HEROES

ASYST TECHNOLOGIES <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: ASYT)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: ASYT)") end if %> rose $6 1/8 to $35 after reporting better than expected quarterly results yesterday. The turnaround at the manufacturer of Standard Mechanical InterFace (SMIF) minienvironments for the semiconductor industry has apparently made it safe for new analysts to go into the water, as Montgomery Securities initiated coverage on the company today with a "buy" recommendation. Asyst's stock has been in the doghouse for more than a year after the company had to write down a significant amount of its accounts receivable balance. The shares have increased almost 30% in the past two trading sessions and still are only valued on par with similar companies on a price-to-sales basis. For more details, check out today's Lunchtime News.

U.S. OFFICE PRODUCTS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: OFIS)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: OFIS)") end if %> is acquiring MAIL BOXES ETC. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: MAIL)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: MAIL)") end if %> in a stock swap valued at $256.4 million. U.S. Office Products has built itself into a nationwide purveyor of office supplies by acquiring regional players dominant in their home markets. But since each regional company maintains its own local identity, the company lacked a single nationwide brand. With the acquisition of Mail Boxes Etc., U.S. Office Products Chief Executive Jonathan Ledecky can push office supplies to small businesses from each and every Mail Boxes Etc. location in the United States. Since Mail Boxes Etc. franchises all of its units, investors should not pay attention to the $65 million it generated in revenues over the past year but rather to the more than $1 billion in systemwide sales that all of its units generated to get a sense of why U.S. Office Products is paying as much as it is for the company. Mail Boxes Etc. was up $3 to $22 5/8 today, while U.S. Office Products slipped $7/8 to $23 5/8. A replay of the merger conference call is available at 1-888-364-8748 until midnight tomorrow.

Shares of MOSCOM CORP. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: MSCM)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: MSCM)") end if %> jumped $1 1/8 to $4 1/8 after Chairman and Chief Executive Albert Montevecchio announced his resignation. The troubled telecommunications billing and voice processing company will now be run by David Mazzella, an executive just hired by the company in March. Investors are giving the change in the corporate boardroom a resounding thumbs up, indicating that many viewed Montevecchio as the company's problem, not part of the solution. The decision is particularly painful because Montevecchio founded Moscom in 1983 and has grown the business for more than 13 years now. Moscom makes call accounting products that allow businesses to track telephone usage, numbers called, time, duration and cost of each call. The system can also detect when the phone is being used too much or if someone from outside the company has tapped into the long-distance lines. Sales have dropped substantially this year.

CHARTER ONE FINANCIAL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: COFI)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: COFI)") end if %> announced the purchase of RCSB FINANCIAL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: RCSB)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: RCSB)") end if %> in a one-for-one stock swap this morning. Shares of Rochester, New York-based RCSB rose $6 1/4 to $40 1/4 on the news. RCSB bills itself as a financial services company, offering checking and savings accounts along with other bank-like products. The move into New York follows a move into the Midwest for Charter One, which is trying to become more than Ohio's biggest thrift these days, instead growing into a regional power around the periphery of the Great Lakes. FNB ROCHESTER <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: FNBR)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: FNBR)") end if %> rose $1 5/8 to $14 5/8 after its neighbor RCSB Financial was grabbed, while another upstate New York bank, PROGRESSIVE BANK <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: PSBK)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: PSBK)") end if %>, was up $1 3/4 to $26.

QUICK TAKES: CHAPARRAL STEEL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: CSM)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: CSM)") end if %> rose $2 to $14 7/8 after TEXAS INDUSTRIES <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: TXI)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: TXI)") end if %> offered to buy the 15% of Chaparral it does not already own ... GENUS INC. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: GGNS)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: GGNS)") end if %> rose $15/16 to $5 15/16 after newsletter writer Michael Murphy said nice things about the company yesterday on CNBC... Shoe manufacturer GENESCO <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: GCO)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: GCO)") end if %> rose $1 5/8 to $13 1/2 after reporting earnings 100% above estimates... LCI INTERNATIONAL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: LCI)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: LCI)") end if %> rose $1 5/8 to $22 1/4 after it was announced that it would join the S&P MidCap 400... Investment banker and institutional brokerage DONALDSON, LUFKIN & JENRETTE <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: DLJ)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: DLJ)") end if %> jumped $3 to $48 5/8 on continuing merger speculation... Software developer CONSILIUM <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CSIM)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CSIM)") end if %> rose $1 1/16 to $4 5/8 on a brokerage recommendation from Hambrecht & Quist... VISIONEER <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: VSNR)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: VSNR)") end if %> rose $29/32 to $3 7/8 after Robertson Stephens upgraded it to "buy"... ACC CORP. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: ACCC)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: ACCC)") end if %> climbed $3 5/16 to $21 11/16 on a "buy" recommendation from Lehman Brothers.

GOATS

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment company CFM TECHNOLOGIES <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CFMT)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CFMT)") end if %> fell $7 7/8 to $29 1/2 after the developer of wafer cleaning systems reported second quarter earnings of $0.25 per share, in line with expectations. However, the company received no new flat panel display (FPD) orders in the quarter and semiconductor industry orders were up "marginally" from $11.5 million in the first quarter to $12.2 million. Orders for capital equipment tend to be "lumpy" by nature -- meaning they come in gobs or don't come at all -- but when orders dry up, many investors take it as a sign that something else is going on. For instance, when orders dropped off at AG ASSOCIATES <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: AGAI)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: AGAI)") end if %> last year, it meant that the company's next generation RTP machine was not selling, and its shares descended from 1995's high of $39 to its current perch at $5 and change.

WIND RIVER SYSTEMS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: WIND)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: WIND)") end if %> surprisingly dropped $2 3/4 to $32 1/2 after beating first quarter earnings estimates by more than 22%. The company provides real-time operating systems, integrated software development tools, and engineering for embedded applications. Comments in the conference call, available at (800) 633-8284 (reservation # 2748792, code: 2589), might help to explain not only Wind River's perplexing performance but also the $2 1/8 to $37 drop in shares of RADISYS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: RSYS)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: RSYS)") end if %>, which makes embedded applications as well as the hardware into which they are embedded.

U.S. SURGICAL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: USS)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: USS)") end if %> dropped $2 1/8 to $31 5/8 after JOHNSON & JOHNSON <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: JNJ)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: JNJ)") end if %> announced it was acquiring BIOPSYS MEDICAL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: BIOP)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: BIOP)") end if %>. Biopsys makes a minimally invasive breast biospy device called Mammotome that competes directly with U.S. Surgical's Advanced Breast Biopsy Instrumentation (ABBI). Both products have received a lot of attention because they are less costly and better for the patient than a traditional breast biopsy, which requires surgery due to the vascular nature of breast tissue. Investors appear to be concerned that Johnson & Johnson's marketing clout could cut into U.S. Surgical's sales, although there could be plenty of room for both companies since the cost-savings and benefit to the patient of non-surgical biopsies are enormous. Biopsys was up $15/16 to $26 11/16.

QUICK CUTS: ANALOG DEVICES <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: ADI)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: ADI)") end if %> dropped $2 1/4 to $25 5/8 on reports that UBS Securities cut earnings estimates... CREDENCE SYSTEMS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CMOS)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: CMOS)") end if %> fell $1 5/8 to $25 5/8 and SUMMIT DESIGN <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: SMMT)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: SMMT)") end if %> slumped $1 1/8 to $8 1/8 on no news, though the companies announced a transaction two days ago... DATA RACE <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: RACE)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: RACE)") end if %> dropped $1 7/16 to $12 3/8 on a downgrade from Southcoast Capital due to slower than expected product introductions... ACTIVE APPAREL GROUP <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: AAGP)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: AAGP)") end if %> continues to drop, falling $1 1/8 to $7 1/2 on no news ... CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: COF)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: COF)") end if %> dropped $1 7/8 to $31 3/8 after Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette lowered its rating on the credit card issuer to "buy" from "recommended list buy."

FOOL ON THE HILL
An Investment Opinion by Randy Befumo

Losing Your Chains

Why invest? Although plenty of people think quite a bit about the hows and wherefores of investing, not a lot of people ask why. In the millions of pages that have been devoted to outlining how to invest, very little attention has been paid to the why.

The reason for investing is intuitively obvious -- to make money. If pressed, people might come up with other rationales, including to have fun, to exercise one's analytical prowess, or to ensure that some projected large expense can be funded. To many, investing mony boils down to either a civilized form of greed or intellectual self-gratification. Lots of people have philosophies on how to invest; very few people have actually worked on the philosophy behind investing.

The practice of investing has always lacked an ethical center in the popular mind. Since no thinker has ever believed that thinking investing through would provide very much satisfaction, no one has ever really bothered. Seldom do philosophers and ethicists look rigorously at investing, unless it involves their own portfolios, late at night, when nobody else is watching.

Certainly the general taboo about making money and the complete lack of any general knowledge of business contribute to this problem. Most children can go through elementary school, middle school, high school and college without ever hearing the word "business" or "money," although almost the only thing you could guarantee to those children is that some day their lives will become intricately entwined in both. Simply put, we believe that business and money, as well as their offspring investing, have no redeeming value and are only sidelines in the great game of meaning.

We live in a world where the vast majority of adults are forced to sell their time by the hour every single day in order to survive. Tragically, the time that they sell is a limited quantity and they cannot repurchase it once the transaction is complete.

Not a lot has changed since Karl Marx first made this observation in the 19th century in a now repudiated work called the Communist Manifesto, except that the world has seen that communism is not the solution to this problem. The workers of the world still are in chains, only these chains are subtler, with the manacles bearing the inscription "9 to 5."

This late, bourgeois age has become consumed with the flow of capital. Capital pervades every aspect of our lives, whether as workers, consumers or owners. Unfortunately, the pursuit of capital has been relegated to a survival function, having no greater moral value than going to the bathroom or sleeping. This means that the activity that forms the core of most peoples lives -- work and the pursuit of money in order to survive -- has no redeeming value.

We now go to work to pay the bills and go home to do the things that really matter to us. The bleak world that Marx predicted where work and meaning were rent asunder by the increasing specialization of the factory floor has come to pass, even as his wild-eyed scheme to avoid it has been proven bankrupt. The majority of Americans sell their time, and given their savings and investing patterns, will be selling it a lot longer their parents did.

The 1940s through the 1970s were the Golden Age of freedom for Americans who had to sell their time. Between government-sponsored social security and the widespread benefit of pensions won by unions in the early part of the century, most people could look forward to owning all of their time as they neared the end of their lives. As defined-benefit pension plans have become extinct and the value of social security has eroded, people now do not have any of that to anticipate. Unless they take appropriate action, they will continue to sell the majority of their waking time to an employer, perhaps even up to their death.

Imagine for a moment that investing could be something other than just an extension of this capitalist drama. Investing is the highest form of capitalism -- the actual purchase of businesses that generate capital. Through the mechanism of capital markets, radically free and open to anyone to participate in, where returns in the end are decided by your intelligence and your patience, not the color of your skin nor the holy book you worship, people can escape having to sell their time.

The creation of wealth through investing allows for freedom -- the same freedom that pensioners now enjoy, as many re-enter the community full-time to participate in a variety of good works, ranging from spending time with grandkids to donating time to charity. Investing is the practice of attaining human freedom through the intelligent allocation of capital. In the end, you invest in order to become free, to regain your time, to do the things you believe hold meaning, to avoid frittering away most of your time selling it to an employer that is devoid of any moral significance.

CONFERENCE CALLS

HEWLETT PACKARD <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: HWP)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: HWP)") end if %>
(303) 446-5399 (reservation # 2554014) -- replay through 5/22

COMPUTER ASSOCIATES <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: CA)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: CA)") end if %>
(888) 243-0816 (code: 3276) -- replay available after 6:30 PM EDT for 48 hours

APPLIED MATERIALS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: AMAT)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: AMAT)") end if %>
(800) 642-1687 (code: 353749) -- replay

INTERNATIONAL RECTIFIER <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: IRF)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: IRF)") end if %>
(Re: Restructuring)
(800) 633-8284 (reservation # 2765732) -- replay

HOME DEPOT <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: HD)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: HD)") end if %>
(402) 220-3005 -- replay after 12:00 noon until 5/23

DAYTON HUDSON CORP. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: DH)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: DH)") end if %>
(800) 633-8284 (reservation # 2703946) -- replay from 12:30-5:00 p.m. EDT

ROSS STORES INC. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: ROST)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: ROST)") end if %>
(402) 220-1007 -- replay available from 5:00 p.m. EDT through 5/27 @ 8:00 p.m. EDT

05/22/97 (Thursday)
WIND RIVER SYSTEMS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: WIND)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: WIND)") end if %>
(800) 633-8284 (reservation # 2748792, code: 2589) -- replay
(303) 248-1201 (reservation # 2748792, code: 2589) -- replay (Intl. callers)

THIS WEEK'S CONFERENCE CALL SYNOPSES

HEWLETT-PACKARD <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: HWP)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: HWP)") end if %> Q2 Call
STAPLES INC. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: SPLS)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: SPLS)") end if %> Q1 Call
HADCO CORP. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: HDCO)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: HDCO)") end if %> Q2 Call
PAPA JOHN'S INT'L <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: PZZA)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: PZZA)") end if %> Q1 Call
APPLEBEE'S <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: APPB)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: APPB)") end if %> Q1 Call
DELL COMPUTER <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: DELL)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: DELL)") end if %> Q1 Call
FAMILY GOLF CENTERS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: FGCI)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: FGCI)") end if %> Q1 Call
HOME DEPOT <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: HD)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: HD)") end if %> Q1 Call
URBAN OUTFITTERS <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: URBN)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: URBN)") end if %> Q1 Call