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April 2, 2001 It was November of 1999 when I last listed the top tech stocks as rated by Buffettology. Here is a tabulation of how the ones I listed then have done in the bear market that ensued. Stock 1999 Est. 2001 Ticker Price 5yr RR Price Comments CPWR $31 47.6% $10 DELL $41 46.8% $24 CMGI $52 40.3% $2 Adjusted for 2:1 split IBM $94 39.9% $95 AMGN $45 36.3% $57 Adjusted for 2:1 split (top five as a group down 29%) ORCL $16 30.9% $15 Adjusted for two 2:1 splits ADBE $38 30.9% $34 Adjusted for 2:1 split SYMC $48 28.7% $41 CTXS $40 28.2% $20 Adjusted for 2:1 split VSIO $35 27.4% $48 Bought by Microsoft, Jan. 2000 CA $62 25.5% $27 INTU $33 25.3% $25 GTW $83 25.1% $16 MRK $76 24.2% $74 INTC $38 23.9% $26 Adjusted for 2:1 split MSFT $87 23.7% $56 BMY $78 22.5% $58 LU $76 22.5% $9 BGEN $74 18.3% $62 BMCS $69 17.6% $21 New symbol BMC ERTS $45 15.9% $53 Adjusted for 2:1 split PFE $35 14.4% $39 EMC $41 13.9% $29 Adjusted for 2:1 split SUNW $31 11.7% $15 Adjusted for two 2:1 splits NOVL $22 9.8% $5 (bottom five as a group down 48%) CPQ $21 7.6% $18 CSCO $42 -1.9% $15 Adjusted for 2:1 split AOL $78 -6.0% $37 Adjusted for 2:1 split, Merged with Time-Warner QCOM $90 -14.7% $52 Adjusted for 4:1 split EBAY $73 -26.3% $35 Adjusted for 2:1 split What a bloodbath! Of these 30 stocks, 25 went down, 4 went up, and one was acquired (at a premium) before the downturn. Of those in the top 5, I have no excuses for Dell and Compuware, but I should have excluded CMGI. CMGI is a holding company and includes profits from stock sales in its earnings, rather than operating numbers. This is legitimate accounting, but it's hard to use as a basis for financial projections, since these capital gains depend on how high the stock market is. Despite everything, the higher ranking stocks tended to do better (fell less) than the lower ranking ones. I've come up with some improvements on my implementation of Buffettology. In the past, I have used TTM (trailing 12 months) earnings as the basis for projections. If a company were to announce that things looks bad, and they expect a loss, it would not affect the trailing 12 month earnings, and you'd wind up projecting a profit into the future. This is obviously bad. I have found a web site earnings.com which provides consensus EPS estimates. They have numbers for the current fiscal year and the next fiscal year. I am switching to using these numbers in my Buffettology projections. Another improvement is my treatment of expected future P/E ratios. In the past, I have just taken the current PE and used it, but capping the ratio at 50. This makes for a rather sudden cutoff. Now I adjust it a third of the way to a PE of 15 (the long term average PE for all stocks), still capped at 50. This nudges those out-of-line PEs into more reasonable territory in a smoother way. The lowered PE estimates can cause some stocks to project out as losses as we don't expect them to continue to carry such a high PE five years from now. So with these three improvements, here is my new list of the top stocks for the coming year, by my Buffettology calculations. It's limited to American companies, mostly tech and biotech stocks, with positive and growing earnings. Ticker Price EPS1 EPS2 Div Book Fut Pri Divs Aft tax 5yr RR CHKP $46.88 $1.27 $1.76 $2.36 $267.24 $176.29 36.6% TSG $46.01 $2.37 $2.80 $6.08 $171.76 $100.60 26.1% TLAB $39.19 $2.07 $2.59 $6.44 $135.81 $77.30 24.3% ADBE $34.00 $1.26 $1.48 $0.05 $3.09 $116.48 $0.60 $66.35 24.2% IBM $94.66 $4.92 $5.54 $0.52 $11.69 $321.14 $5.74 $184.68 24.2% DELL $24.06 $0.83 $0.98 $2.18 $79.84 $44.62 23.3% ADSK $26.13 $2.19 $2.70 $0.24 $8.32 $81.18 $2.35 $45.47 22.3% CIEN $42.44 $0.74 $1.18 $3.20 $128.91 $69.17 21.3% PMTC $9.19 $0.38 $0.58 $1.86 $27.53 $14.67 21.0% AOL $37.17 $1.24 $1.25 $2.81 $111.27 $59.28 21.0% CDN $17.98 $0.83 $1.16 $3.73 $52.34 $27.49 20.4% EMC $29.31 $0.97 $1.28 $3.73 $82.44 $42.51 19.6% ALSI $30.25 $0.83 $1.03 $2.91 $81.27 $40.82 18.6% AMGN $57.00 $1.22 $1.47 $4.16 $144.77 $70.21 17.4% QLGC $20.50 $1.02 $1.36 $5.25 $52.01 $25.21 17.4% FDC $59.79 $2.47 $2.85 $0.08 $9.48 $144.85 $0.75 $68.50 16.5% CTXS $19.69 $0.75 $0.91 $3.16 $47.76 $22.45 16.4% GTW $15.96 $0.79 $1.36 $7.36 $38.26 $17.84 16.2% CPWR $9.91 $0.43 $0.68 $3.57 $22.17 $9.81 14.7% SBC $43.76 $2.48 $2.82 $1.01 $8.99 $86.53 $7.92 $39.05 13.6% JPM $44.60 $3.53 $4.33 $1.40 $21.17 $84.35 $10.62 $38.27 13.2% QCOM $51.50 $1.25 $1.62 $6.65 $106.29 $43.83 13.1% HWP $28.92 $1.58 $1.77 $0.32 $7.28 $57.47 $2.51 $24.37 13.0% CA $27.28 $1.57 $1.97 $0.08 $10.79 $54.91 $0.67 $22.51 12.8% TECH $25.50 $0.74 $0.90 $3.76 $51.79 $21.03 12.8% CRY $26.21 $0.54 $0.89 $4.69 $52.26 $20.84 12.4% WMT $50.64 $1.59 $1.80 $0.28 $6.54 $97.19 $2.33 $38.66 12.0% STT $91.94 $4.00 $4.59 $0.76 $20.17 $169.18 $5.99 $65.45 11.4% MSFT $55.81 $1.78 $1.96 $8.72 $105.38 $39.66 11.3% VRTY $21.06 $0.93 $1.20 $7.19 $39.24 $14.55 11.1% © Copyright 2001 by Richard Gillmann. All Rights Reserved. |