We believe Yahoo! is 'priced to perfection,' and that near-flawless quarters are required to support its multiple. |
We can see a relief rally lifting the stock for a day or two. |
We caution against extrapolating too much from this figure to any individual company's outlook. The 6.9% figure does not necessarily translate to the average payment increase a given MA plan ultimately receives. |
We continue to forecast a 35-40 percent decline in 2001 semiconductor capital spending. |
We continue to take a cautious stance on the specialty retail sector and expect group performance will be inconsistent in the near term, reflecting tough fourth-quarter comparisons and uncertainty about consumer spending. |
We expect group's performance to continue to be volatile as concerns about a promotional and lackluster holiday season remain the near-term focus. |
We expect Nokia device gross margin to stabilize resulting from the transition to lower-cost entry-level phones and a much stronger mid-range and high-end portfolio. |
We get the sense that this was really a personal decision made by Mr. Nelson and that he was not pushed out by the company. |
We met with BT's management yesterday and we did discuss the possibility of a break up. He thought the financial engineering could work but he thought long term separating BT Wholesale from BT Retail would destroy value. |
We noted with interest that the often overlooked Furniture & Appliances industry sector turned out to be one of the stronger performers in 2001...based on market capitalization, Furniture & Appliances ranks 11th out of the universe of 78 industry groups with a 28.7 percent one year return. |
We remain bullish on gold over the medium to long term and believe that the arguments for gold outweigh the arguments against. |
We remain cognizant of the fact that in an industry which is currently operating at full capacity to meet demand, any significant curtailment of production would be difficult to make up. |
We think the bigger story for the second half of the year will be a significant rotation into the more defensive sectors of the stock market, and that these sectors become consensus favorites by the end of the year. |
While retailing stocks may no longer lead the market, they should be carried along with it, assuming the stock market is higher at year-end as we expect. Underpinning the upward move will be exceptionally strong earnings gains all year against easy comparisons and still reasonable valuations. |
While we had not considered a private equity deal, there is no reason why, if the price were right, this should not be a legitimate option. |