Overheard On The Street
Here’s what they’re saying at mid-day:
John Roque, Vice President, Arnhold and
S. Bleichroeder: “We’ve heard, as you have too, the mantra since Cisco
peaked at 82 in March 2000. It goes something like ‘so what if it’s expensive?
It’s a great company. It’s got great products. It’s a household name with a
visionary chief executive. It’s the leader in its field. You’ve got to own it
because it’s a huge component of the benchmark and if it rallies, you risk
getting left behind.’ While all of this may be true, then why has this stock
been and continued to be a disappointment? Support at the 30 level where the
200-week moving average comes into play should provide some relief for
Cisco holders and tech bulls. But it does have risk to the 20 area.”
Edward Wedbush, President, Wedbush Morgan
Securities: “The earnings releases and the guidance for the coming quarters
for the last two or three weeks has been very troublsome and punishing. Cisco’s
comments yesterday sort of crowned that, and now it’s made a new recent low
here, so that part of the market looks like it still is going to have to bear
some bad weather going forward. But I would have to say that looking at some of
these technology stocks that are down from $100 or more to five, 10 or 15
dollars, I would take a good look at some of them. If they have decent balance
sheets and can get their cash flows positive, then they are currently under-priced.
“The broader market or Dow Jones Industrial market has actually behaving
very very well. It’s very close again to 11,000. To me it seems there’s even
possibly some over-valuation and therefore some vulnerability. Looking out over
a few weeks, I would be inclined to buy some of those technology stocks that are
down and maybe stay away from the valuations at this level of the industrial
stocks.”