Subject: [NEXTEL-1] BY THE NUMBERS-Skating on the River Styx

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 13:41:51 -0500

BY THE NUMBERS
Skating on the River Styx
By Duff Mcdonald
December 31, 2002

In an email to subscribers in early November, the investment research firm ChangeWave
Research named the many semiconductor companies that had either warned of
softening demand or announced new cuts in capital expenditures in October--including
Chartered Semiconductor, Cymer, Intel, Motorola, and Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing (Nasdaq: CHRT, CYMI, INTC; NYSE: MOT, TSM). But investors, in a fit
of disbelief, somehow found that news reason to push semiconductor stocks up 21
percent. The ChangeWave folks suggest that we watch for falling anvils. We're too
busy marveling at the fact that hell has actually frozen over.

Apparently uninterested in history's fondness for October market crashes, investors
bid the MSCI-Red Herring Index up 18.8 percent, trouncing the major indexes. Seven of
our constituent industries gained more than 20 percent.

Investors may not be entirely out of their minds. As analysts' earnings estimates have
finally started to come down to earth for the remainder of 2002 and for 2003, we hope the
market has begun to find firmer footing than it had when forecasts were still out of
whack.

Some industries are even approaching their long-awaited shakeouts. Take wireless
telecom services: in the third quarter, AT&T Wireless, Nextel Communications, and
Verizon Wireless posted unexpectedly strong results (NYSE: AWE; Nasdaq: NXTL).
The industry's much-discussed consolidation should take shape in the months ahead.

But back to things we can only hope to understand. Four of our five top performers are
makers of telecom equipment (see 'Hotter than hades')--even as the industry defies
predictions that it couldn't get any worse. But it can, and it probably will. Watch out
for
those anvils.

http://www.herring.com/mag/issue120/5403.html

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