Verizon wireless - Red Chinese Shun LUcifer

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Red Chinese Shun LUcifer

jgrove24@hotmail.com

2006-07-12, 10:33 pm

NEW YORK - Lucent Technologies said Monday that its revenue for the
quarter that ended in June will be about $300 million less than Wall
Street expected, with earnings per share also lagging estimates, as the
maker of telecommunications gear was hurt by weak sales in the U.S. and
China.

Shares of Lucent fell more than 3 percent in after-hours trading after
the announcement.

Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent, which has agreed to be acquired by the
giant French equipment maker Alcatel SA for $13.45 billion, said in a
statement that sales for its fiscal third quarter totaled $2.04
billion. That's well short of the $2.34 billion average estimate of
analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call and 13 percent lower than its
sales in the same period a year ago.

Steve Sobol

2006-07-12, 10:33 pm

jgrove24@hotmail.com

2006-07-14, 10:33 pm

jgrove24@hotmail.com wrote:
> NEW YORK - Lucent Technologies said Monday that its revenue for the
> quarter that ended in June will be about $300 million less than Wall
> Street expected, with earnings per share also lagging estimates, as the
> maker of telecommunications gear was hurt by weak sales in the U.S. and
> China.

The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

By Colin Barr
Companies Editor
7/14/2006 7:23 AM EDT

1. Lightheaded at Lucent

The lightweights at Lucent (LU - commentary - Cramer's Take) have
stumbled again.

The Murray Hill, N.J., telecom-equipment maker warned late Monday of
its latest disappointing quarter. Citing a slowdown in U.S.
wireless-gear sales, Lucent said it expects fiscal third-quarter
revenue to fall 13% short of Wall Street estimates. The poor showing
sent Lucent down 6% Tuesday, while merger partner Alcatel (ALA -
commentary - Cramer's Take) tumbled 5%.

"During the third quarter, our North American mobility business was
adversely impacted by a slowdown in spending on some of our
current-generation wireless solutions," said CEO Patricia Russo, who is
slated to lead the merged company, in a statement.

Adverse impacts are nothing new at Lucent. Russo was claiming last
November that the growth-starved company would post a 5% sales gain for
fiscal 2006. But just two months later, Lucent unveiled a huge
first-quarter shortfall and backed away from the annual growth talk.
Then in April, Lucent changed its mind again, saying it actually
expected sales for the year to fall. At that point, the company finally
ended its longstanding charade of providing annual guidance and then
repeatedly changing it. Still, Lucent is off 29% since the merger
announcement.

And if Russo has learned anything from the repeated pratfalls, you sure
can't tell from her comments Monday.
"From [research and development] to sales, from product development to
marketing, from finance to talent development," she gushes in a
post-close merger update, "we are committed to being a role-model
company for the 21st century."

Yes, CEOs everywhere are just dying to emulate these stooges.

Dumb-o-Meter score: 95. "This merger will create a world-class team
that will deliver the best of both companies to customers around the
world," Russo adds, as if anyone wants that.

jgrove24@hotmail.com

2006-07-19, 10:33 pm

Baby Boomers a Fraud Target
A study shows that even the financially literate in the aging group
fall for investment scams.
By Jonathan Peterson, Times Staff Writer
July 18, 2006

WASHINGTON - The aging of the baby boom generation looms as a
windfall for con artists who have become increasingly skillful at
duping people out of their life savings, securities regulators warned
Monday.
Moreover, such scams have proved especially effective against people
with above-average levels of financial sophistication, according to a
new report.
That finding raises questions about the sort of message to consumers
that would be most useful in combating such schemes.

"Protecting seniors from investment scams is one of the most important
issues of our time," Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Christopher Cox said at the agency's Seniors Summit, an event held to
call attention to fraud threats.
The issue will be further complicated, he said, by the fact that future
retirees may be less conservative in their approach to investing than
older people have been in the past. Greater longevity and rising
healthcare costs, for example, will increase the cost of retirement,
potentially making people more susceptible to sales pitches that hold
out the promise of boosting wealth.
"While they're living longer, people's retirement plans haven't taken
that into account," Cox said. The retirement of 76 million baby boomers
- the oldest of whom are now 60 - and the financial pressures many
of the boomers will face could make for a "perfect storm" for
investment fraud, he said.

People over 60 represent 30% of financial fraud victims, the group
Consumer Action estimates. And the mountain of wealth controlled by
that age group is expected to balloon. Baby boomers now have $8.5
trillion in investable assets, a figure that could swell with trillions
of dollars in projected inheritances.
At Monday's summit, financial regulators listed a number of common
schemes that aim to defraud older investors, and also focused on the
psychological tricks and other forms of manipulation that con artists
use to persuade their victims.
In one typical fraud, criminals pose as charitable organizations
offering monthly annuity payments to investors who surrender their
savings.

In some cases, pitches may center on products that are legal but are
being sold in a misleading way, regulators said. That could include
investments that tie up older peoples' cash for many years, putting
them at risk of heavy redemption charges if they try to exit early.
..=2E...
Here are the most common investment scam techniques used by financial
fraud perpetrators, according to a report by the NASD Investor
Education Foundation. They are listed in the order of the frequency of
their appearances in undercover telephone transcripts involving
financial hustlers and their targets.

=B7 Phantom fixation: Offering the prospect of wealth and riches.

=B7 Scarcity: Making an investment offer seem rare to increase its
appeal.

=B7 Source credibility: The con artist claims to be from a known
business or other legitimate entity.

=B7 Comparison: Juxtaposing the offered price of the investment with a
higher-priced example.

=B7 Friendship: Appearing to be the victim's friend.

=B7 Commitment: The perpetrator tries to get the victim to make a
commitment early on, then uses that promise against him later.

=B7 Social consensus: The con man makes it seem like everyone is
buying his investment.

=B7 Reciprocity: The con artist will do a small favor for the victim,
thus putting pressure on the victim to reciprocate.

=B7 Landscaping: The con man structures the interaction between
himself and the victim so that all roads lead to where the perpetrator
wants the victim to go.

jgrove24@hotmail.com wrote:
> jgrove24@hotmail.com wrote:
>

>
> 1. Lightheaded at Lucent
>
>
> The lightweights at Lucent (LU - commentary - Cramer's Take) have
> stumbled again.
>
> The Murray Hill, N.J., telecom-equipment maker warned late Monday of
> its latest disappointing quarter. Citing a slowdown in U.S.
> wireless-gear sales, Lucent said it expects fiscal third-quarter
> revenue to fall 13% short of Wall Street estimates. The poor showing
> sent Lucent down 6% Tuesday, while merger partner Alcatel (ALA -
> commentary - Cramer's Take) tumbled 5%.
> "During the third quarter, our North American mobility business was
> adversely impacted by a slowdown in spending on some of our
> current-generation wireless solutions," said CEO Patricia Russo, who is
> slated to lead the merged company, in a statement.
> Adverse impacts are nothing new at Lucent. Russo was claiming last
> November that the growth-starved company would post a 5% sales gain for
> fiscal 2006. But just two months later, Lucent unveiled a huge
> first-quarter shortfall and backed away from the annual growth talk.
> Then in April, Lucent changed its mind again, saying it actually
> expected sales for the year to fall. At that point, the company finally
> ended its longstanding charade of providing annual guidance and then
> repeatedly changing it. Still, Lucent is off 29% since the merger
> announcement.
>
> And if Russo has learned anything from the repeated pratfalls, you sure
> can't tell from her comments Monday.
> "From [research and development] to sales, from product development to
> marketing, from finance to talent development," she gushes in a
> post-close merger update, "we are committed to being a role-model
> company for the 21st century."
> Yes, CEOs everywhere are just dying to emulate these stooges.
>
> Dumb-o-Meter score: 95. "This merger will create a world-class team
> that will deliver the best of both companies to customers around the
> world," Russo adds, as if anyone wants that.

Jim Seymour

2006-07-20, 7:33 am

In article < e94coe$291$1@jamieba
illie.com>,
Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> writes:
& #91;snip]
>
> Hm. Posting offtopic crap again, J?
[snip]

Steve,

Why don't you just kill-file him?

--
Jim Seymour | "There is no expedient to which a man will not
jseymour@LinxNet.com | go to avoid the labor of thinking."
http://jimsun.LinxNet.com | - Thomas A. Edison

Steve Sobol

2006-07-20, 10:33 am

Jim Seymour wrote:
> In article < e94coe$291$1@jamieba
illie.com>,
> Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> writes:
> [snip]
> [snip]
>
> Steve,
>
> Why don't you just kill-file him?

a) I don't ever killfile anyone
b) I generally ignore him. I was just having a bad day when I posted that.

--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Apple Valley, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

jgrove24@hotmail.com

2006-07-25, 10:33 pm

jgrove24@hotmail.com wrote:
> NEW YORK - Lucent Technologies said Monday that its revenue for the
> quarter that ended in June will be about $300 million less than Wall
> Street expected, with earnings per share also lagging estimates, as the
> maker of telecommunications gear was hurt by weak sales in the U.S. and
> China.
>
> Shares of Lucent fell more than 3 percent in after-hours trading after
> the announcement.
>
> Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent, which has agreed to be acquired by the
> giant French equipment maker Alcatel SA for $13.45 billion, said in a
> statement that sales for its fiscal third quarter totaled $2.04
> billion. That's well short of the $2.34 billion average estimate of
> analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call and 13 percent lower than its
> sales in the same period a year ago.

Loopy Lucent Nags Nortel
But while 2006 could still be strong, midyear progress reports suggest
a slowdown is afoot.
Lucent's (LU - commentary - Cramer's Take) announcement Monday of a
sales shortfall highlighted investor worries. Lucent laid the blame for
its third-quarter weakness on a slump in U.S. wireless-gear demand.

The news provided further evidence that telcos are looking to trim
spending rather than exceed their budgets. Stocks across the wireless
infrastructure sector were hit by Lucent's latest warning. Top wireless
gearmaker Ericsson (ERICY - commentary - Cramer's Take) fell 3%, Nortel
(NT - commentary - Cramer's Take) dropped 1%, and Powerwave (PWAV -
commentary - Cramer's Take) was down 2% in midday trading Tuseday.
Lucent shares were down 4%, a fall likely moderated after the company
confirmed it is still on track with its buyout by Alcatel.

For the fiscal third quarter, Lucent says earnings will be 2 cents a
share, about half of what Wall Street was expecting. And revenue for
the quarter ended last month was about $2.04 billion, well shy of the
$2.34 billion consensus target.
After sorting through the results, analysts pointed to Cingular -- a
venture of AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take) and BellSouth (BLS -
commentary - Cramer's Take) -- and Verizon Wireless, co-owned by
Verizon (VZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Vodafone (VOD -
commentary - Cramer's Take), as the likely sources of the problem.

Cingular seems to be dragging its feet on things like budget approvals
to finance upgrade plans, writes Jefferies analyst George Notter in a
research note Tuesday. Cingular has about 18 major cities and
surrounding suburbs wired with its new universal
mobile-telecommunications systems, or UMTS, network. The company is
expected to have close to 100 cities covered by the end of the year.

Industry observers and analysts say they suspect Cingular is trying to
limit spending and also stay on course with its project goals. One
reason, say analysts, is that fast mobile Net access service hasn't
been in big demand yet, due largely to high prices.
As for Verizon Wireless, after a big splurge on evolution data-only, or
EV-DO, gear, the New Jersey phone giant is waiting for the next version
of the technology that handles voice traffic in addition to data. This
so-called EV-DO RevA gear is expected to be available at this fall, say
analysts.

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