tech.rally

aaljawal

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24 سبتمبر 2001
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12:22 PM ET Nov 8, 2001 Latest Market Overview
Bambi Francisco's Net Stocks
Compelled to buy expensive tech

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- It's still early in the fourth quarter, but apparently it's time to jump in headfirst and ride the catalysts.

"In the last two weeks, the biggest fear I see in the market is the fear of being left behind," said Ian Link, who manages the Franklin Technology Fund. "Many tech managers are just under-weighted technology and they had to aggressively move in regardless of how expensive stocks are." Link's fund is down nearly 36 percent this year, despite a solid performance since Oct. 1.

"I'll be compelled to get into stocks that haven't run and have commensurately better outlooks over the next six months," he said.

Most comforting to Link and most investors has been the 10th Fed rate cut of this year. What's more, companies aren't sharing particularly bad news these days. It's early in the current quarter, so earnings pre-announcement season isn't a concern at the moment.

"What's driving these stocks is the lack of bad news more than a sudden onslaught of hope that the worse is almost over," added Link.

That appears to be the case at the Merrill Lynch Internet and Software conference this week in Monterey, Calif. "The tone from most of these companies is fairly similar to what we've been hearing in the September quarter and that is essentially that business has stabilized," said Bruce Lupatkin, a portfolio manager at North Bay Technology Partners, noting that attendance seemed relatively thin.
 

aaljawal

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التسجيل
24 سبتمبر 2001
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On deck at Merrill

On Thursday, Inktomi's (INKT, news, msgs) CEO David Peterschmidt, Ariba's (ARBA, news, msgs) CEO Bob Calderoni, and Check Point Software Technologies (CHKP, news, msgs) will be speaking to investors.

Inktomi's Peterschmidt is expected to address the company's strategy to tap enterprise customers, one of the most recent being Cuna Mutual. Inktomi's Peterschmidt is also expected to emphasize the company's goal to be profitable by the Sept. 2002 quarter. Inktomi was profitable on a pro forma basis in the first quarter of last year through the third quarter before it began losing money.



Inktomi gained 13 percent to $5.17 Thursday morning, after running up earlier in the week. It traded as low as $2.20 in late Sept. Also helping to bring investors back to Inktomi was its ability to raise money in a secondary offering. This appeased investor concern that the company did not have sufficient cash, said analysts.

Inktomi is just one of the many volatile stocks that have skyrocketed since September. Many are running up as investors are more open to hearing new announcements. Ariba traded at $1.42 on Sept. 27, now it trades at $4.60. Commerce One (CMRC, news, msgs) traded at $2.09 on Sept. 20, now it trades at $3.02. Both companies announced that they would support Microsoft's Supplier Enablement solutions earlier this week.

Akamai Technologies (AKAM, news, msgs) ran up 24 percent to $4.52 on Wednesday after the company announced that Terra Lycos has broadly deployed the Akamai EdgeSuite (SM) service as a key component of its global Web infrastructure - helping to provide top performance and reliability of dynamic content and on-demand capacity for its worldwide audience, according to a release. The stock traded at $2.52 on Sept. 17. If Akamai released this news in the summer, the action in the stock would have been far more muted, said Stephen Mahedy, an analyst at Salomon Smith Barney. "Investors may be thinking that more of the bad news is behind the stock than ahead of it."

Cisco Systems is a great example. Said Franklin's Link: "It's screaming that it's past the worse."
 
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