Ned Riley
Ned Riley
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The worst point of the tech cycle is probably upon us now, but the actual results and the commentary on earnings are no surprise. There's a selling exhaustion in regards to tech stocks. People are trying to focus on the road ahead. Looking forward; there is a lot of upside potential.
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We're looking at a company that's going to grow, I think, at about 14 percent over the next several years with, I might add, a lot of predictability and I think a lot of visibility and a high level of confidence, ... So with Merck at 31 times earnings now and down about 20 percent from its high, I think we're getting into an opportunity where it's a lot better than trying to buy a cyclical that's selling at 27 times earnings and where the visibility is a lot more questionable.
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I do think he's trying to pull a leadership role here a little more than being the economist, and that leadership is trying to get people upbeat.
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The Dow seems to be lifted because people are trying to resurrect the old growth stocks and giving them another try as a safe place to hide. The perception is that some of these companies are not currency- or energy-dependent enough for earnings to get hurt.
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What's going to be key over the next week and determine how stocks perform is the interplay of pre-announcements versus brokerage upgrades. The corporate news will become more relevant than the economic news as we get closer to the period of quarterly reporting.
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The rocky road to recovery has some potholes.
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These companies are boxed in by poor past forecasts and lack of visibility.
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These companies are actually growing, ... The whole group is growing somewhere between 10 and 13 percent relative earnings growth and the price-earnings ratios are about 13 to 14 times. It's one of the few groups out there that are actually selling at their growth rate in terms of price-earnings ratio. And, right now, it's strange -- people don't like the group. It isn't a hot group.
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The smartest thing a company can do is take anything that they think might be questionable and disclose it now,
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Things like Dell Computer or Microsoft or Cisco Systems, all have one characteristic: They have enough cash to go through a period like this and come out smelling like roses,
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Enron is providing the counterforce right now. It's undermining a number of industries such as utilities, banks, insurance and energy companies.
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Fears about the next scandal seem to have eased. It's not very exciting, but it's a period where a lack of news is almost good.
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There was a combination of things that really depressed it. One was Hewlett-Packard's shortfall and we had a sympathetic sell-off using the political environment as a backdrop. Ironically, IBM remained the stalwart and it probably gave the notion of stability to the tech sector and we saw some people looking for bargains.
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There's skepticism out there. Companies are extremely cautious about giving a decent outlook. They've set a much lower level of expectation for the public and the analysts out there.