. Mr. Softee recorded a very healthy $2.3 billion of cash flow in a quarter with $5.7 billion in revenues. But, as they always say in the fine print, past results are no guarantee of future performance. And this time, it's more than boilerplate. Microsoft execs issued a glum assessment for the current quarter and fiscal 2001. Beating Wall Street's March-quarter expectations (with a healthy dollop of investment gains) is irrelevant compared to the company's instructions to analysts to lower their estimates for the next fiscal year. Remember, the forward guidance is far more important than the reported results. How bad could the market reaction be? In after-hours trading Thursday, Microsoft shares tumbled four points. And, just two weeks ago, the shares took the Nasdaq into a 7.1% nosedive on April 12 after Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund presciently predicted that Microsoft might have trouble meeting the revenue numbers expected by the street. And, voila, Microsoft's revenue did come in light because of lower-than-expected sales to PC makers. "There are lots of cross-currents here," says David Readerman, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco. "There will be either a continued rotation into other tech leaders like Oracle (ORCL:Nasdaq) and Intel(INTC:Nasdaq), or there will be a rotation out of tech because of Microsoft." Readerman wasn't willing to disclose his bet last week, although he did speculate that "Sun and some of the Linux players will be dancing on the grave a little bit." By that he means that Sun Microsystems (SUNW:Nasdaq) will benefit at Microsoft's expense from hardware sales based on its Unix operating system, as will various Linux companies that may steal market share from Microsoft with the open-source operating system. On the other hand, Charles Phillips, enterprise software analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, is betting that the market will see this more as a Microsoft event than as a sector-slammer. "This is more evidence that Microsoft has peaked in influence, which is good for people who compete against it," he said over the weekend. "They've gone from being the company that could do no wrong to just another important player." There is already evidence for Phillips' case. Even as Microsoft has slipped 32% on negative news since Jan. 1, Sun's shares are up 13% in the year to date. (On April 14, Sun reported a stunning 35% jump in quarterly revenue and beat analyst earnings estimates.) It's tougher to handicap the action in the Linux area, however. If, as Microsoft's comments to analysts on Thursday night indicate, there is a slowdown in sales growth in desktop PCs and PC-based servers, the Linux companies would also be victims. Shares of Red Hat(RHAT:Nasdaq), perhaps the best-known of the Linux brigade, are down 75% so far this year, having closed Thursday at 25. What is clear is that when traders return on Monday, the psychology for tech stocks will likely be in the dumps. As James Cramer wrote here Thursday, the tone of the Microsoft conference call couldn't have been worse. Microsoft has often used the quarterly calls to tamp down overheated analyst expectations, encouraging analysts not to raise their estimates for future periods just because the company had beaten their previous expectations. Last week, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer John Connors went beyond suggesting that rosier outlooks would be a mistake. He instructed Wall Street to scale back existing earnings-per-share estimates for the year ending June 30, 2001, indicating they were too high by 5 cents. That's a precedent that could rattle a market accustomed to seeing Microsoft shrug off just about any setback and go on to set new highs. Conner placed the blame on disappointing demand for corporate PCs and pointed out once again that a company as large as Microsoft -- it's fiscal year revenues are expected to approach $23 billion this June -- will find it increasingly difficult to rack up 20%-plus annual growth. Prodded by analysts Sherlund and others, Connors couldn't even speak optimistically about the current April, even though the month is nearly two-thirds gone by now. The implication: The world's most important tech company is off to a lousy start in its fourth fiscal quarter. Or, could it be that Microsoft is suffering from unique problems that other tech companies may not feel? Intel told analysts last week that it remains upbeat about PC demand. Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq) and other suppliers say they still see strong demand, too. Even if Microsoft is suffering from unique problems, it could still drag down all tech shares simply because it's so huge. CFO Connors made that point during the conference call when he bragged that Microsoft's revenue increase in the quarter alone accounted for four and a half Yahoo!s(YHOO:Nasdaq), 20 RealNetworks (RNWK:Nasdaq) and 75% of Oracle's (ORCL:Nasdaq) entire software sales (not including its consulting revenues). Then again, Morgan Stanley's Phillips says the tech markets may not be so dependent on the mood swings of the software giant. He acknowledges that the Microsoft news could make the coming week in tech stocks another turbulent one. "But I don't think it's as cataclysmic as it would have been a year ago," he adds. There's another aspect of the Microsoft earnings announcement that bodes ill for the software giant and other tech companies that have been generating great numbers, in part, through gains on investments. Connors said Microsoft locked in enough gains in early April to ensure that its stock-sale gains in its fiscal fourth quarter equal the $442 million that it amassed in the third. This isn't great news for the rest of the stock market because it means that Microsoft has already begun bailing out. It also suggests that investors will begin scrutinizing every other company that has relied on portfolio windfalls, a strategy tech companies have adopted only recently as a way to manage earnings. Microsoft's fall from glory also should give pause to the entire high-multiple crowd. Even taking into account Microsoft's revised earnings outlook for fiscal 2001, it still trades for about 42 times 2001 earnings. But the company expects earnings growth only in the midteens. Nonleaders with growth rates in the midteens get multiples in the midteens. But Microsoft remains very much a leader. What's the proper multiple for other leaders in this climate? That's to be determined this week. How the market reacts to Mr. Softee's news will have huge repercussions. A hit to the already-dented stock could take down both the Dow and the Nasdaq. Influential analysts such as Thomas Weisel's Readerman will play a role. On Friday, I asked him if he's thinking of changing his current buy recommendation, his firm's second-highest. "I've got 48 hours or so to make up my mind on that," was all he would say. Come Monday morning, tech investors will quickly learn if this is a Microsoft-only event or if the contagion will spread. Adam Lashinsky's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, although he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. Lashinsky writes a column for Fortune called the Wired Investor, and is a frequent commentator on public radio's Marketplace program. He welcomes your feedback at alashinsky@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ The Coming Week: Past Microsoft, Big Economic Data Lurk By Justin Lahart Associate Editor 4/20/00 8:14 PM ET One of the hard things to figure out about the recent bludgeoning the stock market underwent is how it could have happened in the midst of such a strong earnings season. Company after company, from McDonald's (MCD:NYSE) to Apple (AAPL:Nasdaq) to Ingersoll Rand (IR:NYSE), has posted strong results. (Microsoft's (MSFT:Nasdaq) Thursday report is one of the few real disappointments.) More than half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported so far, and they've been beating analyst estimates by an average of 6.4%, according to First Call/Thomson Financial. Year-over-year earnings growth is tracking at 28%. But that phenomenal growth doesn't come from nothing. The economy was frightfully hot in the first quarter -- many economists have upped their gross domestic product forecasts to near the 7% level -- raising the possibility that the Federal Reserve will hike rates aggressively. Since the strong March inflation report, there has been a lot of debate on the Street over the possibility that the Fed may raise its target fed funds rate by 50 basis points at its May 16 meeting. This makes the coming week an important one. Microsoft's miss may dominate the early part of the week, but Thursday brings first-quarter GDP, the first-quarter Employment Cost Index -- the final word on wage inflation -- and a speech by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. By the time that day is over, the debate on what the Fed's going to do next might be pretty much over. Is Greenspan Behind the Curve? "What it's going to come down to is whether or not the Fed chairman believes he's behind the curve or not," said Mary Dennis, senior economist at Merrill Lynch Government Securities. If he does, he's going to have to let the markets know that the Fed may hike by a half point, and soon. The Fed does not like to disrupt markets, and never less than in the present case. Maybe the biggest reason not to go 50 basis points is that, with the fragile state of the market, stocks could turn sharply lower. This could, in turn, basically tie the Fed's hands, precluding it from tightening further. Worse, it would send a message to investors that Uncle Al will always protect them in the end. If there's a reason for the Fed to stick to gradualism, said Dennis, that's it. A red-hot economy and a big debate on how far the Fed is going to go is not very favorable for stocks, particularly after all the recent volatility. "Going forward, I think we have a tough environment here over the next three to six months," said Allen Ashcroft, a money manager with Allied Investment Advisors. Interest rates aren't the only problem, says Ashcroft. Seasonally, it's just not a very good time for stocks, particularly tech names. The Tech Trader's Worrisome Prayer And tech has other problems, too. Many players were hurt badly in the selloff, and many may exit the market if they see stocks come up to where they bought them. It's the familiar prayer: "I will sell my stocks and be kind to animals and visit Aunt Millie and go to church, God, if you just make me whole again." This creates a sort of natural resistance in the market, and may mean that it will be sometime before tech stocks reach their old highs again. In the meantime, other stocks may come to the fore, but it will be a seesaw effect, with money shifting back and forth between New Economy and Old Economy stocks. "We're going to have some more chop," said Brian Conroy, head of listed trading at J.P. Morgan. "It will be a rotational chop rather than a macro-direction chop, out of tech and banks and into some of the defensive names. It's going to be a little bit of a tug of war." Ashcroft, though he believes that the rotation will continue into some of the old economy, and though he reckons that some of the highflying Internet and biotech issues will never reach their old highs, says that tech's long-term prospects are good. "I still think tech is going to be where you're going to get your long-term growth," he said. "The fundamentals of some of these companies couldn't be better. That's why I think we're going to get through this." That doesn't mean there won't be some scary moments. With the coming week's big economic reports, one can easily imagine stocks dipping back toward the lows they hit during the selloff. If that happens, the important thing will be for the old lows to hold -- dip below them, and people start to worry. Laszlo Birinyi, president of Birinyi Associates, thinks that it will not. While some technicians have said that April 14's selloff didn't include the kind of fear they usually associate with a bottom in the market, he notes that toward the end of the day it looked very much like capitulative selling, with institutions in particular shedding holdings at a rapid pace. Technology looks good to him right now, as do financials and selected drug companies. Whether those things will still look good after Thursday's big economic reports -- well, that's what the coming week is all about. ______________________________________________________________________ The Coming Week in Europe: U.K. Mobile-Phone Licenses Up for Sale By Nick Watson Senior European Correspondent 4/22/00 12:30 AM ET LONDON -- Although Europe will be on holiday on Monday, serious investors are unlikely to stray too far from a place where they can find out what's happening in the U.S. markets that day. And that shouldn't be too difficult, because you can now get stock quotes over your mobile phone. Getting quotes, though, is obviously something mobile phone operators consider to be the thin end of the wedge if you consider the astronomical prices they're prepared to pay for one of the U.K. licenses to build the infrastructure for and operate the next generation of mobile-phone services. Since the total amount bid so far for the five licenses is now more than four times than originally expected, nobody appears willing to predict when the final hands will be played. But considering that the original field of 13 players has been winnowed down to just seven, the end could come as early as next week. As of Thursday, the amounts bid were worth 22.2 billion ($35.3 billion) and the remaining bidders were the four incumbents -- Vodafone AirTouch (VOD:NYSE ADR), Orange, British Telecom's (BTY:NYSE ADR) BT Cellnet, Deutsche Telekom's (DT:NYSE ADR) One2One -- as well as newcomers TIW, part of Canada's Teleglobe (TGO:NYSE ADR) and NTL Mobile, which is jointly owned by the cable company NTL (NTLI:Nasdaq ADR)and France Telecom (FTE:NYSE ADR). Although the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, and finance ministers of other European countries planning such auctions are no doubt cock-a-hoop at this unexpected windfall, not everyone is happy, notably Ron Sommer, chairman of Deutsche Telekom. On Wednesday, following another quarter of disappointing earnings from Deutsche Telekom, Sommer moaned publicly about the "gigantic sums" of money these licenses are commanding. And well may he complain, because if he does win one of the licenses in the U.K., he'll then have to fork out another huge amount for one of the licenses in Germany's upcoming auction. These comments could be a prelude to One2One dropping out the auction. Then again, the auction is becoming more and more like a game of poker that perhaps one should not read too much into. The uncertainty over the auction is equal only to that surrounding the state of the IPO market in Europe. Much was made this week of the success of Deutsche Telekom's spinoff of its Internet business, T-Online, as a sign that Europe's IPO market would soon return to good health. On Monday, the shares were offered at 27 euros each, and despite the perilous market conditions, managed to rise 40% while all around it the markets were falling. The shares were trading Thursday down 0.32 euros, or 0.8%, at 38.65. However, as TSC reported, Deutsche Telekom's T-Online is one thing, diddleysquat.com is quite another. "You can bet your boots that Deutsche Telekom used its influence with the larger institutions," says Philip Dumas, head of institutional sales at the investment and research firm Durlacher. T-Online's IPO "was always going to be a success; end of story." Yet Neil Austin, head of new issues at the U.K. consultancy firm KPMG, believes there may be more concrete evidence that the IPO market will improve. While he concedes that the recent fluctuations in the Nasdaq and the U.K.'s Techmark indices create uncertainty, a market pick-up toward the end of the first quarter indicates a strong pipeline, with most advisers working to capacity on flotations throughout the summer. And as Dulacher's Dumas points out, "It's pretty difficult to cancel or postpone an IPO, it's probably easier to change the terms and the pricing." To gauge the uncertainty of the European IPO market, one need look no further than the IPO of the U.K.'s video-on-demand company, Yes Television. On Monday, Yes TV was due to fix the price for the sale of the 81 million shares, which at the midpoint of the price range would have valued the firm at 810 million ($1.3 billion). However, the turbulence in the markets created by the fall on Wall Street on Friday forced the company to say Monday that it was postponing the issue. Only two days later, however, the IPO was back on, with Yes TV saying it would complete the offering by May 22 within the same price range. What Yes TV decides to do should the markets begin gyrating again is anybody's guess, but analysts say appearing to be controlled by such external events doesn't do the company's reputation in The City any good. Perhaps, but then again, uncertainty, it seems, is in no short supply at the moment. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion If you haven't heard already, TheStreet.com is getting ready to transform its growing offering of news and commentary into a network of free and paid sites aimed at meeting the increasing needs of the investing community. At the hub of this network will be http://www.thestreet.com, a free site focused on timely market news, insightful commentary, stock analysis and personal finance. 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Call today and save! ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id OAA28552 for ; Mon, 24 Apr 2000 14:54:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 18501 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2000 17:59:49 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 24 Apr 2000 17:59:49 -0000 Date: 24 Apr 2000 13:59:48 -0400 Message-ID: <20000424175946.10511.bulk_mail.11030@192.168.24.32> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 24, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 11644 TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 24, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Lowestfare.com Save up to 70% off on one-way or roundtrip airfares, with no advance purchase, on electronic ticketing. 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For more details see Lowestfare.com! http://www.lowestfare.com/default2.asp?div=TSC&dept=MAIL01 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of 4/24/00, 1:36 PM ET: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,846.22 up 2.17, 0.02% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,438.11 down 205.77, -5.65% o S&P 500: 1,419.49 down 15.05, -1.05% o TSC Internet: 750.90 down 40.23, -5.09% o Russell 2000: 467.82 down 14.02, -2.91% o 30-Year Treasury: 105 28/32 down 3/32, yield 5.829% ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Midday Musings: Nasdaq Drops Toward Recent Lows as Microsoft Gives Way o Herb on TheStreet: Does Microsoft Really Have Reason to Be This Gloomy? ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: When It Rains on Microsoft, It Pours Short puts can come back to haunt company's bottom line. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/wrongtactics/925552.html ____________________________________ Tech Savvy: The Semi-Rich Get Semi-Richer Dot-coms aren't immune to the laws of financial physics, especially gravity. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/techsavvy/925659.html ____________________________________ Biotech/Pharmaceuticals: Merck Tops Estimates as Revenue Rises A fast-growing arthritis medicine boosted the numbers. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/biotech/925333.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Netstock Direct TSC ShareBuilder offers dollar-based investing in over 2,000 stocks and 32 index products. No account or investment minimums, no annual fee, and only $2 per recurring transaction. Setup a TSC ShareBuilder Plan today! http://thestreet.sharebuilder.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ Midday Musings: Nasdaq Drops Toward Recent Lows as Microsoft Gives Way By Justin Lahart Associate Editor 4/24/00 1:04 PM ET When it happened to JDS Uniphase (JDSU:Nasdaq), when it happened to Qualcomm (QCOM:Nasdaq), investors could take it in stride. But to see Microsoft's (MSFT:Nasdaq) stock nearly halved in the space of four months? That is an entirely different thing. This was not some highflying newcomer, some outfit with no history. This was Microsoft, until recently the company with largest market capitalization in the world. Microsoft's warning after close on Thursday that its earnings would not grow as quickly as Wall Street expected led to a spate of downgrades this morning and a heavy selloff that has infected the entire technology sector. "We're in the middle of a nightmare," said Matt Johnson, head of Nasdaq trading for Lehman Brothers. "The market has lost its leader in Microsoft." The stock's 16.3% decline has left the Nasdaq Composite Index struggling to find its footing. The measure lately was down 184, or 5.1%, to 3459, having traded as low as 3394.92. The magic number is 3321, the Nasdaq's closing level in the selloff a little more than a week ago. "It looks like we're going to test the lows of Friday a week ago," said Johnson. "There are just no buyers around." Microsoft's dour outlook, with its suggestion of slower PC sales, obviously casts a pall on boxmakers, component manufacturers and semiconductor companies. But some of the stocks that are getting hit worst have only secondary connections to the PC. Internet stocks were getting whacked -- TheStreet.com Internet Sector index lately was down 37, or 4.7%, to 754. Wireless stocks such as Qualcomm, down 7%, and Nokia (NOK:NYSE ADR), down 4.7%, were also getting hit. One wonders if Microsoft's latest news is reminding some investors that even the best things can end, that one cannot assume that earnings will grow at a near viral rate forever and ever. And so, valuations come down. For all the havoc in the Nasdaq, it has not been such a bad day on the New York Stock Exchange; in fact, the NYSE Composite lately was up 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 34, or 0.3%, to 10,878, which is pretty amazing when one considers that Microsoft was knocking about 64 points out of the index. Pharmaceutical, cyclical, consumer, financial and retail stocks were all higher. "The thing that surprises me is that the strength in these Old Economy stocks is not translating into much of a recovery in the Nasdaq," said Richard Dickson, technical analyst at Scott & Stringfellow in Richmond, Va. "I would have thought that some psychological support would be given to the Nasdaq." Though perhaps it is not such a surprise that the Nasdaq is getting no succor from the NYSE; recall that as the Nasdaq surged, NYSE stocks couldn't get out of their own way. After their huge moves last year, it may be a while before Nasdaq stocks perform well again. "The Nasdaq is going to have to go through a process that is going to take a while," said Steve Goldman, market strategist at Weeden in Greenwich, Conn. The S&P 500 was off 10, or 0.7%, to 1425. The small-cap Russell 2000 was down 12 1/2, or 2.6%, to 469. Market Internals New York Stock Exchange: 1,111 advancers, 1,642 decliners, 483 million shares. 18 new 52-week highs, 36 new lows. Nasdaq Stock Market: 1,039 advancers, 2,912 decliners, 833 million shares. 15 new highs, 101 new lows. _______ For a look at stocks in the midsession news, see Midday Stocks to Watch, published separately. ______________________________________________________________________ Herb on TheStreet: Does Microsoft Really Have Reason to Be This Gloomy? By Herb Greenberg Senior Columnist 4/24/00 11:23 AM ET >From the contrarian department: "Maybe the real story is: why does Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) want to knock its stock down?" So started a lengthy email from Michael Murphy of the California Technology Stock Letter, in response to my question late Sunday night: "What's your take on Microsoft, now?" The "now" referred to his recommendation to buy Microsoft two weeks ago after the company warned of a weaker-than-expected third quarter. So, what does the outspoken Murphy think now? "They're lying," he wrote back. "Again." His reasons: "A. They have lots of cash, so if they can cut off the flow of cash to everyone else it's easier for them to win? B. It lowers the cost of the stock buybacks and reduces the accounting charge for options? C.???" He went on to say he was "shocked" to see Cramer's comments, in his initial Microsoft conference call column, say, "I have never heard this company talk down earnings before." "It does it EVERY TIME," Murphy says. "It brought the whole sector down in July '99 and July '98 by forecasting sharp slowdowns in its business that never happened." (He says he went to 100% cash in his newsletter on July 14, 1999, because he expected Microsoft to forecast slow growth on the conference call.) "A simple review of its quarterly conference calls for the last four or five years," he continues, "will show its forecasts are almost always lowball and usually are WAY wrong. It will say its revenue growth is about to slow when it is about to accelerate. It will say PC sales look weak right after Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) has said they look strong -- and Intel turns out to be right. "Look at this call. They sent the controller to do most of it. Even though revenue was light, it beat the number by 2 cents. The damage to the stock was already done, why not just meet the number and save the 2 cents for the June quarter? So instead of reporting 41 cents for March and then 43 cents for June, now [it has] done 43 cents and set itself up for sequentially flat. "But no! Now he (and/or the CFO, who joined the call later) goes on to say that estimates for the June Q look a little high and he'd shave a penny or two off them! So now he's created expectations for a sequentially down quarter. Of course, you have to believe that a Microsoft June fourth [fiscal] quarter, including a full three months of Windows 2000 shipments, can somehow be weaker than the post-Christmas March quarter with almost no OEM sales for the first six weeks. Notice that it said OEM sales were weak in January and February. Funny how it didn't mention March, when OEM sales took off and have continued strong. "THEN it had the gall to say although it hasn't finished its FY '01 planning process, the Street consensus of $1.93 looks about a nickel high. I submit that at this point in time there is no statistically significant difference between an estimate of $1.93 and an estimate of $1.88, especially given that it hasn't even finished the planning process. So why did it say that, other than to lowball the Street and knock the stock down?" Maybe so it can show the government that Microsoft is not really the monopoly it's being made out to be because its stock has nearly been halved from its high? Hey, in this wacko world, stranger things have happened. Herb Greenberg writes daily for TheStreet.com. In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, though he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. He welcomes your feedback at herb@thestreet.com. Greenberg also writes a monthly column for Fortune. Mark Martinez assisted with the reporting of this column. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Announcing the new TSC store, powered by Starbelly.com, the leading e-commerce provider of custom-decorated promotional products and logo’d merchandise. Now you can purchase TSC custom designed t-shirts, sweatshirts, bags and more. Just go to http://shop.starbellyorder.com/thestreet/index.jsp and start shopping today. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id WAA02275 for ; Mon, 24 Apr 2000 22:04:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 16041 invoked from network); 25 Apr 2000 01:33:40 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 25 Apr 2000 01:33:40 -0000 Date: 24 Apr 2000 21:33:39 -0400 Message-ID: <20000425013337.16881.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 25, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 17626 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 25, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Sponsored by ChangeWave.com Turn the Nasdaq Crash Into 100% Gains in the Next Six Months. Get 3 FREE chapters of revolutionary new book ChangeWave Investing—Picking the Next Monster Stocks of the New Economy at; http://www.changewave.com/a/4/strdc25/ ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/24/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,906.10 up 62.05, 0.57% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,482.48 down 161.40, -4.43% o S&P 500: 1,429.86 down 4.68, -0.33% o TSC Internet: 756.35 down 34.78, -4.40% o Russell 2000: 468.54 down 13.30, -2.76% o 30-Year Treasury: 105 04/32 down 27/32, yield 5.856% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) Celgene(CELG:Nasdaq) Exodus Communications (EXDS:Nasdaq) Amazon.com (AMZN:Nasdaq) drugstore.com (DSCM:Nasdaq) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Biotech/Pharmaceuticals: Celgene Gets Swatted With FDA Warning About Off-Label Thalidomide Sales o Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: Crystal Ball Was Pretty Clear o Evening Update: Harmonic, C-Cube Ink Semiconductor Deal; Drugstore.com Posts a Healthy Quarter o Bond Focus: Long Bond Whacked in Light Trading ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Internet: Exodus Drops 23%, Despite Surpassing Expectations by 3 Cents Investors fled Exodus after it said its loss widened on acquisition-related costs and higher expenses. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/internet/925983.html ____________________________________ Internet: A Close Look at the Top Dog Many are wondering when Amazon, the leader of the e-commerce pack, will produce those elusive profits. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/926073.html ____________________________________ Market Features: Pros Don't See a Nasdaq Bottom Yet Even the late-day bounce doesn't leave a lot of professional investors convinced we've seen the lows. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/marketfeatures/926040.html ____________________________________ Brokerages/Wall Street: J.P. Morgan to Sell Research Via Internet Audio Partnership with Audible part of continuing plan to develop more Internet-based features. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/brokerages/926151.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Investec Guinness Flight How do you participate in the New Economy? Wired Index Fund. Wireless World Fund. internet.com Index Fund. Click here to participate in the New Economy with Investec Guinness Flight! http://www.gffunds.com/930 ______________________________________________________________________ Biotech/Pharmaceuticals: Celgene Gets Swatted With FDA Warning About Off-Label Thalidomide Sales By Dane Hamilton Staff Reporter 4/24/00 7:23 PM ET Celgene (CELG:Nasdaq) shares fell as much as 16% Monday on worries that regulatory concerns could strangle sales growth. The Food and Drug Administration Friday slapped the Warren, N.J., company with a strongly worded warning letter that alleged Celgene illegally promoted its biggest drug, thalidomide. According to some estimates, Celgene derived some 90% of its revenue in 1999 from sales to cancer patients, a use that regulators haven't approved for the drug. A hedge fund manager who is short Celgene and asked to remain anonymous said the warning letter could force Celgene to severely curtail its promotion of the drug until it is approved for other uses, which could hamper sales growth and trim the stock's $2 billion valuation. "This is the first indication that we have that the company has been generating sales through off-label promotion," said the hedge fund manager, who believes the stock is overvalued. "It may not be sustainable." Celgene representatives didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. Celgene shares dropped 4, or 11%, Monday to close at 32, well off their early March high of 62 5/16 but still comfortably above the 4 1/2 they traded at last August. Celgene was among the scores of biotech stocks that rode a wave of investor optimism, beginning last summer, to sky-high valuations that have since steadily eroded. Thalidomide, the morning-sickness drug that caused severe birth defects some 40 years ago in Europe, is sold by Celgene as a treatment for complications of leprosy under the brand name Thalomid. Because very few people have leprosy in the developed world, it's a tough market for drug companies under intense pressure to grow revenue and earnings. According to the FDA, Celgene salespeople promoted the drug as a treatment for various cancers, including multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, and even as a drug that could improve patients' moods. One salesperson told a cancer specialist that the drug was "good for weight loss," that it could be used as "an appetite stimulant," and that it is "a great drug for feelings of general well-being," the FDA charged in its warning letter to the company. Though the drug is being tested for use in treating various cancers, Celgene is proscribed from selling it for any use other than leprosy. In general, it's legal for doctors to prescribe drugs for such off-label uses, but improper for drug companies to actively promote them that way. Given thalidomide's notorious history, one would think Celgene would be very careful about how it markets the drug, particularly because the FDA can delay drug approvals for companies that it views as violators. But Friday wasn't the first time the FDA cited Celgene for infractions. In 1998, it warned Celgene several times for off-label promotion of Thalomid and failing to properly disclose its "severe risks." "Perhaps more than any other available drug, the need to provide and distribute thalidomide responsibly is essential to the public health," the FDA said in its warning letter, dated April 21. Thalomid was Celgene's first product and now makes up the vast majority of its 1999 revenue of $26.2 million, which rose from $3.8 million in 1998. But some sell-side analysts said the impact is likely to be small. Oncologists are just as willing to try new treatments with their severely ill patients as drug companies are willing to sell them new drugs, they said. "The FDA issues these warnings all the time," said Michael King, analyst with Robertson Stephens, which has a buy rating on the stock and hasn't done underwriting for it. He said there are 180 different studies of thalidomide in recent years and that off-label use is common. U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Peter Ginsburg estimated that 90% of Thalomid's sales are for cancer. Monday, Ginsburg reiterated a strong buy rating on the stock, based on the view that the FDA warning will have little impact on the stock. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Ameritrade “Trading online might be new to me, but with Ameritrade's 25 years of discount-brokerage experience, I feel confident." Open and fund your account with a $500 minimum balance. http://www.ameritrade.com/o.cgi?a=xby&o=rfg&p=/html/a.fhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: Crystal Ball Was Pretty Clear By James J. Cramer 4/24/00 5:01 PM ET People really wanted to believe in Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq). If they didn't want to believe in Microsoft, they wanted to believe that Microsoft was just being its usually cautious self. If they didn't want to believe Microsoft was being cautious, they wanted to believe that there was a conspiracy to show Washington that Microsoft is simply a pitiful helpless one-time giant. Herb Greenberg has his Hostile-React-o-Meter. I just have my email. But my email Thursday night was so overwhelmingly of the "Cramer, you stupid bald-headed idiot for selling Microsoft at the bottom" type that I actually gave you the blow by blow of what happened and why we sold at 76, 2 points below the close of that day's trading. By Friday midday I had more than 40 "you don't know a bottom when you see one, dummy" emails, and another 30 that were of the "You caused the bottom, you jerk, I hope you never get back" variety. But I did get a few that thanked me for the heads-up and for the truth. How much easier it would have been for me to be able to write, "Usual cautious b.s., I am buying." Alas, however, it would not have been true. Anyway, I didn't get any emails today that said I was wrong. That's the greatness of this market. If you read my column you could have gotten out at 74. (Big market there after the call.) So not only was I right, but you could have acted on it with me. Will Microsoft come back? Sure, someday. Was it worth selling? Yes. And that's all that matters. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund had no positions in any stocks mentioned. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: Harmonic, C-Cube Ink Semiconductor Deal; Drugstore.com Posts a Healthy Quarter By Tara Murphy Staff Reporter 4/24/00 7:44 PM ET Harmonic(HLIT:Nasdaq) and C-Cube Microsystems(CUBE:Nasdaq) said their shareholders approved a deal that would merge C-Cube's DiviCom group with Harmonic and then spin-off C-Cube's semiconductor unit. The terms call for C-Cube's holders to get 0.5427 shares of Harmonic for each share of C-Cube they own and will also receive shares from the semiconductor spin-off. Harmonic, a fiber-optic product maker and C-Cube, a digital solutions provider, said the deal should be completed during he first week in May, with the spin-off's record date set at April 25. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures Dexter(DEX:NYSE) said it would meet again to consider offers and other strategic options that involve the company's future. The company said its board gave management and its advisors the OK to continue to work towards finding a solution. According to an SECfiling, Dexter reviewed a $1.04 billion offer from International Specialty Products(ISP:NYSE). The $40-per-share offer now carries a value that would enable Dexter holders to receive further payment if International Specialty sold Dexter's interest in Life Technologies for more than $50 a share. Earnings/revenue reportsConcentric Network (CNCX:Nasdaq) posted a first-quarter loss of $1.07 a share, excluding a gain. The eight-analyst estimate called for a loss of 75 cents, while the year-ago loss of 75 cents includes items. Drugstore.com(DSCM:Nasdaq) posted a first-quarter loss of 86 cents a share, narrower than the eight-analyst estimate of a $1.02 loss. For a look into this evening's after-hours trading action, please check out TheStreet.com's The Night Watch. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Long Bond Whacked in Light Trading By Elizabeth Roy Senior Writer 4/24/00 6:02 PM ET The Treasury market ended mixed, with short-maturity instruments little changed, the benchmark 10-year note down modestly and the 30-year bond down significantly. Market analysts blamed a combination of a negative technical backdrop and continued fallout from Thursday's buyback operation for the fate of the long bond, which fell 23/32 to 105 6/32, lifting its yield 5.1 basis points to 5.880%. Meanwhile, pain in the Nasdaq Stock Market supported short-maturity Treasuries, a proxy for cash, market watchers said. There were no economic releases or other events affecting bond trading. Volume was exceedingly light, reaching just $21.7 billion by 3 p.m., according to tracker GovPX -- 28.4% below the average for a Monday over the last month. The technical situation affecting the bond, according to A.G. Edwards strategist Bill Hornbarger, was that the June bond futures contract listed on the Chicago Board of Trade closed below a key upward-sloping trend line twice last week. "That changes people's perception of what's happening," he said. Hornbarger added that the latest Commitments of Traders report by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, released on Friday, also had bearish implications for the Treasury market. It showed that investors in Treasury futures who also invest in the underlying securities are increasingly short the futures, indicating that "they're seeing less value in the bond." Meanwhile, there was probably some selling by people who expected to unload long Treasuries in last Thursday's buyback but who did not offer the bonds at a price low enough to be accepted, Hornbarger said. The 10-year note fell 6/32 to 103 15/32, lifting its yield 2.5 basis points to 6.025%. The five-year note fell 2/32 to 98 15/32, lifting its yield 2.1 basis points to 6.266%. The two-year note was unchanged at 100 6/32, its yield 6.388%. Falling Nasdaq stock prices didn't provide more support to the Treasury market, Barclays Capital senior economist Henry Willmore said, because the other major stock proxies fared better. The action reflected "a realistic view that what's going on with the Nasdaq is not as important as the broader market" when it comes to influencing the economy, and "the broader market is down only a modest amount this year," he said. "In the absence of a significant move down, recent [economic] data" -- the Consumer Price Index in particular -- "would argue for higher bond yields." Traders may also be unwilling to buy Treasuries aggressively ahead of key economic reports due out later this week. Thursday brings the Employment Cost Index and GDP, both for the first quarter. The ECI in particular has the potential to alter the prevailing view of how much the Fed will hike the fed funds rate in the months ahead to slow the economy. Traders of fed funds futures currently expect the rate to rise to 6.5% by September from 6% today. Currency and Commodities The dollar fell slightly against the yen and rose against the euro. It lately was worth 105.76 yen, down from 105.77. The euro was worth $0.9376, down from $0.9381. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's new Currencies column. Crude oil for May delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to $26.04 a barrel from $25.88. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index fell to 211.81 from 212.78. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $281.20 an ounce from $281.50. TO VIEW TSC'S ECONOMIC DATABANK: http://www.thestreet.com/markets/databank/924208.html ______________________________________________________________________ Brenda Buttner on Your World with Neil Cavuto Tuesday, April 25 Brenda Buttner will be the Guest Host of "Your World with Neil Cavuto" this week, 4/24-4/28 on The Fox News Channel. "Your World with Neil Cavuto" airs at 5 p.m. EDT. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Now part of TheStreet.com network -- ipoPros.com -- providing high quality IPO calendaring and research for individual and professional investors. Click on http://www.ipopros.com for your free 2-week trial. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA10215 for ; Tue, 25 Apr 2000 15:26:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 1189 invoked from network); 25 Apr 2000 17:32:32 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 25 Apr 2000 17:32:32 -0000 Date: 25 Apr 2000 13:32:31 -0400 Message-ID: <20000425173231.24104.bulk_mail.11030@192.168.24.32> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 25, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 14918 TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 25, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Datek GET 5 FREE ONLINE TRADES! When you open a DATEK ONLINE account. Click Here Now! http://www.datek.com/advert/email/thestreet/april00.html Datek Online - Low Commissions | Streaming Real-Time Quotes | Fast Executions ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of 4/25/00, 1:08 PM ET: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,990.48 up 84.38, 0.77% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,592.53 up 110.05, 3.16% o S&P 500: 1,453.17 up 23.31, 1.63% o TSC Internet: 794.18 up 37.83, 5.00% o Russell 2000: 479.62 up 11.08, 2.36% o 30-Year Treasury: 104 20/32 down 16/32, yield 5.910% ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Midday Musings: Traders Feeling Good Amid Broad-Based Rally o Herb on TheStreet: The Downside of StarTek's Heavy Reliance on Microsoft ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: The Market Has Legs, So What? Ups and downs are wearing out the bears and the bulls. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/wrongtactics/926261.html ____________________________________ Tech Savvy: The Semi-Rich Get Semi-Richer -- Part 2 The short short-list on those dot-coms that will survive. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/techsavvy/926199.html ____________________________________ Banking: At Bank of America, Merger Still Hasn't Paid Off Analysts warn of restive shareholders if performance doesn't pick up. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/banking/925926.html ____________________________________ Dear Dagen: Turning to Tech Heavyweights for Security Investors who don't want to abandon the sector can look to funds that invest in tech leaders. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/deardagen/926378.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement WSJ.com FREE, personalized news e-mails from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Click http://wsj.circle.com/bin/redirect?thestreet for daily e-mails including top stories, company tracking, market indexes and quotes – customized and sent when you choose. FREE, from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. http://wsj.circle.com/bin/redirect?thestreet ______________________________________________________________________ Midday Musings: Traders Feeling Good Amid Broad-Based Rally By David A. Gaffen Staff Reporter 4/25/00 12:59 PM ET Displaying Chuck Wepner-like resilience, the Nasdaq Composite Index has followed through on yesterday's late-session bounce, and has by now recovered nearly all of yesterday's Microsoft-led losses. With strong earnings reports providing the backbeat, breadth is strong, with advancers ahead of decliners 2-to-1 on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market. That's all well and good, but it's left traders wondering: Will it last? "The saga of the yo-yo continues," said Bill Schneider, head of U.S. equity block trading at Warburg Dillon Read. Lately, the Comp was up 131, or 3.8%, to 3614, continuing a rebound that started with the Comp down 298 points intraday yesterday. Money flowed back into most technology arenas. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 95, or 0.9%, to 11,001 -- its first intraday sojourn above 11,000 since April 13 -- led by tech components Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) and Hewlett-Packard (HWP:NYSE). The S&P 500 was up 27, or 1.9%, to 1456. "We've seen good volume and good breadth, but the question is sustainability," said Brian Piskorowski, market analyst at Prudential Securities. "We've seen volatile moves on both sides of the coin." For the most part, traders were pleased with the advance, which has built on the near-150 point jump the Comp put together in the last half-hour of yesterday's session. From a market standpoint, yesterday's reaming of Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) is a positive, because the loss of that company as a market leader is, perhaps, a sign that the Nasdaq has retested its recent lows for good. Microsoft, which fell sharply yesterday, was up today, gaining 2 1/8 to 68 3/4 on 50.9 million shares, making it the Nasdaq's most active. Published articles today suggest the Justice Department is weighing a breakup of the software company that would split its Office applications off from the rest of the company. "The turnaround felt pretty good yesterday and, through the ensuing rally, feels like a capitulation that took apart the largest Nasdaq stocks," said Schneider. "Well, if not them, at least Microsoft." As a TaskMaster column pointed out yesterday, big-cap tech names like Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq) and Oracle (ORCL:Nasdaq) haven't flinched since hitting their nadir on April 14. Cisco was up 12.8% from that day through yesterday, but was lately flat, and Oracle was up 20%, tacking on a further 1.5% today. TheStreet.com Internet Sector index gained 43, or 5.7%, to 799 1/2. led by the likes of Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq), up 8.9%, and Inktomi (INKT:Nasdaq), up 5.3%, after both were losers yesterday. America Online (AOL:NYSE) was the most actively traded on the Big Board, gaining 2 1/16, or 3.6%, to 60 1/16 on 10 million shares. Yesterday's middling volume prevents some from feeling confident that the low was touched, but volume is much improved today, especially on the Nasdaq, where more than 869 million shares have already changed hands (translating to approximately a 1.6 billion-share day, which is reasonably strong). Not that calling a bottom matters these days, according to Schneider. "All you have to do is not get committed to one side or the other," he said. "You just need to remain nimble -- you're not going to make a fortune, but you're not get blown up either." Oh, Yeah -- Earnings Several Dow components have beaten the Street today, reporting first-quarter earnings that exceeded expectations, as has been the case for most S&P companies this quarter. ExxonMobil (XOM:NYSE), up 1%, and SBC Communications (SBC:NYSE), up 4.4%, are among the stalwarts rising on strong first-quarter reports. Meanwhile, Dow components Procter & Gamble (PG:NYSE) and 3M (MMM:NYSE) are bleeding, even after both companies reported solid first-quarter earnings. 3M, which reported earnings per share of $1.21, far outpacing estimates for $1.08 a share, lately was down 7 7/16, or 7.6%, to 89 15/16, while P&G, which reported in line with estimates, was off 4 1/2, or 6.4%, to 66. Piskorowski judged himself pleased with today's breadth, but he and others mentioned Thursday's first-quarter Employment Cost Index, a key measure of wage inflation, as providing a bit of a ceiling on investor conviction right now. After April 14's Consumer Price Index report, which showed a 0.4% increase in core CPI (excluding food and energy prices), the market is understandably jittery of inflation figures, especially if anything signals that the Fed could start hiking rates in increments greater than 25 basis points, starting with May 16's Federal Open Market Committee meeting. That's unlikely to happen, but Syl Marquardt, director of research at John Hancock Funds, believes the shift toward some traditionally defensive plays, such as drugs and consumer goods companies, will continue. The American Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical Index is only fractionally higher today, however, as investors concentrate on boosting tech stocks. Semiconductors regained strength today, led by a 5.9% surge in Micron Technologies (MU:NYSE). The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index rose 4.8%. Champion International (CHA:NYSE) rose 22.7% after the announcement of a takeover bid by Dow component International Paper (IP:NYSE). IP was off 7.7%. Among the big gainers on the NYSE were Corning (GLW:NYSE), up 14.9%, and Texas Instruments (TXN:NYSE), which gained 4%. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Forest & Paper Products Index gained 4.6% today. The Dow Jones Transportation Average was up 2.6%, while the Dow Jones Utilities Average rose 1.4%. Market Internals Breadth was solid on above-average volume. New York Stock Exchange: 1,861 advancers, 940 decliners, 577 million shares. 35 new highs, 39 new lows. Nasdaq Stock Market: 2,527 advancers, 1,314 decliners, 869 million shares. 23 new highs, 61 new lows. _______ For a look at stocks in the midsession news, see Midday Stocks to Watch, published separately. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Simpata.com Invest in your own company by conquering its mountain of HR, Benefits and Payroll paperwork. Simpata’s 100% Internet solution keeps information consistent, accurate and easily accessible 24/7 – all in one central location. Visit http://206.132.8.137/Simpata/n.cgi?ins=3888 today. ______________________________________________________________________ Herb on TheStreet: The Downside of StarTek's Heavy Reliance on Microsoft By Herb Greenberg Senior Columnist 4/25/00 10:59 AM ET If you think that news of a slowdown at Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) is bad for investors, how about Microsoft suppliers? Outwardly, there are those such as StarTek (SRT:NYSE) Chairman Emmet Stephenson who don't think the company's warnings are a big deal. "They say that every quarter," Stephenson told my assistant, Mark Martinez. He had better hope that's all it is. StarTek, which outsources personnel to handle mundane tasks like assembling the boxes and containers that hold software, has been able to show rapid growth, thanks largely to its relationship with Microsoft. In the past three years, sales from Microsoft have boomed to 76.5% of total sales from 44%. However, a closer crunch of the numbers shows a disturbing trend: while Microsoft's share of StarTek's overall biz has been booming, the growth of sales from Microsoft has almost come to a screeching halt -- at least relative to what it had been. Last quarter, sales from Microsoft grew just 16% over the prior year, down from roughly 100% in each of the prior three quarters. That's not all: non-Microsoft sales actually slid 6.2% last quarter -- the second straight quarter of declines. That's especially troubling in light of the way Wall Street has tagged StarTek as an e-commerce play. It was that dot-com connection that helped StarTek's stock take off last summer -- in the heat of the Internet mania -- as investors were looking for unnoticed Internet plays. Not only did StarTek have an e-commerce fulfillment biz, but it also began touting itself as an operator of "branded vertical market Internet web sites." The stock got another boost in September when the company bought just shy of 20% of gifts.com in a joint venture with Reader's Digest (RDA:NYSE), which bought the rest. With less than a 20% stake in gifts.com, StarTek doesn't have to include its portion of the company's losses on its income statement. Good thing: since its launching in November, gifts.com has had little traction; it doesn't even rank among the top 500 sites, according to Media Metrix. Last quarter, in fact, Reader's Digest reported a $17 million loss from the site. If StarTek were required to include the loss, calculates one longtime StarTek short-seller, it would've only earned 21 cents per share in the fourth quarter -- not the 35 cents it reported. "The whole growth story StarTek has been selling is that they are particularly suited to capitalize on the growth of the Web," the short-seller says. "Unfortunately for StarTek, that side of the business is going backwards." Stephenson, StarTek's chairman, disagrees. He told Martinez that the non-Microsoft part of the biz has actually started to grow. And as for a slowdown in the Microsoft biz: It's true, he said, adding that "we think that we will grow right along with Microsoft." Perhaps, but a slowdown is a slowdown is a slowdown. And these days anything Internet related has been crushed. StarTek's stock has already lost roughly half its value in recent weeks in the wake of one analyst's downgrade; the analyst cited little more than valuation as the reason. But even with the decline, StarTek is still trading at 50 times last year's earnings; it's also trading at about twice its pre-dot-com rally. This, for a company that, when all is said and done, is little more than a fabricator and order taker. That's why, even with the stock down as much as it is, some short-sellers still haven't covered. Herb Greenberg writes daily for TheStreet.com. In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, though he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. He welcomes your feedback at herb@thestreet.com. Greenberg also writes a monthly column for Fortune. Mark Martinez assisted with the reporting of this column. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Check Out TheStreet.com's Portfolio Tracker TheStreet.com's Portfolio Tracker automatically calculates stock splits, tracks the latest news about your holdings and keeps you apprised of your holdings' events. The Tracker even delivers the latest news about your portfolio straight to your in box everyday. Go to http://www.thestreet.com/pt/. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id XAA13939 for ; Tue, 25 Apr 2000 23:11:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 11018 invoked from network); 26 Apr 2000 02:28:06 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 26 Apr 2000 02:28:06 -0000 Date: 25 Apr 2000 22:28:05 -0400 Message-ID: <20000426022804.32302.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 26, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 21881 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 26, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Sponsored by InvestorPlace.com It’s over! Not just the bull market, but technology investing as we know it. Learn 5 shattering breakthroughs that will change tech investing. Get in now or get left behind. FREE REPORT: http://www.ppi-orders.com/index.htm?promo_code=40K218 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/25/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 11,124.82 up 218.72, 2.01% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,711.23 up 228.75, 6.57% o S&P 500: 1,477.14 up 47.28, 3.31% o TSC Internet: 818.56 up 62.21, 8.23% o Russell 2000: 489.03 up 20.49, 4.37% o 30-Year Treasury: 104 09/32 down 27/32, yield 5.934% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: drkoop.com (KOOP:Nasdaq) JDS Uniphase (JDSU:Nasdaq) eBay (EBAY:Nasdaq) Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) Compaq (CPQ:NYSE) Bausch & Lomb (BOL:NYSE) CDNow (CDNW:Nasdaq) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Internet: drkoop on Life Support as AOL Takes 10% Equity Stake o Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: Hearing What They Want to Hear o Evening Update: JDS Uniphase, eBay Beat Estimates o Bond Focus: Consumer Resilience Hits Treasury Prices ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Telecom: Avanex Shares Roar Higher as Gilder Rides Again The newsletter's momentum-boosting effect has some investors shaking their heads. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/telecom/925930.html ____________________________________ Manufacturing: Pikachu and Squirtle Help Hasbro Beat Estimates Pokemon spurs strong demand and helps the No.2 toy maker post strong earnings. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/manufacturing/926823.html ____________________________________ Market Roundup: Stocks Fulfill Fantasies in Broad, Tech-Led Rally eBay, JDS Uniphase, Intel and Hewlett-Packard today's big winners. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/marketroundup/926898.html ____________________________________ The TaskMaster: Calling Agent Mulder: The Microsoft Files Taking conspiracy theories too far? Some point to analyst Rick Sherlund as the mystery man in this equation. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/taskmaster/926905.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Insiderscores.com Nervous about the Nasdaq? Are Top Executives cashing out of YOUR stocks? Have these insiders predicted prior downturns? Protect your GAINS. Register your portfolio today for FREE All Star Insider Alerts at INSIDERSCORES. http://www.insiderscores.com/alerts/alerts_register.asp ______________________________________________________________________ Internet: drkoop on Life Support as AOL Takes 10% Equity Stake By Edith Yates Editorial Assistant 4/25/00 10:01 PM ET Within weeks of fellow e-death row inmates CDNow (CDNW:Nasdaq) and Peapod (PPOD:Nasdaq) having been saved from the gallows, drkoop.com (KOOP:Nasdaq) today slipped into the noose. drkoop.com postponed release of its first-quarter earnings, warned they would be ugly, said it had cash to stay alive through the summer, and retained Bear Stearns to explore strategic alternatives. A victim of its own bad marketing deals and the recent market downturn, drkoop.com painted a grim picture after the market closed today. In its annual report, released March 30, the company admitted it had received a "going concern" warning from its independent auditors. In other words, the company didn't have enough cash to cover its obligations and continue operating for the next 12 months. The company said it would seek financing, possibly through a secondary offering. With its stock price below its IPO level and the entire stock market struggling, prospects for a secondary offering have been slim. drkoop.com went public June 8, 1999, and shares first fell below their IPO price of $9 on Feb 28. Shares of the company rose 1/16, or almost 3%, to 2 11/32 before trading was halted in midafternoon, pending what was supposed to be the company's earnings release. To try to solve its crisis, the company may seek a sale, though it would not comment on that possibility. There are several factors, beyond its bleeding bank account, that make the company an unattractive purchase. A clause in the company's agreement with former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop allows him to terminate his agreement upon a change in control of the company. If that happened, the new owners might have to change both the name of the company and the Web address. All money spent on brand recognition might go out the window. That's not the only cause for concern, according to Pacific Growth Equities analyst Mark Mulcahy. The company has restrictive agreements with AOL (AOL:NYSE) and Walt Disney-Go.com(GO:Nasdaq) that call for drkoop to make huge payments to them in return for being the exclusive health content provider to the two companies' Web properties. These expensive deals are part of the reason drkoop is where it is now. Last July, the company agreed to pay AOL $89 million over four years. As of Dec. 31, $65 million of that was still outstanding. Today, the company said it had renegotiated with AOL, converting all future cash commitments, estimated at $64 million, and warrants into a 10% equity stake. The exclusive content agreement also was shortened by 26 months. "AOL taking equity, I'm sure some people will seize on that as a positive. To me, that's the equivalent of, 'You can't pay your bills.' Somebody hands it over to a debt collector who says, 'We'll give you 30 cents on the dollar,' " Mulcahy said. Pacific Growth hasn't done any underwriting for drkoop, which also said it restructured its year-old agreement with Go.com, which had called for the company to pay Go $57.9 million over three years. Go.com will receive an undisclosed cash payment and warrants to buy additional drkoop shares at an undisclosed strike price. The company tried to boost analysts' spirits by saying that the restructured deal represents a cash savings of $38 million. "There's a big lesson to be learned [from drkoop] in the sales and marketing side," said Wit Capital analyst Richard Lee -- namely, that companies should avoid getting locked into expensive, long-term placement agreements. He said it may be difficult for anyone to step in to bail out drkoop because few would be prepared to assume the types of losses drkoop is suffering. A buyer would need to do a wholesale restructuring of the company. Wit Capital was co-underwriter of drkoop's IPO and has a neutral rating on the stock. The Austin, Texas-based health care portal reported preliminary first-quarter revenue of roughly $4.6 million, a dismal number that misses even the company's own expectations. Net loss is expected to be between 80 and 82 cents per share, the company said. Analysts polled by First Call/Thomson had anticipated a loss of 52 cents a share. The company attributed the wider loss to disappointing direct-to-consumer advertising revenue. As of March 31, the company had $24 million in cash, enough to survive through August, according to the company's press release. drkoop said it would release final first-quarter results the second week in May. drkoop's news comes after CDNow stepped back from the brink of death in March when a proposed merger with Columbia House failed, and Time Warner(TWX:NYSE) and Sony(NYSE:) jumped in with $51 million to save CDNow. Two weeks ago, Peapod Inc. was rescued by Dutch food company Royal Ahold(AHO:NYSE), which invested $73 million in convertible preferred stock of the troubled online grocer. ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: Hearing What They Want to Hear By James J. Cramer 4/25/00 6:17 PM ET Trying to reconcile Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) and Compaq (CPQ:NYSE) is proving to be difficult. Compaq is so bullish about Windows 2000 and Microsoft, frankly, was pretty bearish. These differences contribute mightily to the up-and-down nature of this market. Bulls speak; stocks lift. Cautious people speak; stocks get hammered. Why not just agree with Compaq? OK, who had a better record and handle on its business, Compaq or Microsoft? Who has been the horse to bet on this last decade? I keep hearing that people think Microsoft was being its "usual cautious self." I can only tell you that these things are like theater. I have seen the production a gazillion times and this time it was very different. Very negative. Very "cut your numbers." What I think is a more important takeaway is this market's childlike memory for the previous piece of news. Right now, Compaq is saying Windows 2000 is going to grow great guns. It would not shock me if people simply forget what Microsoft said and now focus on what Compaq is saying. I say childlike because I find that my kids remember every good promise I make them but they very quickly forget anything cautionary or downbeat. No wonder Buzz and Batch are winning here. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long Compaq. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: JDS Uniphase, eBay Beat Estimates By Tara Murphy Staff Reporter 4/25/00 10:03 PM ET eBay (EBAY:Nasdaq) posted first quarter earnings of 6 cents a share, topping the 24-analyst estimate of a 3-cent profit and surpassing the year-ago report of 4 cents a share. The online auctioneer said its first-quarter sales tallied $85.8 million, doubling the year-ago result of $42.8 million. eBay also set a 2-for-1 stock split. _______JDS Uniphase (JDSU:Nasdaq) reported pro forma earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter of $85.8 million, or 11 cents per share, a penny better than the 10 cents per share Wall Street had expected. The Canadian- and Silicon Valley-based maker of fiber-optics equipment for the telecommunications industry reported revenue of $394.6 million, 40% above sales in the quarter ended Dec. 31, and 2 1/2 times the pro forma sales in the year-earlier period. The company's results reflect the performance of three acquired companies but exclude the affects of accounting charges related to those and other acquisitions. Including merger-related and other costs, JDS Uniphase reported a net loss of $240.9 million, or 32 cents per share. The company's stock surged 13, or 16%, Tuesday to 93 5/16, on the strength of a strong earnings report earlier in the day from competitor Corning(GLW:NYSE). Shares of momentum-investor darling JDS Uniphase -- colorful traders believe its stock symbol stands for "Just Don't Sell Us" -- remain 39% below their March 7 high of a split-adjusted 153 3/8. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures Bausch & Lomb(BOL:NYSE) said it was prepared to launch its best and final bid for Wesley Jessen (WJCO:Nasdaq), following a $600 million hostile offer which Bausch & Lomb made earlier this month. Bausch & Lomb said it also bumped ahead its April 28 deadline for its $34-a share tender offer for Wesley Jessen to May 12. In March, Wesley Jessen entered a merger with Ocular Sciences and rebuffed Bausch & Lomb's initial offer. Earnings/revenue reports AK Steel (AKS:NYSE) posted first-quarter earnings of 24 cents a share, ahead of the 10-analyst estimate of 19 cents, but below the year-ago 40 cents. Additionally, the company approved a buyback of up to $100 million of its outstanding shares. Amgen (AMGN:Nasdaq) reported a first-quarter profit of 25 cents a share, in line with the 18-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago report of a 23-cent profit. Digital Impact (DIGI:Nasdaq) posted a fourth-quarter loss of 17 cents a share, excluding stock based compensation. The year-ago report was a 10-cent loss. The three-analyst estimate expected the company to report a 39-cent loss. Edwards Lifesciences (EW:NYSE) reported first-quarter earnings of 14 cents a share, which include expenses from a spin-off. The year-ago report was a 21-cent profit. The two-analyst estimate expected the company to posted first-quarter earnings of 14 cents a share. Prodigy(PRGY:Nasdaq) reported first-quarter loss of 54 cents a share, which includes costs. The year-ago report was a 29-cent loss, which included a gain. The four-analyst estimate expected the company to post a loss of 67 cents a share. Offerings and stock actions Albertson's (ABS:NYSE) set a $500 million stock buyback. Miscellany Sotheby's Holding's (BID:NYSE), which is accused of price fixing, said that it pushed back its annual shareholders meeting to finish selecting its board members. The auction house did not set a date for the meeting, which was initial scheduled for April 27. Sotheby's two main shareholder groups concluded that meeting should be delayed until the talks related to the board's makeup were "finalized" and are backing the companyýs current executives. For a look into this evening's after-hours trading action, please check out TheStreet.com's The Night Watch. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Consumer Resilience Hits Treasury Prices By Elizabeth Roy Senior Writer 4/25/00 3:55 PM ET Treasury prices moved lower again today on very light volume, lifting short- and intermediate-term yields to their highest levels in nearly a month. Two second-tier economic reports were stronger than expected, indicating that neither the recent series of interest-rate hikes by the Fed nor the struggling stock market has put much of a damper on consumer spending, the economy's biggest driving force. Consumer confidence fell only slightly in April despite carnage in the stock market, and existing home sales continued to rebound. "The unsightly combination of a weak equity market, Federal Reserve monetary tightening and higher energy prices" -- though down from their March peak -- "failed to put a dent in what remains a very high level of consumer confidence," said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's Investors Service. Meanwhile, Lonski said, today's positive action in stocks "tends to support the view that the brisk pace of U.S. domestic spending will persist." The bond selloff occurred in spite of the Treasury Department's announcement that the fourth installment of its buyback program will take place on Thursday. In the operation, the department will take offers on 30-year Treasury bonds issued from 1985 to 1995, intending to buy $3 billion of them, it said. The announcement failed to lift long-term Treasury prices because the market has already amply discounted the buybacks, market analysts said. "Buybacks are nice, but some of the potency of buybacks to support the intermediate and long end of the Treasury market may be been exaggerated over the course of the last two months," said Jack Malvey, chief global fixed-income strategist at Lehman Brothers. As a result, Malvey said, the Treasury market is "returning to a more classic, fundamental focus" on the prospects for inflation. This week, that means dwelling on key economic data due out later this week -- chiefly GDP and the Employment Cost Index, both for the first quarter. Either of which has the potential to change the likeliest outcome of the next Fed meeting on May 16 from a 25-basis-point hike in the fed funds rate to a 50-basis-point move, said Ken Logan, managing analyst at IFR. At the same time, Logan pointed out, the biweekly Commitments of Traders report by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have been revealing that speculators -- any market's weak hands -- have been amassing record long positions in interest-rate futures. This is a bearish indicator. "I think what we're seeing is a liquidation of sorts by the weaker hands," he said. "If the weak hands are sitting with record long positions, you can guess they're trying to get out. But volume is extremely light, so they're not finding many takers for their paper. So the price action is being exaggerated." According to tracker GovPX, just $31.5 billion of Treasuries changed hands by 3 p.m., 28% below the average for Tuesdays over the past months. Finally, although the Treasury's buybacks are a positive force in the market, they are being counteracted these days by upcoming Treasury auctions of new short- and intermediate-term notes, Logan said. The Treasury will sell $12 billion of new two-year notes tomorrow, and yet-to-be-determined quantities of new five- and 10-year notes the second week of May. In advance of the auctions, traders have little incentive to accept higher prices. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note ended down 27/32 at 102 20/32, lifting its yield 12.6 basis points to 6.136%, highest since March 29. The five-year note fell 12/32 to 98, lifting its yield 9.8 basis points to 6.375%, also highest since March 29. The two-year note dropped 5/32 to 100 1/32, lifting its yield 8.6 basis points to 6.479%, the highest since April 1. And the 30-year bond shed 1 point to 104 9/32, hiking its yield 9 basis points to 5.942%. At the Chicago Board of Trade, the June Treasury futures contract dropped TK to TK. Economic Indicators The Consumer Confidence Index fell to 136.9 in April from 137.1 in March. Economists polled by Reuters had predicted it would fall to 135.8, on average. The index hit an all-time high of 144.7 in January, and remains in the top decile of all time, according to Lonski. Meanwhile, existing home sales rose 1.5% to an annual pace of 4.83 million in March from 4.76 million in February. They had been expected to retreat to 4.74 million on average. The pace remains well below its June 1999 peak of 5.59 million, but is the fastest pace so far this year, in spite of the fact that mortgage rates are unchanged on the year. Freddie Mac's 30-year mortgage rate stood at 8.16% on Friday, vs. 8.15% at the start of the year. The two weekly retail sales reports showed a slight weakening of April sales. The BTM/Schroder Weekly Chain Store Sales Index fell 0.2%, dropping its year-on-year pace from -1.0% to -1.2%. The Redbook Retail Average found April sales running 1.4% ahead of March, the same reading as the previous week. Currency and Commodities The dollar fell against the yen and rose against the euro. It lately was worth 105.79 yen, up from 105.78. The euro was worth $0.9240, down from $0.9383. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's new Currencies column. Crude oil for June delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange fell to $25.36 a barrel from $26.04. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index rose to 212.10 from 211.81. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $279.8 an ounce from $281.20 yesterday. TO VIEW TSC'S ECONOMIC DATABANK: http://www.thestreet.com/markets/databank/924208.html ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Investment Expo 2000! May 6-7 in New York City at the New York Sheraton Hotel. Come and see TheStreet.com's Adam Lashinsky talk about "Researching Investments Using SEC filings" on May 6, 3:30pm - 4:30pm. Also, Dave Kansas will be on a panel discussing "What's Hot & What's Not with Tech Stocks" on May 6, 4:30pm - 6:00pm. To register and attend the show for FREE call 1-888-937-5800. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA21560 for ; Wed, 26 Apr 2000 15:34:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 668 invoked from network); 26 Apr 2000 18:37:47 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 26 Apr 2000 18:37:47 -0000 Date: 26 Apr 2000 14:37:47 -0400 Message-ID: <20000426183747.7942.bulk_mail.11030@192.168.24.32> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 26, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 12916 TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 26, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Paytrust.com Get a FREE one-year subscription ($100 value) to the Web’s premiere financial site when you receive, manage and pay all your bills online with Paytrust.com. Enroll today! http://mktg.paytrust.com/links/street3 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of 4/26/00, 2:09 PM ET: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,986.76 down 138.06, -1.24% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,701.33 down 9.90, -0.27% o S&P 500: 1,470.61 down 6.53, -0.44% o TSC Internet: 822.94 up 4.38, 0.54% o Russell 2000: 489.26 up 0.23, 0.05% o 30-Year Treasury: 104 11/32 up 2/32, yield 5.942% ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Midday Musings: Earnings Reports Provide Some Solace as Indices Decline o Herb on TheStreet: Why Microsoft, Intel Differ on PC Sales ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: The Dearth of IPOs Is a Tell Once again, the trader detects a bottom. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/wrongrear/927537.html ____________________________________ SiliconStreet.com: Corporate Punishment Individuals aren't the only ones hurt by tech stocks' plunge; corporations also bought ridiculous valuations. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/siliconstreet/927050.html ____________________________________ Retail: April Showers Promise Few Flowers for Retail Stocks Expect to see selling pressure if same-store sales fail to impress. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/retail/926526.html ____________________________________ Dear Dagen: Decline of Euro Highlights Risks, Rewards of Currency Hedging in Funds If your Europe-focused fund is among the few that hedge, you're better off -- for now. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/deardagen/927355.html ______________________________________________________________________ Midday Musings: Earnings Reports Provide Some Solace as Indices Decline By Tara Murphy Staff Reporter 4/26/00 1:28 PM ET The two major indices diverged earlier in the session, leaving the Dow sorry that it couldn't travel along the Nasdaq's upside trading trail. But investors found that the grass wasn't any greener on the tech side, as the Nasdaq also encountered a downward turn. With no follow-through from yesterday's rally, the market's recent volatile performance has investors stumped as to which investments will make the difference. With the Dow and the Nasdaq giving back some of their 200-plus-point gains of yesterday, the market's bulls had little to cheer. Sectors across the board continued to suffer from the selling pattern that has continued after a session pops to the plus side. So where are investors taking cover? "Companies that have had good conference calls and provided a good outlook, like EMC(EMC:NYSE) and Sun Microsystems(SUNW:Nasdaq)," said Brian Gilmartin, portfolio manger at Trinity Asset Management. Gilmartin noted that these stocks are producing results, and therefore are trading close to the 52-week highs. The buy-low-sell-high philosophy was reflected in early-morning trading, as investors jumped on stocks that have been beaten down in recent sessions, "Investors snapped up some stocks at bargain prices," said Jim Herrick, head of trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee. "Good earnings particularly in tech have provided some leadership." Lately, the Nasdaq was falling 33, or 0.9%, to 3678 1/2. The Comp remains 8.8% in the red for the year. In Nasdaq trading, F5 Networks(FFIV:Nasdaq) was getting pummeled 16 49/64, or 28.6%, to 41 15/16, after posting earnings in line with the First Call/Thomson Financial consensus estimate. JDS Uniphase(JDSU:Nasdaq) continued to climb on news of strong earnings report and a 155% increase in sales. In the past, Wall Street has used earnings as a guide to making sound investments. But after tech investors decided to get out of the kitchen before getting burned by their hot holdings, market insiders are now demanding not only strong earnings, but also solid revenue growth. "For all the high P/E tech stocks, revenue is more critical than earnings because they're in their early stages of growth cycle, Gilmartin said. "Earnings can be manipulated by a lot of things -- a change in depreciation, expense removal -- and that's harder to do with revenues." Yesterday, investors punished Exodus Communications(EXDS:Nasdaq), after the company surpassed earnings expectations but failed to produce acceptable revenue. Compaq(CPQ:NYSE) is also receiving the cold shoulder. The computer maker's earnings beat the Street, but it posted near-flat revenue. "You need to see where the money is coming in the door, especially how the revenue is booked." said Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at George K. Baum in Kansas City, Mo. "It's testimony to the success of their products and services." The revenue gauge is particularly important useful for selecting stable Internet investments. Large-cap tech investors like Gilmartin use revenues to determine which of these new economy investments will come out on top in the wake of the Web boom. "Amazon(AMZN:Nasdaq) uses its book business as a cash cow and is reinvesting in faster-growth businesses tangential to the e-tailing concept," he said. "One way to make sure that this is successful is to watch its revenue." Amazon is set to release its first-quarter results and guidance report after today's close. Elsewhere in techland, TheStreet.com Internet Sector index was off 2, or 0.3%, to 816, after its 8.2% bounce yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was slipping 154 1/2, or 1.4%, to 10,970. At yesterday's close, the Old Economy indicator was still down 3.2% for the year. Procter & Gamble(PG:NYSE) was helping to hold the index in negative territory, after the consumer giant provided a bleak outlook along with its first-quarter earnings. 3M(MMM:NYSE) and Intel(INTC:) also were dragging the index downward. On the Big Board, oil stocks' earnings reports were fueled by higher oil prices. Chevron(CHV:NYSE) was advancing 1 1/16, or 1.3%, to 85 7/8, after its first-quarter earnings quadrupled its year-ago report. The American Stock Exchange Oil & Gas Index gained 0.4%. Scientific-Atlanta(SFA:NYSE) was jumping 5 3/4, or 10%, to 63 1/4, after the company topped the analyst estimate by 3 cents and posted a rise in revenue. SG Cowen lifted the stock to strong buy from buy. The broader S&P 500 was slipping 10 1/2 to 1467, while the small-cap Russell 2000 was off 1 1/2 to 487 1/2. Market Internals Breadth was negative on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq on moderately light volume. New York Stock Exchange: 1,365 advancers, 1,422 decliners, 612 million shares. 47 new 52-week highs, 30 new lows. Nasdaq Stock Market: 1,855 advancers, 2,037 decliners, 981 million shares. 36 new highs, 60 new lows. _______ For a look at stocks in the midsession news, see Midday Stocks to Watch, published separately. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Pmc Sierra Imagine it... PMC-Sierra is more than a "super seven" core tech holding (Goldman Sachs). It's also an outstanding career choice. Imagine it. Experience it. Visit us at http://www.pmc-sierra.com/careers to learn more and receive your CD-ROM. http://ads10.focalink.com/SmartBanner/page?16560.1 ______________________________________________________________________ Herb on TheStreet: Why Microsoft, Intel Differ on PC Sales By Herb Greenberg Senior Columnist 4/26/00 6:30 AM ET It just doesn't make sense: Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) gripes that corporate PC sales are softening, and Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) claims PC demand is so great it can't make chips fast enough. (Puzzling, I say, damn puzzling.) How can that be? Simple, says Mike Kelly, who runs Techtel, an Emeryville, Calif., market-research firm that has been tracking PC purchasing data for 15 years: They're both dealing with different ends of the distribution pipeline. "Microsoft is looking at shipments to OEMs [original equipment manufacturers], whereas Intel is looking at orders from OEMs," Kelly says. The result, he says, is that while shipments from OEMs may be falling, Intel wouldn't necessarily know because there's a normal lag of several weeks before a slowdown in shipments translates into a cutback in orders. But that doesn't necessarily mean there will be a cutback in orders. Kelly, who has proven to this column to be a good read of the PC industry, says he believes the current slowdown (which his surveys have confirmed is real) will be short-lived. His surveys of PC buying by companies with 250 or more employees show that purchases over the past two quarters were indeed flat, after rising for the prior two quarters. Kelly attributes that to Y2K-related issues. However, while demand hasn't been there, interest in buying new computers has been rising "steadily and strongly" for five quarters. And interest, he says, almost always translates into future orders. "That indicates latent demand," he says, "which means sales will recover." Notable quotable: According to Kelly, interest is especially high for purchases of Compaq (CPQ:NYSE), Hewlett-Packard (HWP:NYSE) and IBM (IBM:NYSE) machines. Short Positions o Ancor's away: The stock of Ancor Communications (ANCR:Nasdaq) leaped 66% yesterday after the company announced it won a contract to supply its fiber channel switches to EMC (EMC:NYSE). TSC/NYTimes reporter Kevin Max quoted one analyst as saying the stock had risen so much because short-sellers were covering. Maybe some are, but not those who have steadily been quoted in this column as questioning the quality of Ancor's biz. What the shorts found so intriguing yesterday was that while Ancor won some biz with EMC, so did Ancor's archrival Brocade (BRCD:Nasdaq). And according to what an EMC spokesman told my assistant, Mark Martinez, one of the reasons EMC took Ancor in addition to Brocade is to give customers a choice. And that, my friends, was worth nearly $400 million in additional market cap. o Some Transaction!: Transaction Systems Architects (TSAI:Nasdaq), no stranger to this column, reported dismal earnings Tuesday after the market closed. That's what sometimes happens to companies with revenue recognition issues, just like those mentioned here earlier involving Transaction. Herb Greenberg writes daily for TheStreet.com. In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, though he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. He welcomes your feedback at herb@thestreet.com. Greenberg also writes a monthly column for Fortune. Mark Martinez assisted with the reporting of this column. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Investment Challenge Round 6 is on. To register to play, go to: http://www.investmentchallenge.com/thestreet Share trading strategies with other competitors on the Investment Challenge message board. Check out our message boards at http://www.thestreet.com/cap/faq.jhtml. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id XAA25411 for ; Wed, 26 Apr 2000 23:07:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 7541 invoked from network); 27 Apr 2000 02:23:47 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 27 Apr 2000 02:23:47 -0000 Date: 26 Apr 2000 22:23:47 -0400 Message-ID: <20000427022345.15589.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 27, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 25105 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 27, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Only 3% of the globe is on the internet -- the revolution is young! Internet expert Don Rowe just IDed four internet stocks that are finally underpriced! Get them with a 30-day FREE Trial: http://www.investools.com/c/go/WALL/STREET-wallTK2 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/26/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,945.50 down 179.30, -1.61% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,630.09 down 81.14, -2.19% o S&P 500: 1,460.99 down 16.15, -1.09% o TSC Internet: 803.89 down 14.67, -1.79% o Russell 2000: 484.24 down 4.79, -0.98% o 30-Year Treasury: 104 06/32 down 3/32, yield 5.942% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) Coca-Cola (KO:NYSE) Compaq (CPQ:NYSE) Exodus (EXDS:Nasdaq) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Software: Microsoft Makes It Look Easy With New Options Grant o Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: An Earnings Primer o Evening Update: AT&T Wireless Prices Historic IPO, Beyond.com Misses the Mark o Bond Focus: Awaiting ECI and GDP, Bonds Tread Water ______________________________________________________________________ Catch "TheStreet.com" on Fox News Channel Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. (ET). Scott Bleier, Chief Investment Strategist at Prime Charter, will be our guest April 29, 30. ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Biotech/Pharmaceuticals: Patent Win Soothes Amgen Holders, but Pipeline Is Still the Story The biotech has a strong stable of drugs for coming years, so the patent news is really secondary. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/biotech/927663.html ____________________________________ Brokerages/Wall Street: Oversight Hearings: The Exchanges Fight Over the Future The NYSE pitches its view of the market's structural future, but others see things differently. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/brokerages/927892.html ____________________________________ The TaskMaster: Crosscurrents Confound Bottom Watchers A fragile market is looking in every possible direction nearing Thursday's economic reports. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/taskmaster/927802.html ____________________________________ Mutual Funds: Bull Market for Tech Managers Continues Despite Sector's Troubles New tech funds and hedge funds are competing for their specialized skills. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/funds/927575.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Plus Solutions, Inc. B2B grows to $ 7.29 trillion by 2003? Yes! Plus Solutions, Inc. (Sym: SODE-ITCBB)enters into an agreement with IBM to become business partner. More about this excellent B2B investment value at 1-800-661-0004. http://www.plussolutions.com/news-frame.html ______________________________________________________________________ Software: Microsoft Makes It Look Easy With New Options Grant By George Mannes Senior Writer 4/26/00 7:45 PM ET Microsoft's (MSFT:Nasdaq) daring rescue of employees with underwater options looks like the right thing to do for selloff-afflicted tech companies. Unfortunately, however, most of the latter probably won't find the market as welcoming. Amid the Nasdaq downturn and the hammering Microsoft's stock has taken amid its antitrust woes, the company said Tuesday that it is issuing new, lower-priced stock options, making up for the out-of-the-water options that employees have received since last July. The move highlights a conundrum for many high-tech companies, which are increasingly compensating employees with stock options, presumably so they can share in the wealth companies create as their shares rise. The big problem is that tech stocks, refusing to cooperate with tech-stock enthusiasm, have broadly fallen of late. And investors, partly because options-restoring measures can hurt earnings or dilute their holdings, don't always favor such measures. That said, Microsoft doesn't appear to have angered investors with its latest move, news of which broke while the market was open Tuesday. Shares in the software colossus closed at 68 on Wednesday, up 1 3/8 from Monday's close. People Person One institutional shareholder says the move makes sense for Microsoft as it fights to retain a new generation of managers who haven't achieved the phenomenal wealth of their predecessors at the company. "In the software business, it's all about people," says Walter C. Price Jr., managing director at Dresdner RCM Global Investors and co-manager of the Dresdner RCM Global Technology fund. "Your products basically expire after a year or two. ... To the extent that they can put a carrot out there that holds their employees and gives them a reason to stay, I think that's great." Dresdner RCM held $1.8 billion worth of Microsoft stock as of Dec. 31. Though Microsoft is issuing new options, the usual remedy that companies take to cure their employee stock option programs is to reprice their options, or change the price at which options can be exercised. These options represent the right to buy shares at a particular price; options that are "underwater" are those with an exercise price that's more expensive than the price of the shares on the open market -- not much of a bargain. The Reprice is Right Already this year, Internet retailers CDNow (CDNW:Nasdaq) and barnesandnoble.com(BNBN:Nasdaq) have said they are repricing employee stock options. PC hardware concern Iomega (IOM:NYSE) said this month it would hold a shareholder vote on a repricing, but the results weren't immediately available. In judging whether it's appropriate for a company to reprice its options, Price says he looks at several issues, such as how many employees benefit from the repricing. "If it's broad-based and covers the bulk of the employees, and not just a few executives, then we understand and tend to look at those situations more favorably," he says. Like other investors, Price keeps an eye on how much employee options add to the number of shares outstanding, and thus dilute his firm's holdings in a stock. "What is the annual option grant as a percentage of shares of a company?" he asks. "If it's less than 4% or 5%, I think that's reasonable. If it's 5% or 10%, I have a problem with that." Cash to Burn Microsoft has several things going for it that make the new options palatable to shareholders, says Patrick McGurn, vice president of Institutional Shareholder Services, a firm that advises large investors on corporate governance and proxy issues. Significantly, Microsoft has a huge pile of cash -- $21 billion as of March 31 -- that it can use to prevent the earnings dilution that the new shares would otherwise cause. "To Microsoft's credit, they're one of the shrewdest companies in terms of purchasing shares on the market to offset options grants," McGurn says. "They've been doing it in a very effective way over the past few years." Other companies that reprice options, though, will have to contend with a recently passed accounting rule, McGurn says, that will force them to take a charge against earnings. For dot-coms that don't have any earnings yet, that may not be a problem unless the market punishes them "for digging the hole deeper." For some companies, granting restricted stock is an alternative to repricing options. They'll still have to take a charge against earnings, but they'll be able to eat the charges faster, McGurn says. In the toughest spot, says McGurn, are companies that have decent earnings but no pile of cash, as Microsoft does. If those firms reprice or replace options, he says, they'll take an earnings hit. If they follow Microsoft's path and grant new options, they'll likely have to buy back shares to offset dilution. That means using up their free cash or going out and borrowing money -- moves that will hurt their balance sheet. "They're kind of between a rock and a hard place," McGurn added. ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement DLJdirect RECEIVE $100 CASH!!!!! When you open a DLJdirect Account. Click Here for Details http://www.dljdirect.com/dljd/homead.htm?OITSCCSEM ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: An Earnings Primer By James J. Cramer 4/26/00 9:12 PM ET It's time for a refresher course in what the "big money" is looking for out of earnings. Let's make this as simple as possible. You professionals out there will be yawning away, so go click on something else please. This piece is for the hundreds of thousands of you who get confused by all of this "better than expected," "worse than expected" gibberish. When companies are reporting, people are looking for clues about how fast the company is growing (revenue) and how profitable the company might be (earnings). Younger companies are supposed to show outsized revenue growth. Older companies are supposed to have been able to figure out how to monetize that growing revenue into earnings. Old-line, boring companies are trying to maximize the cash flow to reward shareholders. Maybe they do it buying back stock or by raising the dividend. If a company does "better than expected" revenue, that's a big deal, provided it is much better than expected. Too often we see the term "blowout" when we don't really have one, so be suspicious if a broker or a commentator uses that phrase. There was a time when companies used to get nailed for using that term "blowout" if they didn't do 20% better than expected. Now guys use it with in-line numbers, so scrutinize this lingo closely. I care more about revenue than earnings these days because of all the obfuscations some of these once great growth companies seem to pull each quarter. For example, for the life of me, I can't see how Coke (KO:NYSE) is a growth company. It seems like it is a single-digit grower at best these days. But it always reports double-digit earnings, because the company is very good at maximizing its cash flow and very clever at off-loading costs. That's why when I hear that so-and-so company reported "a penny better" I don't get too jazzed. To drill down further, after revenue we care about gross-margin guidance. Take Compaq (CPQ:NYSE). On the conference call yesterday Compaq said gross margins might decline a bit next quarter but that they would improve in the second half. I was worried that analysts would see that as a negative, but two firms upgraded the stock saying that you had to look through near-term margin problems. If gross margins go up, that revenue will obviously get translated into much higher earnings. So it is right to focus on gross margins, even to the possible exclusion of the final printed number, the earnings-per-share number, because of concerns like tax rate and charges that might impact that final number. That's why I always urge caution to the cowboys out there who trade only on the "number," the earnings per share, because it doesn't tell you enough. Remember, Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) traded up when the earnings-per-share number came out, and then down when the revenue number came out because even though the earnings seemed OK, the revenue number missed a couple of the recently raised estimates. So, to beat a dead horse, Exodus (EXDS:Nasdaq) reported a much smaller loss than expected but it didn't blow away revenue. To me, that's amazing, because this company has repeatedly blown away revenue estimates. I still haven't heard why it didn't and I probably never will because companies don't like to be pinned down on why they didn't do a number that was more than they were supposed to. The dialogue would go like this: "Why didn't you do more revenue than you were supposed to do?" "We did the amount of revenue that we forecasted we would do, isn't that enough?" Of course, it should be, but in this bizarre world where doing what you are supposed to do takes out a third of your corporate value, you have to expect the worse if you meet any expectation. Should any of this matter? Report cards do matter short term. But if a company is doing well, over the long term that should be reflected in the stock. I have found -- and I am not being facetious -- a very high correlation between companies that beat expectations of both revenue and earnings and higher stock prices. Until that correlation is repealed, we will always have to pay close attention to quarterly earnings. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund had no positions in any stocks mentioned. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: AT&T Wireless Prices Historic IPO, Beyond.com Misses the Mark By Eileen Kinsella Staff Reporter 4/26/00 9:06 PM ET E-tailing behemoth Amazon.com (AMZN:Nasdaq) posted a first-quarter loss of 35 cents a share, a penny narrower than the 26-analyst estimate, but wider than the year-ago loss of 12 cents a share. The company said it nearly doubled revenues and added more than 3 million new customers. CFO Warren Jensen said Amazon should see strong growth in the second quarter, driven by a profitable U.S. book, music and video operation and rapid expansion in European markets. For more on Amazon's earnings, see coverage from TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com's joint newsroom. _______ AT&T Wireless Group (AWE:NYSE) priced its historic initial public offering at $29.50 a share, raking in $10.62 billion for its parent AT&T (T:NYSE) making it the largest U.S. new issue ever. AT&T worked with underwriters Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney on the deal. In other postclose news (Earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified.): Earnings/revenue reports and previews Aether Systems (AETH:Nasdaq) posted a first-quarter pro forma loss of $1.13 a share, in line with the four-analyst estimate and wider than the year-ago loss of 7 cents. The company said its operating loss per share was 29 cents. Beyond.com(BYND:Nasdaq) missed analystsý estimates by a wide margin in its first-quarter earnings release. The consensus estimate provided by Thomson/First Call was for a loss of 46 cents a share. Beyond reported a net loss of $20.6 million, or 55 cents a share. The company called it a transition quarter and claimed to have made substantial progress in its move away from consumer e-tailing. Cirrus Logic (CRUS:Nasdaq) posted fourth-quarter earnings of 5 cents a share, a penny better than the four-analyst estimate and in-line with the year-ago 5 cents. The company announced it will move its headquarters from Fremont, Calif. to Austin, Texas to take advantage of several operating efficiencies. Halliburton (HAL:NYSE) posted first-quarter earnings of 11 cents a share, in line with the 28-analyst estimate and a penny lower than the year-ago 12 cents a share. The company said it is planning to sell its Dresser Equipment Group unit which supplies equipment to the energy and chemical industries. Halliburton also said its board approved plans for a program to buy back up to 44 million shares, or about 10% of its outstanding stock. Ingram Micro (IM:NYSE) reported first-quarter earnings of 17 cents a share, ahead of the 11-analyst estimate of 15 cents. The year-ago earnings of 29 cents includes items. Sealed Air (SEE:NYSE) posted first-quarter earnings of 45 cents a share including preferred dividends of $17.1 million. The nine-analyst estimate called for 48 cents while the year-ago earnings of 34 cents also includes preferred dividends. Wireless Facilities (WFII:Nasdaq) posted first-quarter earnings of 14 cents a share excluding the impact of goodwill from acquisitions. Including the item, the company earned 12 cents. The four-analyst estimate called for 11 cents, while the year-ago earnings were 5 cents. Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures Alpharma (ALO:NYSE) said it plans to buy the medicated feed additive business of Swiss drug maker Roche Holding for about $300 million. CBS (CBS:NYSE) and Viacom (VIA:NYSE) said the Department of Justice approved their proposed $37 billion merger. Offerings and stock actionsPowerwave Technologies (PWAV:Nasdaq) said its shareholders approved a 3-for-1 split of its stock. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Awaiting ECI and GDP, Bonds Tread Water By David A. Gaffen Staff Reporter 4/26/00 4:43 PM ET It's all about acronyms in the bond market today. The ECI, the GDP, the ECB -- all conspired to keep things quiet as traders look forward to events tomorrow. The Treasury Department sold $12 billion of two-year notes this afternoon, but the response was tepid because of the market's focus on tomorrow's reports, especially the quarterly Employment Cost Index. The ECI is considered one of the most important indicators of wage inflation, and the importance of tomorrow's 8:30 a.m. EDT release kept many on the sidelines, contributing to the poor auction. With most economists expecting at least a quarter-point increase in the fed funds rate at the May 16 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, traders are wary of buying short-term debt, which can have a severe reaction to changes in Fed monetary policy. Lately the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond was down 2/32 to 102 19/32, dropping the yield to 6.142%, down 0.6 basis points. The 30-year bond was up 5/32 to 104 4/32, driving the yield down to 5.952%, up 1 basis point. The five-year note was unchanged at 97 31/32, yielding 6.39%. "It seems that there's almost a 100% probability -- let's call it 99% -- that they are going to tighten on May 16," said Maryann Hurley, vice president in trading at D.A. Davidson in Seattle. "That's going to bring the funds rate to 6.25%. The 6.484% level is on the expensive side. I'm surprised they were able to get it done at this level." The Treasury sold $12 billion in notes at a yield of 6.484%. The poor performance, as measured by the bid-to-cover ratio, pressured the market late in the day, as it underscores the lack of confidence among bond investors. The bid-to-cover ratio was 2.31 to 1, which is better than the recent average, but low when considering the Treasury used to sell $15 billion at each two-year auction. "Since the debacle in the Nasdaq began, and especially since the [Consumer Price Index] report on April 14, the two-year has been weakening," said Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist at Miller Tabak. "The Fed's been orchestrating its message to warn the markets that they'll continue with this rate hike campaign... and that message has hit home with the short end, which has done badly." Economists as polled by Reuters are expecting for a 0.9% increase in the Employment Cost Index in the first quarter, after a 1.1% increase in the fourth quarter last year. Wage costs have been increasing at a slow, steady rate. They're rising 3.4% year-over-year, same as at the end of 1998, although that's an increase since the 1996-1997 period. However, they haven't, at least the way the government calculates it, exploded. "Slowly but surely, [inflation] is beginning to grind into the compensation measures," said Brian Jones, economist at Salomon Smith Barney, who expects a 1.1% increase in the ECI, which would put the year-over-year rate on the figure at 4.2%, the highest in about eight years. A huge increase in the ECI could make the market more worried about a 50-basis-point hike in the fed funds rate, something for which the bond market's been on guard since the April 14 CPI release. However, Jones doesn't think it's going to happen. The first-quarter gross domestic product figures are released tomorrow. The consensus is for growth of 5.9% for the quarter, exceedingly strong. Economists are also expecting a 2.2% increase in the implicit price deflator, the report's inflation component. Jones thinks this figure could come in below 2%, and he said that doesn't justify a 50-basis-point hike. "The inflation numbers [like the CPI] coming later in the month are going to be tame," said Jones. "That's not the sort of numbers you go 50 on." Today's only major economic release was the durable goods report. As has become customary with economic data, this report was stronger-than-expected. The bond market held steady, however, because this figure doesn't command the attention that tomorrow's reports will. Durable goods orders increased 2.6% in March, besting the economic consensus for a 1.8% increase, as reported by Reuters. February's decline was revised to a 2% drop from an original 2.7% drop, underlying the continued strength in the manufacturing economy. Excluding transportation orders, durable goods rose 2.8%, after a 0.5% increase in February, revised upward from an original 0.7% decline. Last month's drop was chiefly affected by the Boeing (BA:NYSE) strike, and therefore a rebound was expected this month. Somewhat less important for the market tomorrow is the European Central Bank meeting. It's a toss-up as to whether the ECB raises its short-term lending rate, which currently sits at 3.25%. Currency and Commodities The dollar fell against the yen and rose against the euro. It lately was worth 106.25 yen, up from 105.79. The euro was worth $0.9233, down from $0.9240. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's new Currencies column. Crude oil for June delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange fell to $24.67 a barrel from $25.33. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index rose to 210.75 from 211.95. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $277.1 an ounce from $279.80 yesterday. TO VIEW TSC'S ECONOMIC DATABANK, SEE http://www.thestreet.com/markets/databank/924208.html ______________________________________________________________________ Brenda Buttner will be the guest host of "YourWorld with Neil Cavuto" this week, 4/24-4/28 on Fox News Channel. "Your World with Neil Cavuto" airs at 5 p.m. EDT. James J. Cramer will be chatting on AOL at 5 p.m. EDT. (Keyword: AOL Live). ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Announcing the new TSC store, powered by Starbelly.com, the leading e-commerce provider of custom-decorated promotional products and logo’d merchandise. Now you can purchase TSC custom designed t-shirts, sweatshirts, bags and more. Just go to http://shop.starbellyorder.com/thestreet/index.jsp and start shopping today. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA02375 for ; Thu, 27 Apr 2000 15:44:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 1602 invoked from network); 27 Apr 2000 18:57:11 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 27 Apr 2000 18:57:11 -0000 Date: 27 Apr 2000 14:57:11 -0400 Message-ID: <20000427185711.24348.bulk_mail.11030@192.168.24.32> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 27, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 11402 TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 27, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Agora Publishing Is the party over? Ask the financial advisory that made investors 357% "dip" profits on Oracle--after last year's NASDAQ fall-out. This time, you could buy an insanely undervalued Asian tech-company, with top-tier potential. See: http://www.hammeronline.com/hammerts427/ ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of 4/27/00, 2:29 PM ET: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,917.58 down 27.92, -0.26% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,746.75 up 116.66, 3.21% o S&P 500: 1,464.07 up 3.08, 0.21% o TSC Internet: 851.84 up 47.95, 5.96% o Russell 2000: 488.53 up 4.29, 0.89% o 30-Year Treasury: 103 20/32 down 18/32, yield 5.988% ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Midday Musings: Dow Suffers Under Financials' Weight as Gossamer Nasdaq Flits Higher o Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: The Micro vs. Macro Dance ______________________________________________________________________ Catch "TheStreet.com" on Fox News Channel, Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT). Scott Bleier, Chief Investment Strategist at Prime Charter, will be our guest April 29, 30. ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Wrong! Tactics and Strategies: The Goldman vs. Merrill Indicator The difference between how these financials are acting offers a parable for this market. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/wrongtactics/928365.html ____________________________________ Retail: At Nordstrom, Pushing a By-the-Numbers Turnaround Management knows it must keep comp sales improving if it is to win back shareholders. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/retail/928034.html ____________________________________ Under the Hood: Outperforming the Nasdaq Ain't What It Used to Be Nasdaq's fall shows that the indices aren't the best benchmarks for your fund's performance. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/underthehood/928095.html ____________________________________ Dear Dagen: Delisting Detailed: What It Takes to Get the Boot From an Exchange Also, what happens to delisted companies. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/deardagen/928282.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement iexchange.com LOOKING FOR THE NEXT QUALCOMM? iExchange is a unique website where both professional and amateur investors post stock predictions. iExchange then tracks the recommendations posted and ranks 'Analysts' by their performance. Visit http://www.iexchange.com/?email=tsc3 ______________________________________________________________________ Midday Musings: Dow Suffers Under Financials' Weight as Gossamer Nasdaq Flits Higher By Eileen Kinsella Staff Reporter 4/27/00 1:25 PM ET Inflation fears sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average scampering for cover, but the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index was putting on a brave face. Two key economic reports released this morning incited a fresh round of interest-rate jitters and rattled the markets again. The closely watched Employment Cost Index showed that pay and benefits of U.S. workers rose at the fastest pace in more than 10 years in the first quarter, while gross domestic product, featured the strongest consumer spending in nearly nine years and robust business investment that implied optimism about continued growth rates ahead. Things looked pretty ugly in the early going, with June S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures going to limit-down. The Nasdaq Composite and the Dow quickly shed more than a 100 points in early trading. But after the initial shock wore off, stocks started fighting back. Lately the Dow was down 113, or 1%, to 10,833, off its low of the morning, while the Comp shook off the pressure and climbed, lately up 48, or 1.3%, to 3678. Many market observers viewed the absence of serious damage as a very positive sign. "The important part is that even with the futures limit-down in the preopen, sellers were not cascading in or falling over themselves," said Bill Schneider, head of U.S. equity block trading at Warburg Dillon Read. Schneider also noted the absence of broad-based institutional selling. Adam Wagner, president of Wagner Hermann & Herbst in Houston, echoed the sentiment. "I think this resilience is crucial to begin the big rally. This proves the market has a spine and will hopefully convince money on the sidelines to step up to the plate." Yesterday Wagner correctly predicted the selloff would be short, citing the market's short-term memory. Interest-rate sensitive stocks, including financials and insurance stocks were taking the ECI news hard. J.P. Morgan (JPM:NYSE) was down 3%, while Merrill Lynch (MER:NYSE) was off 4.8%. The American Stock Exchange Broker/Dealer Index was down 2.4% and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange KBW/Bank Index was down 3.3%. Insurance giant American International Group (AIG:NYSE) was off 2.9%, despite posting a better-than-expected 15% leap in operating profits. The S&P Insurance Index was down 3%. Hardest hit among Dow components were American Express (AXP:NYSE), General Electric (GE:NYSE) and J.P. Morgan. Aether Systems (AETH:Nasdaq) led the charge on the Nasdaq, soaring more than 20%, to 138 after last night posting in-line earnings and a rise in its subscriber base. Macromedia (MACR:Nasdaq) also sprinted after a better-than-expected earnings report. Shares were lately up 19 1/2, or 17.2%, to 133. Nokia's (NOK:NYSE) news that pretax profit soared 76% was giving wireless stocks a boost. Nokia was rising 3 11/16, or 7.1%, to 55 9/16, Ericsson (ERICY:Nasdaq) popped 7 9/16, or 9.4%, to 88 1/2 and Qualcomm (QCOM:Nasdaq) was up 4 3/4.to 102. . Elsewhere in the wireless world AT&T Wireless (AWE:NYSE) was moving up 2, or 7%, to 31 1/2 in its trading debut after the record offering was priced at $29.50 a share. That rakes in a hefty $10.62 billion for parent AT&T (T:NYSE) and makes the offering the largest new U.S. issue in history. TheStreet.com Internet Sector index was up 28, or 3.5%, to 832, boosted by strength in Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq) and CMGI (CMGI:Nasdaq). The small-cap Russell 2000 was up a fraction to 485, while the broader S&P 500 was down 9, or 0.6%, to 1452. The 10-year Treasury was lately down 19/32 to 102, its yield rising to 6.22%. Market Internals Breadth was negative on the Big Board and the Nasdaq on moderate volume. New York Stock Exchange: 1,030 advancers, 1,737 decliners, 670 million shares. 27 new 52-week highs, 49 new lows. Nasdaq Stock Market: 1,569 advancers, 2,249 decliners, 868 million shares. 23 new highs, 97 new lows. _______ For a look at stocks in the midsession news, see Midday Stocks to Watch, published separately. ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: The Micro vs. Macro Dance By James J. Cramer 4/27/00 11:43 AM ET It's time to reprise why it is so hard here. It is difficult to strike a balance between the micro and the macro. For example, in the micro news, the company-specific stuff, we heard so many great things in wireless, in telco equipment and in semiconductor equipment manufacturing and in semis that we can't leave those stocks. But the macro news, the rest of the economy, is very difficult because -- well, frankly, don't you have to expect that Greenspan will just hammer us the next time he talks? Don't you think he will say bad things when he speaks if the market is up because of the red hot consumer spending? Don't you think that Greenspan will be your enemy until we see some break in these numbers? We think YES! That's why we are buyers of the area that is good and sidelined for the rest. That's why we have a substantial cash position. Because of that cash position we wanted to make a bet that maybe we would see more benign macro numbers. We didn't. That bet was WRONG! Someone emailed me this morning and said, "These reports aren't helping us. We don't need to see you flip-flopping." To which I say: Oh Lordy, come on. This is real life. This isn't the fantasized, sanitized money-manager gobbledy-gook that you see on TV. We screwed up. We made a mistake. We got it wrong. (Jeff Berkowitz just hung up a sign on his door that says "Dr. Berkowitz, Cerebral Proctology." That pretty much says it all.) I can't help it if we get it wrong. We are not the Laurence Olivier of money management. We can't act that we did it right if we didn't. We can't lie to you. We wish we had gotten it right. We didn't -- unlike those managers you see on TV who are NEVER WRONG!! But we recovered and now we are playing it our way: lean, with some buys in the sectors we like. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund had no positions in any stocks mentioned. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Now part of TheStreet.com network -- ipoPros.com -- providing high quality IPO calendaring and research for individual and professional investors. Click on http://www.ipopros.com for your free 2-week trial. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from boss.npac.syr.edu (boss.npac.syr.edu [128.230.117.20]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA03791 for ; Thu, 27 Apr 2000 18:08:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (gcf@localhost) by boss.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id SAA43027 for ; Thu, 27 Apr 2000 18:08:16 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200004272208.SAA43027@boss.npac.syr.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: boss.npac.syr.edu: gcf@localhost didn't use HELO protocol Reply-to: gcf@npac.syr.edu To: gcf@npac.syr.edu Subject: http://quotes.nasdaq-amex.com/quote.dll?page=afterhours&mode=frameset&symbol=BUYX%60&symbol=ISLD%60&symbol=XYBR%60&symbol=SUNW%60&symbol=INKT%60&symbol=RNWK%60&selected=INKT%60 Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 18:08:15 -0400 From: Geoffrey Fox Content-Type: text Content-Length: 126 Geoffrey Fox gcf@npac.syr.edu gcf@cs.fsu.edu Phones Cell 315-254-6387 Syracuse Office 315-443-2163 FSU Office 850-644-4587 From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id XAA05932 for ; Thu, 27 Apr 2000 23:16:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 788 invoked from network); 28 Apr 2000 02:16:19 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 28 Apr 2000 02:16:19 -0000 Date: 27 Apr 2000 22:16:18 -0400 Message-ID: <20000428021616.31395.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 28, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 22391 TheStreet.com's DAILY BULLETIN April 28, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Sponsored by InvestorPlace.com. 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Reserve your FREE COPY, click here - http://www.ppi-orders.com/index.htm?promo_code=43E134 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/27/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,888.10 down 57.40, -0.52% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,774.03 up 143.94, 3.97% o S&P 500: 1,464.92 up 3.93, 0.27% o TSC Internet: 856.97 up 53.08, 6.60% o Russell 2000: 494.58 up 10.34, 2.14% o 30-Year Treasury: 103 20/32 down 18/32, yield 5.993% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Amazon (AMZN:Nasdaq) Starbucks (SBUX:Nasdaq) Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) AT&T Wireless Group (AWE:NYSE) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Asia/Pacific: A Japanese Highflier Plummets, and Investors Can't Reach the Exits o Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: Being Alan Greenspan o Evening Update: Pour Yourself a Latte, Grab a Muffin and Soak Up Tonight's Earnings Numbers o Bond Focus: Bond Market Selloff Delayed -- but Inevitable -- After Morning Data ______________________________________________________________________ Catch "TheStreet.com" on Fox News Channel Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. (ET). Scott Bleier, Chief Investment Strategist at Prime Charter, will be our guest April 29, 30. ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Telecom: Muted Market Reaction to Record-Sized AT&T Wireless Offering AT&T Wireless raised $10.6 billion through an offering of 360 million shares. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/telecom/928359.html ____________________________________ Nothing but Net: A Self-Assured Nasdaq Climbs Nicely; DOT Jumps Nearly 7% With inflation factored in, strong earnings and a nice AT&T Wireless IPO, there's some optimism. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/techupdate/928661.html ____________________________________ General: Former Bank Executive Convicted of Giving Insider Trading Information to Porn Star Co-defendant Anthony Pomponio was also found guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/general/928505.html ____________________________________ Herb on TheStreet: More on the Bear Case for Amazon Details raise questions over whether Amazon ever will be profitable, even if it is the 'Last Man Standing.' http://www.thestreet.com/comment/herbonthestreet/928451.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement TC2000.com Get your FREE TC2000 CD-ROM right now, and we'll include our popular CD-ROM video "Easy Tips for Finding Stocks Fast"... absolutely FREE. Free Software, Video, and a LIVE Training Class in a city near you! http://www.stockfinder.com/tc2000/default.asp?R=STREETE ______________________________________________________________________ Asia/Pacific: A Japanese Highflier Plummets, and Investors Can't Reach the Exits By Justin Lahart Associate Editor 4/27/00 7:42 PM ET For a fund manager, there is nothing quite so demoralizing as seeing a big position on your book blow up. Whether it is Cendant, (CD:NYSE) Rite Aid (RAD:NYSE) or Lucent (LU:NYSE), it all comes to the same thing. There will be the calls from clients and the meetings with your boss. There will be the long nights spent thinking about how the signs were there for you to see and of how you should have at least trimmed your position. And you'll do that thing you always do when disaster strikes, flipping back and forth between the before and the after: "Yesterday, I was up 13%, today I am down 4%..." Yet, as awful as going through a blowup is, at least if you are a U.S. fund manager you can make the mote on your screen go away. You peel out the unwanted thing and plant what capital there is left in some better pasture. For many fund managers in Japan, who for four weeks have been unable to exit former highflier Hikari Tsushin, that is an enviable thing. They Kill Bunnies, Don't They? Even in last year's highflying Tokyo stock market, Hikari Tsushin shares stood out, rising in excess of 2,600% to close out 1999 at 207,000 ($1,953). Nor was the run over for the mobile-phone-seller-cum-Internet-incubator -- it would eventually top out at 241,000 on Feb. 15. Then, disaster. Rumors about the company, and a series of unfavorable business articles (one of which alleged that its president, Yasumitsu Shigeta, fed baby rabbits to his pet python) began to appear in March. By mid-month, Hikari shares had plunged to 88,500. Shigeta held a news conference where he denied rumors that the company was being investigated by regulators, that the company had cooked accounts to reach targets, and that his relationship with Internet giant Softbank, whose board he sat on, had soured. He also denied that he had died. In addition, he said that sales and earnings were "proceeding smoothly" -- something that turned out not be true. On the evening of March 30, the company announced that it had posted an operating loss of 13 billion for the fiscal half-year ended Feb. 29, compared to expectations of a 6 billion profit. "He broke faith with the people after announcing the loss," says Jim Bogin, portfolio manager of the Matthews Japan Fund. "He had always emphasized how profitable he was." Bogin had owned Hikari, but cleared his position after the stock tripled to 43,000. As the stock more than quintupled from there, he felt pretty dumb. But selling Hikari turned out to be one of the smartest decisions he ever made. There are daily price limits set on how far up or down Tokyo stocks can go. This is because -- according to the Tokyo Stock Exchange -- it is feared that distorted stock price formations might cause investors to make inappropriate investment judgements. On March 31, Hikari fell by its daily limit of 5,000 to 73,800. Or rather, as the ask price for Hikari fell by its daily limit -- there were no takers. And it has fallen by its daily limit every day since then, with only sporadic buying. Last Monday was the only day in the past month when any actual trading got done. A pretty respectable 1.26 million shares changed hands before buying was exhausted, but even then many investors weren't able to exit their the stock. "We have one account that has a little position that we're obviously trying to get out of at any price," says David Smith, a fund manager at Newport Pacific. Smith said he was able to sell about 40% of his Liberty Newport Japan Opportunities Fund's Hikari stake on Monday. He hopes to clear the stock entirely from his books before the fund is opened to Japanese investors in a few weeks. Smith wishes that he could have cleared out of Hikari when it first announced the shortfall and that he could have taken what money he could and put it to work someplace else. Instead, that capital is dead in the water and will be until Hikari reaches whatever level it needs to reach to trade actively again. He's wishing for a change in the rules. "Hopefully, the authorities are going to look and say, 'Maybe we can adjust this system,' " he says, reckoning that individual investors -- the ones who are supposed to be protected by the rules -- are the ones getting hurt the most. "Think of all the people on margin. They can't do anything about liquidating their positions." Margin is the practice of borrowing from a broker to buy a certain stock. If a stock goes down too much, the broker worries about protecting its principal and puts out a margin call, which requires the borrower to put up additional cash. If the borrower doesn't have the cash to put up, it will typically liquidate the borrower's position. In Hikari's case, however, that's not possible, so brokers are liquidating investors' other positions. After seeing individual investors hemmed in like that, a review of the rules seems appropriate. Nothing happens quickly in Japan, though, and until the rules change, investors putting money into Japanese mutual funds -- particularly funds that invest in growth areas -- need to know that there is some additional risk. While funds with investments in Hikari probably cannot be hurt much more -- it has fallen by 94% from its all-time high, making what were formerly large positions small -- there are plenty of other highflying stocks trading in Tokyo. One can easily imagine more Hikari Tsushins in the future and more funds caught with stock on their books that they can't get out of. "In Japan, the whole cycle for this Internet stuff was a lot more compressed," says Bogin. "Some of these things went far further in a smaller amount of time than in the U.S." ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Ameritrade Online trading companies are everywhere, but only Ameritrade has 25 years of discount-brokerage experience and offers a low $500 minimum balance to open and fund an account. http://www.ameritrade.com/o.cgi?a=xby&o=rfg&p=/html/a.fhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: Being Alan Greenspan By James J. Cramer 4/27/00 3:42 PM ET Step into the mind of Alan Greenspan after reading the closing quotes of today's market. It's is a little convoluted and Ayn Rand-like in there, with a Faulkner-esque lack of editing, but I will give you the unvarnished, stream-of-consciousness look-see. As Barry Hertz from Track Data (TRAC:Nasdaq) would say, "You just can't make this stuff up!" One would think that the individuals who are buying the Nasdaq would keep in mind the far less than modest, but not yet catastrophic leap in the ECI, which, heretofore, has been one of my more closely followed, if not, one would say, almost totemic indicator for my near-term, but not too-near-term decisions. The ineluctable conclusion that can be drawn, that must be drawn, from that number is that high-growth stocks, the so-called lottery tickets I have referenced in previous testimony, should be headed in a vertical direction downward and not be merely projectiles being hurled toward the inevitable 52-week high list. Furthermore, to wit, when I see the strength in the stocks of those capital equipment providers leveraged, or levered, to the so-called semiconductor industry, of which Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) comes to mind, I am saddened to see such capital gains not being taken by the so-called retail, that is, leveraged, or margined public. The only real conclusion that one must draw, that one can draw, is that stocks, those certificates or pieces of paper that are meant to reflect the earnings longer-term of companies, should not be going in a Northern direction, and in particular the telephony group, the stocks that are leveraged to the wireless industry of which there is explosive growth, should be more tempered in their superior returns if there is to be any hope, near-term, that the Federal Reserve could be less vigilant, less authoritative and perhaps less punitive in its style of execution of monetary policy. In short, the upshot of these terrible, but sanguine if not confusing situations of dramatically higher equity prices in the field of high technology, despite the intense, if not superior, productivity gains scored in the sector, lead me to conclude that a series of swift, but not overnight, perhaps intrameeting, or during-meeting ratcheting of the shorter end of the curve rates may somehow not be out of the question in light of the dramatic longfall in consumer spending triggered by these so-called super-superior returns, which, no doubt, will impact the portion of the economy that relies on cheaper, if not bountiful credit to continue its string of consecutively higher quarters. Or in other words, translated, Greenspan is going to have to jack up rates, and wreck the real economy, because the Nazzdogs wouldn't stay down!! James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long Intel. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: Pour Yourself a Latte, Grab a Muffin and Soak Up Tonight's Earnings Numbers By Tara Murphy Staff Reporter 4/27/00 8:12 PM ET Starbucks (SBUX:Nasdaq) lost its after-hours perk, despite reporting second-quarter earnings of 12 cents a share, in line with the 21-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 10 cents. The coffee shop chain said same-store sakes were up 10% over the year-ago period, while revenues came in at $505 million, up 34% from the year-ago $376 million. Starbucks also upped its fiscal 2000 domestic licensed store opening goal to 200 from 100 and upped its international target to 150 from 100. _______ Electronic Data Systems (EDS:NYSE) reported first-quarter earnings of 47 cents a share, in line with the 17-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 36 cents. EDS said revenues in the first quarter increased 5% to $4.5 billion from the year-ago quarter. The company, which said it was comfortable with second-quarter and 2000 earnings estimates, attributed the strong earnings to successful restructuring in 1999 and its growing eSolutions unit. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures Edison International's(EIX:NYSE) Southern California Edison division said it entered a $550 million deal to sell its stakes in two power plants to Pinnacle West(PNW:NYSE). The terms call for Pinnacle West to buy SCE's 16% interest in the Arizona-based Palo Verde nuclear power plant and its 48% stake in two divisions at the Four Corners Generating Station in New Mexico. Nike(NKE:Nike) said it ended talks with the University of Michigan related to the renewal of its six-year contract to outfit the school's sports teams after the university (alma mater of two of TSC's brightest lights) demanded that Nike follow labor guidelines that it deemed too stringent. Nike CEO Philip Knight said that this was the third time in a month that labor policies interfered in sponsorships for the athletic clothier. According to Nike, the deal would have been the largest, most lucrative one in college sports history. Earnings/revenue reports Western Digital(WDC:WDC), a data storage company, posted third-quarter loss of 17 cents a share, narrower than both the seven-analyst estimate of a 24-cent loss and the year-ago 68-cent loss. Offerings and stock actionsCatalina Marketing (POS:NYSE) set a 3-for-1 stock split. Potomac Electric Power(POM:NYSE) set a share repurchasing plan for up to $200 million. For a look into this evening's after-hours trading action, please check out TheStreet.com's The Night Watch. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Bond Market Selloff Delayed -- but Inevitable -- After Morning Data By David A. Gaffen Staff Reporter 4/27/00 4:23 PM ETToday's economic data certainly wasn't favorable for the bond market. But the market took a little time before reacting to the news, thanks to the stock market futures. Both this morning's 8:30 a.m. EDT Employment Cost Index and gross domestic product reports were much stronger than expected, but because the S&P and Nasdaq futures hit what's called "limit down" -- the farthest they could fall -- bonds held in reasonably well. So all it took was a recovery in stocks to send bonds tumbling. The ECI, an important measure of wage costs, rose 1.4% in the first quarter, bringing its year-over-year rate of increase to 4.3%, highest since the fourth quarter of 1991. Economists polled by Reuters were expecting a 0.9% increase. Benefit costs are up 5% year-over-year, highest since the third quarter of 1993. GDP grew at a rate of 5.4% in the first quarter, lower than the Reuters consensus estimate for 5.9% growth. But more importantly, the implicit price deflator, the report's inflation component, was 2.7%, way ahead of the anticipated 2.2% increase. Neither report was good news for bonds. These reports, which display growing wage and pricing pressures in the economy, makes it more likely that the Federal Reserve will raise the fed funds target by 50 basis points from its current 6% at the May 16 Fed meeting. And it took a recovery in the stock market for bonds to recognize that today. "When stocks -- pre-9:30 -- were limit down, the Treasury [market] didn't want to react as negatively as it was supposed to on today numbers," said Michael Krauss, chief technical analyst at Chase Securities. It was the short-end of the curve that took the brunt of the impact, as short-dated securities react more forcefully to changes in Fed monetary policy. Once the stock market rebounded, the interest in safe-haven buying of long-dated securities eradicated, sending the entire market down. Lately the benchmark 10-year Treasury was off 22/32 to 101 29/32, bumping the yield up 10.1 basis points to 6.232%. The two-year note, which reacts most harshly to changes in Fed policy, was down 8/32 to 99 17/32, yielding 6.625%, an increase of 12 basis points. The 30-year bond fell 21/32 to 103 17/32, yielding 5.995%, an increase of 7.6 basis points. "Given other signs of higher wage and price inflation, including the Q1 Employment Cost Index, a 50-basis-point move on May 16 looks likely," said Henry Willmore, economist at Barclays Capital. The May fed funds futures contract, traded on the Chicago Board of Trade sold off, reflecting increased chances of such a hike. They're currently factoring in a 57% chance of a rate hike, up from a 28% chance yesterday. Just about the entire market believes that the Fed will raise rates at least a quarter point from the current 6%, and today some economists changed their forecasts for Fed policy in coming months. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's fears that the tightness in the labor market would eventually result in wage cost pressures seems to have come to fruition. Diane Swonk, senior economist at Bank One, however, believes the Fed's had it right all along. While others were accusing the monetary policy committee of attacking growth and the stock market, the Fed was deliberately raising rates to quell the potential rise in inflation. She said her forecast for May is for a 50-point hike, but believes, more importantly, that these reports send a message that the Fed won't be finished with its current course of tightening rates anytime soon, whether they hike 50 basis points or not. "We've raised our end-of-year target to 7%," she said. "The message of these reports is that [May] won't be the end of it." The Treasury Department bought back $3 billion in long-dated Treasury securities today. Currency and CommoditiesThe dollar rose against the yen and the euro. It lately was worth 106.40 yen, up from 106.25. The euro was worth $0.9098, down from $0.9233. For more on currencies, please take a look at TSC's Currencies column. Crude oil for June delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to $25.40 a barrel from $24.65. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index fell to 210.39 from 210.54. Gold for June delivery at the Comex rose to $278.2 an ounce from $277.10 yesterday. To view the TSC Economic Databank, see: http://www.thestreet.com/markets/databank/924208.html ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Andrew Morse at the CNBC Investment Conference International Editor Andrew Morse will host a panel on International Investing at the CNBC Investment Conference at the World Trade Center Boston on Saturday, April 29, at 3:30 p.m. EDT. For more information, go to http://www.investordiscovery.com/boston/index.html ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pbulk01.thestreet.com ([209.191.134.31]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA13911 for ; Fri, 28 Apr 2000 17:04:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 21170 invoked from network); 28 Apr 2000 19:51:59 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pbulk01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 28 Apr 2000 19:51:59 -0000 Date: 28 Apr 2000 15:51:58 -0400 Message-ID: <20000428195158.5981.bulk_mail.11030@192.168.24.32> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 28, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 11472 TheStreet.com's MIDDAY UPDATE April 28, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Agora Publishing Flash Bulletin: The aftermarket is having a fire-sale! That's right. You may never see hot IPOs at these bargain prices again. Discover 7 secrets for picking winning IPOs-and 3 undervalued companies to buy now: http://www.ipotraderonline.com/traderts428/ ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/28/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,745.39 down 142.71, -1.31% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,822.40 up 48.37, 1.28% o S&P 500: 1,450.27 down 14.65, -1.00% o TSC Internet: 886.38 up 29.41, 3.43% o Russell 2000: 502.41 up 7.83, 1.58% o 30-Year Treasury: 103 28/32 up 8/32, yield 5.953% ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Midday Musings: Tech Strength Continues at Midday; Hobbled Dow Still Struggling o Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: When the Toughest Get Going Going ___________________________________________________________________ ___Catch "TheStreet.com" on Fox News Channel Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. (ET). Scott Bleier, Chief Investment Strategist at Prime Charter, will be our guest April 29, 30. ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Banking: Conseco Picture Grows Bleaker as Top Execs Depart The stock has plunged 85%, as heavy debt and operating problems have taken their toll. http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/banking/929202.html ____________________________________ Market Features: Tech Shows Renewed Immunity to Rate Fears And as recent market action suggests, much of the risk is accumulating in money-losing dot-coms. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/marketfeatures/929211.html ____________________________________ The Buzz Beat: The Final Plot Buzz and Batch will be on leave for a while, but they've got some plotting before they go. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/buzzbeat/929507.html ____________________________________ Christopher Edmonds: Buffett Hosts 'Capitalist Woodstock' in Omaha Until two weeks ago it seemed there would be little to celebrate come Saturday. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/chrisedmonds/929541.html ______________________________________________________________________ Midday Musings: Tech Strength Continues at Midday; Hobbled Dow Still Struggling By Kristen French Staff Reporter 4/28/00 1:18 PM ETThe Dow Jones Industrial Average continued to limp downward after yesterday's hot inflation data broke its legs, but the Nasdaq Composite Index was still bucking upward in relatively thin trade. Investors began fleeing the so-called "inflation-sensitive" old-economy stocks yesterday as they sought cover in "high-growth" tech stocks. So far that trend has held. Most market observers said the fact that the Nasdaq has been able to hold its head high amid the recent flutter of bad news is very impressive and bodes well, at least for the short term. That bad news includes a report earlier today that George Soros' firm is losing Stanley Druckenmiller and Nicholos Roditi, which some thought might mean some heavy selling in tech. Druckenmiller ran Soros' $8.2 billion Quantum Fund and Roditi ran the $1.2 billion Quota Fund. The two managers had bet heavily on technology names starting in the latter half of 1999. The recent selloff in tech names hurt the fund badly -- it reportedly lost $3 billion in capitalization in the last six weeks. For more on this story, take a look at the coverage out of the TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom. One stock, in particular, was really singing the blues today. In the last hour, a federal judge in New York ruled that MP3 (MPPP:Nasdaq) violated copyright laws by creating a database of music available to be downloaded off the Web. The ruling has hammered the stock and it was recently down 4 5/8, or 40%, to 7. "For a Friday, going into a weekend, and having digested a lot of bad news, it's very impressive that the market has been able to hang in this tough so far," said Ned Collins, executive vice president of U.S. stocks at Daiwa Securities America. But no one wants to say that the market has moved entirely out of the woods yet as there may be more bad news to be weathered. "Next week everyone will be keeping an eye on the April employment data. Market players are sitting boxed in by that data. We may see activity slow down in the afternoon after the harrowing week we've had. And we could see tech back-and-fill a little bit more," said Bryan Piskorowski, market analyst at Prudential Securities. Financials and insurance stocks were still taking blows after falling hard on the inflation news yesterday. The American Stock Exchange Broker/Dealer Index was down 1.4%, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange KBW/Bank Index was down 2.2% and the S&P Insurance Index was 1.3. Leading financials down around mid-session were Citigroup(C:NYSE), down 2.6, and American Express(AXP:NYSE), down 0.9%. Fellow Dow industrials components J.P. Morgan(JPM:NYSE) was down 1.9% and Chase Manhattan(CMB:NYSE) dropped 1.4%. Insurance giant American International Group(AIG:NYSE) was off 1.5%. On the NYSE, Three-Five Systems(TFS:NYSE) was off 8% and Mettler-Toledo Int'l(MTD:NYSE) off 14.6%, were posting the biggest losses. The Nasdaq was getting extra bounce, meanwhile, from Aether Systems(AETH:Nasdaq), and Rambus(RMBS:Nasdaq). Rambus' gain was also propelling the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index up 3.2%. Technology bellwether Intel(INTC:Nasdaq) was up 2.1%, after the chip giant reported Thursday it is accelerating its efforts to promote the growth of electronic commerce. Other chip makers, such as Texas Instruments(TXN:NYSE) and LSI Logic(LSI:NYSE) were riding Intel's wave. Meanwhile, Microsoft(MSFT:Nasdaq) was down 1.4% ahead of the release of the government's proposal for splitting up the company after the market closes this afternoon. Consumer retail stocks were also in trouble, as were drug stocks. And utility stocks were down after a strong run up in the last few weeks. The American Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical Index was off 1.7%, and the Dow Jones Utility Average was off 1.3%. The Street.com Internet Sector index was up 35.48 to 892.45, once again, boosted by strength in Yahoo!(YHOO:Nasdaq) and CMGI(CMGI:Nasdaq). Market Internals Breadth was narrowly mixed on the NYSE and positive on the Nasdaq, while volume was relatively light on both. New York Stock Exchange: 1,424 advancers, 1,351 decliners, 553 million shares. 41 new 52-week highs, 30 new lows. Nasdaq Stock Market: 2,200 advancers, 1,634 decliners, 882 million shares. 33 new highs, 60 new lows. ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: When the Toughest Get Going By James J. Cramer 4/28/00 8:56 AM ET First Julian Robertson. Now Stanley Druckenmiller? And you think running money is easy? This morning we learned of the departure of Stanley Druckenmiller from the Soros Fund, where he was the chief investment strategist. The departure comes after Soros suffered some heavyweight losses in this market. Druckenmiller is no ordinary fund manager. I met Stanley 14 years ago when he was the star at Dreyfus, when that fund family was hot as a pistol. He is one of the greats of this business, perceptive, intelligent, honest and ahead of the game at all times. When he spoke, you listened. All he did in the intervening years was get better and better and better. He is someone my wife, skeptical beyond belief, always felt had a fabulous call on the tape. If she heard that he liked the tape, and she didn't, she might change her mind. He came on Ron Insana's great show a few years back and talked about something he did wrong. I sat there in awe that he would have the confidence to tell the truth like that. He's an awesome money manager. The fact that Druckenmiller's near-term results have been subpar is a sharp reminder of how hard this market has gotten. It is a wake-up call for those who would beat themselves up over the vicissitudes of this tape. It the tape itself and not you that is so confused. It would not surprise me if some of the craziness lately in the Nasdaq is related to the unwinding of some Soros' positions in that market. As shook up as I was about the losses Julian Robetson experienced, I am even more sobered by what has happened at Soros. The takeaway here is that the game has gotten tougher for the professionals running billions than it has ever been. Please, please be careful out there. When the toughest get going, you can't be too sure or cocky or arrogant about anything. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund had no positions in any stocks mentioned. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Promotion Andrew Morse at the CNBC Investment Conference International Editor Andrew Morse will host a panel on International Investing at the CNBC Investment Conference at the World Trade Center Boston on Saturday, April 29, at 3:30 p.m. EDT. For more information, go to http://www.investordiscovery.com/boston/index.html ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright Notice Except for making one printed copy of this or any other materials, files or documents available from, accessible through or published by TheStreet.com Inc. for your personal use (or downloading for the same limited purpose), these may not be reproduced, republished, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written permission of TheStreet.com Inc. For bulk reprints of any article, please contact Brad Glouner at Reprint Management Services, at (717) 399-1900 ext. 130, or via email at bglouner@rmsreprints.com. ______________________________________________________________________ For general comments, questions or suggestions, please send an email to feedback@thestreet.com. For letters about our editorial content intended for publication, please send an email to letters@thestreet.com. Remember to include your full name and city. If you have a question regarding your account, please contact us at members@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000, TheStreet.com From nobody@nowhere Sun Jun 17 07:10:48 2007 Received: from pwebl01.thestreet.com (pbulk01.thestreet.com [209.191.134.144]) by postoffice.npac.syr.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id WAA15781 for ; Fri, 28 Apr 2000 22:30:53 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 27604 invoked from network); 29 Apr 2000 02:08:46 -0000 Received: from bulk-mgr01.thestreet.com (prod@192.168.20.20) by pwebl01-o0.thestreet.com with QMQP; 29 Apr 2000 02:08:46 -0000 Date: 28 Apr 2000 22:08:45 -0400 Message-ID: <20000429020845.13830.bulk_mail.11040@192.168.24.17> To: "Bulletin Subscribers" From: "TheStreet.com" Reply-To: "TheStreet.com Member Support" Subject: TheStreet.com's WEEKEND BULLETIN April 29, 2000 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 22168 TheStreet.com's WEEKEND BULLETIN April 29, 2000 http://www.thestreet.com ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Investec Guinness Flight The future is arriving daily. 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Click here to invest in your future with Investec Guinness Flight! http://www.gffunds.com/930 ______________________________________________________________________ If you would like to be removed from our bulletin mailing list, or would like to select which of our bulletins you receive, please go to the following URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/upc/bulletin.jhtml ______________________________________________________________________ Market Data as of Close, 4/28/00: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,733.91 down 154.19, -1.42% o Nasdaq Composite Index: 3,860.66 up 86.63, 2.30% o S&P 500: 1,452.43 down 12.49, -0.85% o TSC Internet: 895.11 up 38.14, 4.45% o Russell 2000: 506.25 up 11.67, 2.36% o 30-Year Treasury: 104 00/32 up 12/32, yield 5.962% For the week: o Dow Jones Industrial Average: down 1.1% o Nasdaq Composite Index: up 5.1% o S&P 500: up 1.2% o TSC Internet: up 13.1% o Russell 2000: up 5.1% ______________________________________________________________________ Companies in Today's Bulletin: Akamai (AKAM:Nasdaq) Exodus (EXDS:Nasdaq) Healtheon/WebMd (HLTH:Nasdaq) Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) ______________________________________________________________________ In Today's Bulletin: o Market Features: So Long, Soros: An Inside Look at the End of an Investing Era o Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: The Banks' Double Jeopardy o Evening Update: Steel Technologies Ups Buyback; Energy East Beats the Street o Bond Focus: Short End Turns Tail on Fed Fears ______________________________________________________________________ Andrew Morse at the CNBC Investment Conference International Editor Andrew Morse will host a panel on International Investing at the CNBC Investment Conference at the World Trade Center Boston on Saturday, April 29, at 3:30 p.m. EDT. For more information, go to http://www.investordiscovery.com/boston/index.html ______________________________________________________________________ Also on TheStreet.com: Software: Prosecutors Ask Judge to Break Up Microsoft Prosecutors from Illinois and Ohio, however, dissented from the proposal, agreeing to recommend remedies that do not include a breakup. http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/software/929421.html ____________________________________ Nothing but Net: Tech Sector Does Not Disappoint Despite early hesitation, momentum picks up and the sector ends with healthy gains. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/techupdate/929679.html ____________________________________ Christopher Edmonds: Buffett Hosts 'Capitalist Woodstock' in Omaha Until two weeks ago it seemed there would be little to celebrate come Saturday. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/chrisedmonds/929541.html ____________________________________ Internet: Healtheon Doesn't Appear Interested in Sickly drkoop One analyst conjectures drkoop could do better as a women-oriented site. http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/929734.html ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement Pmc Sierra Imagine it... PMC-Sierra is more than a "super seven" core tech holding (Goldman Sachs). It's also an outstanding career choice. Imagine it. Experience it. Visit us at http://www.pmc-sierra.com/careers to learn more and receive your CD-ROM. http://ads10.focalink.com/SmartBanner/page?16560.1 ______________________________________________________________________ Market Features: So Long, Soros: An Inside Look at the End of an Investing Era By Brett D. Fromson Chief Markets Writer 4/28/00 7:16 PM ET Today marked the end of an era in investing. One of the most profitable and best-known global hedge funds in history -- Soros Fund Management -- is history. While the fund said today that it will remain in operation after a "thorough reorganziation," make no mistake. It's over. After 31 1/2 years of beating the markets in everything from stocks and bonds to currencies and commodities, Soros came apart in a mere four weeks, according to interviews with George Soros, his departing senior portfolio manager, Stan Druckenmiller and other sources close to Soros. The story of how that happened speaks volumes about the ability of the market to surprise even the best traders, and the relentless pressure of managing money in the most volatile financial markets we have ever seen. The beginning of the end was April 4. That was the gut-wrenching day the Nasdaq Composite collapsed nearly 575, or 13.6%, before whipsawing back up to close down only 1.8%. Druckenmiller came into that day having already reduced the Quantum Fund's exposure to tech stocks in February and March. He had expected a 10% to 15% slide from the Comp's March 10 all-time high. But he made a significant error in judgment on Tuesday the 4th. He thought the V-shaped volatility of the day represented the end of the 10% to 15% correction in the Comp. Instead of dumping more tech stocks, as he and his associates thought perhaps they should, he hung tight. He could have sold tons of stock later that week as the market rallied. Slam!The door to the exits slammed shut the next week, specifically on Friday, April 14. The days leading up to that day were lousy, but Friday was the kicker. The market crashed that day, and unlike Tuesday the 4th, it did not snap back intraday. The Comp fell 10% and ended its worst week in history down 25.3% -- 34.2% below its March 10 high. The following Monday, Druckenmiller's associate, Nick Roditi, portfolio manager of Soros' other big investment vehicle, the Quota Fund, told associates that he was quitting the game. Not only was the London-based trader leaving Soros, he was getting out of the money management game altogether. Why? After all, he had previously experienced losing years interspersed between great years when he made 100% to 200% on Soros' money. The answer was that Roditi, whose trading style relies on enormous financial leverage -- at times as much as 300% of the underlying position -- was burned out. Quota had suffered enormous losses the prior week. He just did not want to do it anymore. He is rich. He has other business interests. He would just as soon live in Africa, his homeland, as in London. The End Is NearThe next day, Druckenmiller went into the firm's midtown Manhattan office and announced to Soros that he wanted a break, a sabbatical. The fund was too big and unwieldy. The year's gains tended to come from just a few big bets each year. If one went wrong, they could not get out. And the markets were more volatile than ever. And even in the best of times, George Soros has never been known as the easiest boss in the world. He is well-known for second-guessing his portfolio managers, which is his right, because he has about $4 billion in Quantum. It was not the first time that leaving had recently crossed Druckenmiller's mind. So why decide to step away on Tuesday, April 18th? After all, he was down about this much last year at this time. He came back from that and ended up garnering above a 40% gain for 1999. Why not one more time? Because, apparently, he was just too tired to wage the relentless war he knew it would take to recover. Soros himself had initially considered coming back to take over. Tensions were high at the prospect of the 69-year old speculator, fearful of a market crash, without his top portfolio managers running things again. After all, it had been 12 years since Soros has run money himself. An uneasy peace was maintained simply by their mutual needs to come to an equitable arrangement. Soros did not want his top lieutenants publicly cutting all ties to him and Quantum. And they wanted him to be generous if they had to leave, now that the firm effectively was being taken apart. It was not until this week that Soros decided not to come back but instead to make radical changes at his cherished firm. He decided that Quantum will no longer seek 30% returns. (That explains its new, dowdy name -- the Quantum Endowment Fund.) He decided also that the management of Quota will be outsourced to London-based money manager Michele Ragazzi of Newman Ragazzi. Soros will offer his clients the opportunity to stay in the new Quantum and Quota funds, but expects major departures. The firm already has raised enough cash to pay off every single client who might want out. It may be that the only client going forward will be Soros himself. He already has decided to break up his money into smaller management pools. Look for him to spread the money among five to 10 managers, some who now work for him and some who do not. The deals likely will be structured so that in exchange for him dropping several hundred million dollars on these managers and allowing them to take in additional clients, he'll get a share of their management fees. If there is one thing George Soros will not allow, it is for the market to take him out -- i.e., lose all his money. The new, nimbler, more diversified structure makes that less likely. Much of the weakness in tech stocks in the second half of April may have stemmed from selling pressure from Soros. In the third week of April, they were blowing out many positions. The selling is over, which may help explain the recent bottoming and rally we have seen in technology stocks. Call it the Soros bounce. Isn't it IronicThere is irony in Druckenmiller's departure. He made many of his most spectacular calls by selling into bullish manias and buying when there was panic. For example, he bought a ton of stock after the October 1987 crash. "This time," he said, "I overplayed my hand. I should have sold in February. I sold some. I thought it was the eighth inning when it was really the ninth." "I had an exit strategy," he said. "I was two weeks off, too late. I blew it. There was no exit. That was my biggest mistake." After he leaves Soros in June, Druckenmiller will remain head of Duquesne Capital Management, a small hedge fund he started before he joined Soros. Druckenmiller said that he has positioned Duquesne so that he can take the summer off, and plans to take his family on a trip to Africa. He said he will offer Duquesne's investors the opportunity to get out if they like. Don't expect too many Duquesne limited partners to leave. Druckenmiller remains one of the best investors around. Who knows, by Labor Day he might be back in business? As Druckenmiller said today, investing is "like a drug." He is a known addict. ______________________________________________________________________ Wrong! Rear Echelon Revelations: The Banks' Double Jeopardy By James J. Cramer 4/28/00 3:28 PM ET Are the banks for real? Are they reflecting the pressure the Fed feels in the face of the consumer-spending boom? Are they going to be punished, needlessly, by the residue of the superheated dot-com economy? Yes. I make no secret of my fondness for this group of stocks -- an affection that is based purely on valuation. These stocks are cheap. But I think that it is not what matters in this market. The banks are caught in a terrible whammy. People sell banks when rates go higher because it hurts the margins of the banks. It doesn't even matter if banks have figured out ways to insulate themselves from short-rate rises, they all get hurt together anyway. That has always been the case. It is the case this time. But we also tend to sell financials when inflation is roaring, which is the perception now. So banks can't win. If the Fed doesn't tighten, people will sell because the Fed can't rein in inflation. If the Fed tightens too much, short-term rates go too high and people think the banks will do poorly in earnings. They just can't win. James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund had no positions in any stocks mentioned. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Cramer's writings provide insights into the dynamics of money management and are not a solicitation for transactions. While he cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to comment on his column at jjcletters@thestreet.com. ______________________________________________________________________ Evening Update: Steel Technologies Ups Buyback; Energy East Beats the Street By Tara Murphy Staff Reporter 4/28/00 7:06 PM ET The Justice Department and 19 states filed a 17-page proposal to the federal judge presiding over Microsoft's(MSFT:Nasdaq) antitrust case, calling for the separation of Windows operating system from software applications such as spread sheets. According to the government, the division would be a suitable solution to end Microsoft's monopoly of the software industry. Microsoft called the plan "extreme," and refuted that the break up would hurt consumers and hamper innovation. Earlier this month, the judge ruled that Microsoft infringed on antirust law using Window's strong presence in PCs to clamp competition. The deadline for Microsoft to appeal the ruling is set for May 10. In after-hours trading, shares of the stock hit 71 5/8, up from its closing price of 69 3/4. In other postclose news (earnings estimates from First Call/Thomson Financial; earnings reported on a diluted basis unless otherwise specified): Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures Dime(DME:NYSE) and Hudson(HU:NYSE) said that they have axed plans for a merger. Dime said it would consider other options. Policy Management Systems(PMS:NYSE) said it received a buyout offer from EDS(EDS:NYSE), valued at $18-$20 a share. ReliaStar Financial (RLR:NYSE) said it is in talks regarding a possible sale of the company. ReliaStar, a Minneapolis-based holding company that offers financial services, said it doesn't intend to comment further until a deal is reached or until talks are terminated. Merger partners Tribune(TRB:NYSE) and Times Mirror(TMC:Nasdaq) said that they are considering a possible sale of Times Mirror's Jeppesen division, which provides flight information. The two companies have hired Merrill Lynch to serve as their financial advisor. Tribune chairman John Madigan said that the merged company wants to concentrate on its core businesses such as broadcasting and publishing. Earnings/revenue reports Energy East(NEG:NYSE) posted first-quarter earnings of 83 cents a share, topping the seven-analyst estimate of 79 cents and up from the year-ago 71 cent-profit. Solectron(SLR:NYSE) warned investors that it would report third-quarter earnings between 20 cents to 22 cents a share, possibly missing the 23-analyst estimate of a 22-cent profit. The company said it was comfortable with the fiscal-2000 analyst estimate of 84 cents. Offerings and stock actions Steel Technologies(STTX:Nasdaq) added $1 million to its current stock buyback. Miscellany Avant! (AVNT:Nasdaq) said that a northern California county judge threw out criminal charges against the software maker and its current and former executives charged in the suit. Cleco(CNL:NYSE) said it tapped David Eppler as its president and CEO. As of May 1, Eppler will replace the retiring Gregory Nesbitt. ______________________________________________________________________ Bond Focus: Short End Turns Tail on Fed Fears By David A. Gaffen Staff Reporter 4/28/00 4:27 PM ET It was a mixed day for the bond market, which managed to shake off most of today's economic releases. However, the weakness, as has become customary, was again in the short end, as traders continued to adjust for the expectation that the Federal Reserve will get more aggressive on raising interest rates in coming months. After yesterday's double whammy of the first-quarter Employment Cost Index and Gross Domestic Product reports, there are increased expectations that the Fed will raise the short-term fed funds target by 50 basis points at the May 16 Federal Open Market Committee meeting. The fed funds rate is currently 6%, and a poll published late yesterday shows that 12 of 29 primary dealers in government securities expect the Fed to raise the funds rate by the "Big 5-0" come May 16. That had the effect of pushing up yields in the short end of the curve, while yields in the long end remained reasonably steady. Traders engineered what's known as a curve-flattening trade, which is a bet that the long end will continue to rally and the short end will continue to sell. Since changes in the two-year note are linked prominently to how the market views Fed policy, it sold off again today, dropping 4/32 to 99 13/32, driving the yield up to 6.689%, highest since Feb. 17. Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-year note was unchanged at 101 31/32, yielding 6.225%. The 30-year bond rose 7/32 to 103 29/32, dropping the yield 4 basis points to 5.969%. "I think some people took some profits, and then some people were entering fresh curve-flattening trades within the front end of the curve," said Roseanne Briggen, market strategist at MCM Moneywatch. "There's heightened expectations that the Fed is going to go 50, and so people should be short the short end of the market." Next week's economic data are going to be very important in terms of that debate. Productivity and unit labor costs figures are released Thursday, followed by the Friday release of the employment report. Productivity is expected to rise 4.1%, according to market estimates, although Barclays Capital economists are expecting only a 2.5% increase. Economists are expecting an increase of 340,000 in new nonfarm payrolls in April, according to figures compiled by Barclays Capital. The unemployment rate is expected to fall to 4%, although a 3.9% figure would probably raise an eyebrow at Fed headquarters. Average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.3% in April, according to Barclays. In addition, the Fed's Beige Book, an anecdotal summary of economic conditions around the country, is released Wednesday. Again, more evidence of inflation pressures would have its greatest impact on the short end of the curve. "I think two-year notes are priced at fair value considering a 6.5% fund rate, but it will come under pressure given signs of inflationary pressure," said Gemma Wright, director of market strategy at Barclays. "I wouldn't be surprised to see the two-year get back up to 6.80% to 6.90%." Today's economic data were mixed. Personal income rose 0.7% in March, after a 0.4% increase in February, while consumption rose just 0.5%, after a February increase of 1.4%, the Commerce Department said this morning. This is the first month that personal income rose more than spending since October. The Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index, an index of manufacturing sentiment in the Midwest, fell to 56.5 in April, from 57.4 in March. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 109.2 in April from 107.1 in March. The April figure was revised down from a preliminary estimate of 110.2. Currency and CommoditiesThe dollar rose against the yen and the euro. It lately was worth 108.16 yen, up from 106.40. The euro was worth $0.9089, down from $0.9098. For more on currencies, see TSC's Currencies column. Crude oil for June delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange rose to $25.70 a barrel from $25.42. The Bridge Commodity Research Bureau Index rose to 211.15 from 211.10. Gold for June delivery at the Comex fell to $274.8 an ounce from $278.40 yesterday. ______________________________________________________________________ Join TSC reporter Roland Jones for a chat with Robert Shiller, author of Rational Exuberance. Shiller, a Yale economist, believes that the market is overvalued and that investors should consider looking beyond stocks as a way to diversify and hedge against an inevitable downturn. Register to chat at ABCNews.com. 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