Boring Portfolio Report
Tuesday, June 3, 1997
by Greg Markus (TMF
Boring)
BOSTON, Mass. (June 3, 1997) -- The Dow managed to post a 23 point gain Tuesday (+0.31%), but the S&P 500 finished down fractionally and the Nasdaq tumbled 1.42%, hit by across-the-board weakness in technology stocks.
The Boring Portfolio lost a third of a percentage point, despite winning issues outnumbering losers five to three, with PRIME MEDICAL SERVICES (Nasdaq: PMSI) unchanged. A somewhat abbreviated Borefolio recap comes to you tonight courtesy of a delayed flight into Logan Airport and typical Boston rush-hour traffic.
Shares of CISCO SYSTEMS (Nasdaq: CSCO) fell along with other networking stocks after CABLETRON SYSTEMS (NYS: CS) warned last night that their second quarter results would not meet analysts' expectations. Sluggish sales in Europe, weakening demand for some of Cabletron's older product lines, and production delays associated with some newer products all hurt Cabletron.
What's interesting (to me, anyway) is not that CISCO SYSTEMS (Nasdaq: CSCO) dropped on the news, but that it dropped only 4.5% (-$3 1/16). For its part, Cabletron fell $15 1/2, losing more than a third of its market capitalization in a matter of minutes.
An analyst at J.P. Morgan observed that Cabletron's problems may well be company-specific, since Cisco and ASCEND COMMUNICATIONS (Nasdaq: ASND) are enjoying increasing demand for their products. The specter of weak sales in Europe continues to haunt networking stocks and those of related companies -- such as our ORACLE CORP (Nasdaq: ORCL), for example. Oracle slipped $2 7/16 despite First Albany's upgrade of the stock to "strong buy" from "buy."
Cisco turned up the heat on its competitors today by announcing the availability of Cisco AccessPath, its first carrier-class dial access system. The system is intended for Internet service provider Point of Presence (POP) and large enterprise customer.
I haven't had time to study the specs carefully, but AccessPath appears to be a fully configured, big-league "POP in a box," complete with a high-speed router and interconnect system that, according to the press release, sports a switching capacity of up to 3.6 Gbps and can be configured to connect more than 700 ports simultaneously. All system components are integrated in a self-contained rack cabinet complete with cabling, a rack component patch panel, and a comprehensive network management system.
Price?
A mere $133,000. Get two.
On the upside, ATLAS AIR (Nasdaq: ATLS) ascended $1/4, and BORDERS GROUP (NYSE: BGP) booked a $5/8 gain, to hit an all-time high of $23 5/8.
OXFORD HEALTH PLANS (Nasdaq: OXHP) also hit a new high, gaining $3/16 to close at $72 9/16. A story in today's Wall Street Journal reported that HMOs might fare better than had been anticipated under a Medicare spending plan being worked out between Republican Congressional leadership and the Clinton White House.
The compromise plan would trim Medicare payments to healthcare providers who covered Medicare recipients, particularly in urban area -- such as Oxford's key markets. On the other hand, the government would step up efforts to move seniors off fee-for-service coverage and into managed care plans.
On balance, this could well redound to the advantage of Oxford, which has strong internal cost control in place in order to bolster profit margin and ample capacity to serve new Medicare customers.
Oh, yeah: GREEN TREE FINANCIAL (NYSE: GNT) continues to bloom, helped by moderating interest rates.
That's it from the banks of the Charles.
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Stock Change Bid ATLS + 1/4 28.63 BGP + 5/8 23.63 CSL - 1/8 30.38 CSCO -3 1/16 64.69 GNT + 1/4 35.88 ORCL -2 7/16 46.50 OXHP + 3/16 72.56 PMSI --- 11.38 TDW + 1/8 44.25
Day Month Year History
BORING -0.33% 1.83% 7.99% 24.26%
S&P: -0.10% -0.33% 14.14% 36.01%
NASDAQ: -1.42% -1.10% 7.27% 33.04%
Rec'd # Security In At Now Change
2/28/96 400 Borders Gr 11.26 23.63 109.88%
5/24/96 100 Oxford Hea 48.02 72.56 51.09%
3/5/97 150 Atlas Air 23.06 28.63 24.14%
6/26/96 100 Cisco Syst 53.90 64.69 20.01%
2/2/96 200 Green Tree 30.39 35.88 18.06%
8/13/96 200 Carlisle C 26.32 30.38 15.38%
3/8/96 400 Prime Medi 10.07 11.38 12.97%
11/21/96 100 Oracle Cor 48.65 46.50 -4.42%
12/23/96 100 Tidewater 46.52 44.25 -4.89%
Rec'd # Security In At Value Change
2/28/96 400 Borders Gr 4502.49 9450.00 $4947.51
5/24/96 100 Oxford Hea 4802.49 7256.25 $2453.76
2/2/96 200 Green Tree 6077.49 7175.00 $1097.51
6/26/96 100 Cisco Syst 5389.99 6468.75 $1078.76
3/5/97 150 Atlas Air 3458.74 4293.75 $835.01
8/13/96 200 Carlisle C 5264.99 6075.00 $810.01
3/8/96 400 Prime Medi 4027.49 4550.00 $522.51
11/21/96 100 Oracle Cor 4864.99 4650.00 -$214.99
12/23/96 100 Tidewater 4652.49 4425.00 -$227.49
CASH $7788.54
TOTAL $62132.29
