Boring Portfolio Report
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Dec. 10) -- Traders took advantage of Tuesday's "excessive
exuberance" to cash in some chips. Major market averages were up big-time
for much of the day only to sell off in the last hour. The Dow managed to
hang on to 9 of the 48 points it had gained in the morning, but the S&P
500 and the Nasdaq headed south faster than a sophomore on holiday break.
On the session, the S&P lost 0.30%, while the Naz dropped 0.28%. The
Nasdaq had been up the equivalent of 75 Dow points briefly, encouraged by
Monday night's upbeat semiconductor book-to-bill report.
The Boring portfolio pretty much slept in today, losing a grand total of
$20.37, or -0.03%. (A total of $80.63 in accumulated interest on the cash
reserves were added to the kitty today.)
Solectron, up $1 1/8 on good volume of 240,000 shares, led the Borefolio.
The company announced the opening of Solectron (Suzhou) Technology Co., Ltd.,
a wholly owned subsidiary in the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park,
Suzhou, China. (Suzhou is approximately 50 miles west of Shanghai.) According
to the press release, the Suzhou location will begin offering pre- to post-
manufacturing services to OEM customers by January 1997. The new facility
in China expands Solectron's presence to Northeast Asia and complements it
existing Southeast Asian plant, in Malaysia.
Oracle advanced $ 5/8, to move back into the black for the Borefolio. Although
there were various press releases mentioning Oracle today (it's a rare day
without at least one such story), it may be that Oracle's latest gain is
a function of rival Informix's loss as much as anything else.
Yesterday, at the Montgomery Securities Technology Conference in San Francisco,
Informix CFO Howard Graham said the company expects its new Universal Server
to bring in "more than a few percentage points of total" revenue next year.
(Wow, a whole "few percentage points," huh?) According to a Dow Jones story,
Graham followed up by saying that it's unclear just how fast the market for
the product will develop.
Today, Gruntal & Co. downgraded Informix to "long-term outperform" from
"outperform" (whatever that means). In a research report, Gruntal said the
downgrade reflects "a conservative approach to the first quarter," because
revenue from the Universal Server "may take some time to develop."
Wait a minute. I thought Informix's whole point in shoving its Universal
Server out the door last week was to give the company a 12 to 18 month lead
over Oracle. Now it appears that just about the time Informix has companies
warming up to the idea of sinking big bucks into the new technology, Oracle
will have wheeled out its own flavor.
The saga of dueling Universal Servers promises to be a Mitchener-sized
blockbuster, and we're barely into the intro chapter.
Speaking of new stuff, Cisco Systems announced two new products today. The
first is Micro Webserver, a $995 "network appliance" the company claims is
"ideal for small businesses, branch offices and large enterprises that want
to publish Web pages and share information" via the Internet or intranets.
The press release goes on to note that "when combined with other products
from Cisco such as its routers, LocalDirector and PIX Firewall, users have
a highly scalable solution to accommodate growing networks."
Hey, I can see a market for souped up dumb terminals for no-frills access
to websites. But that last part about combining the boxes with a zillion
bucks worth of routers, firewalls, et al. kinda loses me. Is this Cisco's
version of a "give 'em the blades and sell 'em the razors" marketing plan?
Wait! Cisco's got another idea for how to use its new network appliance:
"With the Cisco Micro Webserver, users can build 'mini' intranets for simple
information access. When used with a CD-ROM player, the Micro Webserver provides
access to corporate publications, product documentation and databases published
in HTML format. The Webserver interfaces with the Netscape or Microsoft Internet
Explorer browser and has a removable Iomega Zip Drive which provides 100
MB of data and application storage."
Something tells me some folks are gonna like that last part.
Cisco also announced the availability of Cisco IP/TV. This is a software
suite for real-time network video distribution over existing intranets and
the Internet. The software allows video and audio to run on existing IP
packet-switched networks, enabling live and programmed video and audio
communications for such things as distance learning, employee training, and
telemedicine.
Cisco IP/TV employs multicasting -- a form of information distribution that
conserves network resources while allowing an unlimited number of users to
view desired programs. With multicasting, only one real-time stream of data
for each program is transmitted by the network to users who have chosen to
"tune in," saving precious network bandwidth.
In Monday's recap, I mentioned that I found the way to San Jose this past
week-end. While there, I thought I'd mosey over to casa Cisco and see what
the place looked like.
Holy frijole! That place was huge -- an entire campus with a least a dozen
multistory office complexes and assembly facilities scattered amidst acres
of parking lots and greenspace. The whole setup easily as large as a major
university -- all dressed up with stainless steel Cisco logos and teal trim.
The neighbors were pretty impressive folks, too. Next door lived KLA Instruments,
in pretty fine digs of their own. Novellus's crib was equally sharp. Down
the road apiece was Fujitsu, and around the corner, Western Digital.
All in all, this was better than Epcot for Boring. Say, maybe we can rustle
up an official Motley Fool field trip to Silicon Valley?
Tuesday, December 10, 1996
Stock Change Bid
--------------------
BGP - 7/8 34.38
CSL - 1/4 59.13
CSCO - 3/8 67.25
GNT + 1/2 39.50
ORCL + 5/8 49.25
OXHP - 3/8 58.63
PMSI - 1/4 12.75
SLR +1 1/8 59.13
Day Month Year History
BORING -0.03% -0.01% 19.73% 19.73%
S&P 500 -0.30% -1.25% 20.26% 20.26%
NASDAQ -0.28% 1.54% 26.09% 26.09%
Rec'd # Security In At Now Change
2/28/96 200 Borders Gr 22.51 34.38 52.69%
2/2/96 200 Green Tree 30.39 39.50 29.99%
3/8/96 400 Prime Medi 10.07 12.75 26.63%
6/26/96 100 Cisco Syst 53.90 67.25 24.77%
5/24/96 100 Oxford Hea 48.02 58.63 22.07%
8/13/96 100 Carlisle C 52.65 59.13 12.30%
10/15/96 100 Solectron 54.52 59.13 8.44%
11/21/96 100 Oracle Cor 48.65 49.25 1.23%
Rec'd # Security In At Value Change
2/28/96 200 Borders Gr 4502.49 6875.00 $2372.51
2/2/96 200 Green Tree 6077.49 7900.00 $1822.51
6/26/96 100 Cisco Syst 5389.99 6725.00 $1335.01
3/8/96 400 Prime Medi 4027.49 5100.00 $1072.51
5/24/96 100 Oxford Hea 4802.49 5862.50 $1060.01
8/13/96 100 Carlisle C 5264.99 5912.50 $647.51
10/15/96 100 Solectron 5452.49 5912.50 $460.01
11/21/96 100 Oracle Cor 4864.99 4925.00 $60.01
CASH $10651.57
TOTAL $59864.07