|
Stock picks by the pros
|
 |
March 20, 2000: 1:05 p.m. ET
Juniper Networks, JDS Uniphase, Namibian Minerals among selections
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Money managers' and analysts' quest for winning companies yielded several names Monday from the technology and oil services areas. Consumer services companies also won praise.
Here are some comments on the stocks that recent guests on CNNfn are buying - and why:
"This has been a Benny Goodman-type market," said Alan Ackerman, market strategist, Fahnestock & Co., "lots of swing, and it's very, very difficult to get a handle on long-term positioning when the market is moving up and down so rapidly."
 "I'm picking individual stocks, little of each, one in column A, one in column B," said Ackerman. "We can talk about it this way: EMC (EMC: Research, Estimates) is a core holding; General Electric (GE: Research, Estimates) is a core holding. On the more exciting side, where there is growth, an investor can play the energy crisis -- Global Marine (GLM: Research, Estimates) could be one to look at here. I think Global Marine's earnings estimates have recently been raised, and they are drilling off West Africa with good results."
"For a very, very long shot, highly speculative, I have a large position myself in a company called Namibian Minerals (NMCOF: Research, Estimates)," Ackerman warned. "It's a company that I think is James Bond-like in the sense that they use an underwater technology, which is patented, to bring diamonds up from the ocean bed floor, and they've done it so successfully that, in their first full year of mining operations, they earned 43 cents (a share). I think they'll be bigger than DeBeers over the next few years."
"I think the earnings projections are still stronger for the technology area as opposed to, let's say, the consumer products group," said Donald Selkin, chief investment strategist, Joseph Gunnar. However, that said, Selkin does have at least one favorite among stocks that might be labeled "old economy" by market stalwarts.
"I like General Electric (GE: Research, Estimates)," Selkin said. "It's splitting next month, 3-for-1. Most of their earnings come from GE Capital. And I think the market is looking much more favorably toward financial stocks in general, and that's why GE kind of turned around last week and did make a nice gain."
 Another Selkin pick is tech stock Texas Instruments. (TXN: Research, Estimates). "Texas Instruments is a tremendous stock within the strongest group of all, the semiconductors," he said. "The semiconductor index actually hit a new high on Friday. Intel (INTC: Research, Estimates), Micron Technology (MU: Research, Estimates) went up. Texas Instruments should earn about $2.35 this year, and around 53 cents this quarter. Their DSPs, digital signal processors, are really speeding up the chip business as well."
 Selkin's last pick is Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates). "As the Internet grows, and B2B (business-to-business) commerce grows, Sun Microsystems should benefit because the Java is the programming language of the Internet," he said.
 "The momentum players are still hopping onboard, and they're playing the revenue growth, not necessarily earnings growth game," said John Eade, director of equity research, Argus Research. "But that's working out really well for companies like Juniper Networks (JNPR: Research, Estimates) and JDS Uniphase (JDSU: Research, Estimates). Over the long term, you should allocate your technology holdings among semiconductors, communication equipment companies and among computer server companies, because those are where the long-term technology trends are holding."
"For companies like Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates) and EMC (EMC: Research, Estimates), despite their tremendous runs, they are also anticipating future shifts in computing trends," Eade said. "And they'll be in position when those shifts occur."
 "Despite the rise in oil prices, some of the oil stocks haven't done so well," Eade added. "One we like is Unocal (UCL: Research, Estimates). It's trading at only 19 times next year's earnings, which we think may well double. We've
spoken with management. They're getting some new finds. We think Unocal is a great opportunity here. We've got a target in the mid-30s for this company."
'Pros' bonus: Hear John Eade, director of equity research, Argus Research, on financials. Select: [194 KB WAV] or [194KB AIFF]
 David Menlow, president, IPOfinancial.com, discussed IPOs slated to hit the market soon. Menlow selected biosciences firm Aclara as his first pick, saying "This is a wonderful situation in a market that has really got the jitters right now. It is coming out of Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. This stock has already had a price bump of 13-15 to 16-18. Were it not for that, we would be a little bit edgy over the entire biotech sector. And Johnson & Johnson has bought a piece of the company already."
Menlow's second stock is Blaze Software. "Blaze is a really outstanding situation," he said. "They are personalizing everything used for online information retrieval that can be updated by the customer rather than by computer. People have already put this system in place. The company is coming in through Robertson Stephens. It's just an incredible story."
The views presented here are solely those of the analysts quoted. They do not represent the opinions of CNNfn on whether to buy or sell shares of a particular stock. 
--Compiled by Tatiana D. Helenius
|
|
|
|
|
|
Track your stocks
|
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNNmoney
|
|
|
|
 |
|
