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Microsoft's revamped PocketPC software may steal PDA market share from Palm and Handspring because it meshes easily with HP, Casio and Compaq PC and wireless networks. The three leading PDA makers and their products' wireless interconnectivity are analyzed.

EMC, manufacturer of redundant storage solutions for large amounts of data, has endured precipitous sales falloff in 2001, after a ten-year increase in share value of 88,000. A $5 billion cash reserve will see the company through troubled waters, until recovery causes an upturn in demand and retrenchment of market share.

Technology companies such as Sun Microsystems and Compaq may see a temporary spike in sales as businesses and government replace computer infrastructure lost in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11, 2001. Industry analysts and insiders warn, however, that the long-term effect of the attacks spells more bad news for an industry already in crisis.

Sunrise was among the first to blaze the assisted-living trail in the 1980s, but has suffered from a glut in the sector that has reduced a majority of players to penny-stock status. The company's share price has fluctuated wildly between 10 and 53, currently pricing at a little more than 29. Sunrise's chances for disassociating itself from overcapacity and mismanagement troubling the industry are analyzed.

Compaq's price per-share has shrunk from 35 to less than 16, slashing its valuation to $26 billion from a forecasted $35 billion based on sales for the current year. Commoditization has spread from the consumer PC sector to both the data storage and server markets, and a price war initiated by Dell Computer has eroded significant Compaq market share. CEO Michael D. Capellas outlines his proposals for restoring profitability and market leadership, which include a vigorous emphasis on high-end services and aggressive marketing of Compaq's iPAQ hand-held computer.

Xanelim, from Genentech and Xoma, and Biogen's Amevive are racing through final trials, and both seem euqlly effective against psoriasis. A history of psoriasis research and a market analysis are included.

Share prices of International Speedway, Speedway Motorsports, and Dover Downs Entertainment slid as much as 10% after the death of superstar racer Dale Earnhardt. However, sector experts point to the new NBC-Turner-Fox 6-year Nascar TV deal\, and rising sponsorship revenue, and predict a rebound.

Former UBS Warburg chief strategist Gail Dudack expects stocks to revisit lows at midyear, but then turn upward for good. The prospoects for Linux-based Red Hat Software and VA Linux Systems share prices are also analyzed.

Short-selling adviser Mark Roberts runs the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Off Wall Street Consulting Group. Clients are gleeful over a year that witnessed Roberts' short sells return a 43 percent profit for investors.

Emcore's new contract to supply JDS Uniphase with vertical cavity surface emmiting laser arrays may stabilize its erratic share price, which vaulted from $18 to $80 back to the $50s at year-end. However, Emcore's faces stiff competition from AXT.

Several fiber optics companies are in the process of improving their optical switches to better accommodate the ever-increasing Internet traffic on data lines. Advances by companies, including Tellium, 360networks and Lucent Technologies, are described.

Providing security for Internet transactions has become a profitable market segment. Two companies specialize in providing such services for smaller businesses.

Earnings statements from corporations have started to include information on 'pro forma' operating profits, a move which makes the company's returns look even better. This practice is analyzed, along with the debate behind it. Companies who have recently reported these profits include, Amazon.com, BEA Systems, and Disney Internet Group.

Tom Galvin, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette's CIO, says the current economy resembles 1994-95, and he remains as bullish as ever. Bristol-Myers Squibb was able to protect its profitable Taxol cancer drug license. The AT&T share decline may be a result of undervaluing AT&T Wireless, a future profit center.

Many technology firms, including giants such as Intel and Microsoft, added to their balance sheets with speculative venture investments during the information technology stock bubble of 1999. Those same firms are witnessing the evaporation of investment earnings as Internet stock prices settle to realistic levels. Smaller technology firms, however, including Alliance Semiconductor, continue to realize investment gains, having based their placement of venture capital on the more stable foundation of partnerships across core competencies.

Dropping spot prices for microelectronic components such as capacitors and flash-memory modules, as well as increasing production and availability of other semiconductor devices, augers a downturn for semiconductor stocks in the second half of 2000, as prices fall and profits decline.

Quarterly profit earnings or losses of corporations greatly impacts investor attitudes. Analysts predict how the June-quarter reports will show and offer comparison from the first quarter of 2000. Some companies who have reported losses include Xerox and EDS and have seen noticeable decline in shares.

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's adoption of the government's Microsoft antitrust remedy was discretionary, but unsurprising. What is disturbing is his disregard of the marketplace impacts, and his intemperate sentencing rhetoric.

The average wholesale price assumed by Medicare claims processors overstates real wholesale prices by at least 5%. Some legislators are urging federal prosecution of drugmakers under the False Claims Act.

Shelby Bonnie, CEO of CNET Networks, examines the financial side of Internet companies and how the Internet has changed the way in which people find and use information. Bonnie believes that financial value is an important consideration when selecting a stock, and that the content provided by Internet should be considered as well.

The highly volatile stockmarket did not cause major prognosticators to back off bullish end-year forecasts. Industry sectors are not sharing the increases in some individual stocks, and bulging money-market funds may also moderate stock declines. Commodity shares, especially energy, are attracting attention in the flight from Nasdaq.

The March 20, 2000 story accusing Internet firms of burning up their cash stakes from IPOs too quickly met with swift replies, and fresh information about new money raised in the first quarter. However, too few Web firms are profitable, despite capitalization.

The power in Wall Street has shifted from investment banking to venture capital. Utilizing the Japanese system of keiretsu, venture capital firms encourage the companies in their portfolios to work with each other.

New media advertising firms such as DoubleClick Inc. and CMGI Inc. are competing for the innovation that will secure market position and justify their stock price valuations.

Cable modems and digital subscriber line (DSL) have not been implemented as speedily as many industry analysts predicted. Re-engineering the telecommunications infrastructure for cable telephony is a massive effort in both scale and cost. DSL service is available chiefly based on a subscriber's proximity to his local phone company.

Murder victim and stock promoter Maier S. Lehmann spoke out about the illegal activities conducted by an associate, Judah Wernick. Lehmann claimed that Wernick was a front-man for Robert E. Brennan, a well-known stock swindler. The allegations and investigations of the illegal activities are described.

Some employees of Ivana Trump's company, the Fifth Avenue Channel Inc., have been asked to testify before the Securities and exchange Commission about how unauthorized trades in the stock were made in the name of a senior executive of the company by Glenn Michael Financial. Two stock promoters were murdered execution-style not quite a year ago after they told Barron's that Russian gangsters were threatening suspected informers of providing information about Barron's previously published story about Ivana Trump's business.

Lexmark International's stock price performance is analyzed. The printer manufacturer's shares have continued to grow as sales of its ink jet and laser printers remain strong. It is predicted the company's stock price will continue to rise, especially since the introduction of new products.

The electronic trading system Redibook is being supported by the giant trading firms Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab. The share of Nasdaq volume flowing through the electronic communications network should exceed the 30% current flow. Other New York Stock Exchange members and outsiders are increasing their participation in electronic trading. The NYSE is considering creation of a network for trading Nasdaq stocks off the exchange.

London lawyer Andrew R. Warren has been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney's office as allegedly having created fake shell companies for stock swindlers from New York, New Jersey and Nevada. The conspiracy took place over a seven year period ending in 1997. Phony shell companies were created in Liberia, the English Channel Isle of Jersey and the British Virgin Islands. The stock swindlers have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy. Warren is also a large shareholder in Oliver North's body-armor firm Guardian Technologies International.

Seitel Inc (Houston, TX) records the costs of the seismic survey data it buys much more slowly than do its competitors, PGS and Veritas DGC. Doing so may be a way of boosting its near-term earnings, some investors worry. At the end of 1997, for instance, Seitel had a net investment of $180.9 million in data, for which it expected to write down 23% in 1998 and 20% in 1999. However, for year-end 1998, Seitel revised its writeoff plans downward to 13% for 1999 and 15% for 2000. This will raise the earnings Seitel reports for 1999.

Pharmaceutical stocks gained only 1% between Jan 1, 1999 and May 14, 1999, but may soon pick up their pace. Jason Kolbert of Salomon Smith Barney thinks aging Baby Boomers will continue to help drive up sales of drugs, particularly new drugs like Warner-Lambert and Pfizer's cholesterol treatment, Lipitor. The advertising of such drugs as Pfizer's Viagra, Merck's Propecia, and Schering-Plough's Claritin has been successful, and biotechnology advances should also help drug sales. Kolbert particularly likes big names Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lilly, and Medtronic, and biotechs Amgen and Biogen.

Lexmark International (Lexington, KY) is spearheading the shift from photocopiers to printers with low-cost inkjets that enable decentralized printing. The firm pioneered sub-$100 color printers. Lexmark's shares trade at above $100/share in Mar 1999, up from $20/share at their debut in 1995, and Lexmark's market value has surged to $7.8 billion. HP introduced a $79 printer the week ended April 2, 1999, but Lexmark is confident it can compete. In a Salomon Smith Barney survey of corporations, 55% listed HP as their primary supplier of networked printers, while 21% named Lexmark and 14% named Xerox.

Knight/Trimark Group, the world's largest market maker, has been blamed by investment bankers for trading problems with many new securities issues. Knight/Trimark responds that the confusion surrounding frantically traded new issues is an industry-wide problem not of its making. Knight/Trimark CEO Kenneth Parternak thinks his firm is singled out for blame because it is so closely associated with online investment demand. Knight/Trimark executes over 15% of trades in Internet stocks, and handles the orders of E*Trade and Discover Brokerage Direct.

Essex Investment Management Company Inc (Boston, MA) achieved a 120% return on investment for its $50 million Essex High Technology Fund in 1998, and racked up a 72% gain for its $40 million Permal Media and Communications Fund. Non-hedge funds' gains were less spectacular, but still doubled the Standard and Poor's 500's 27% gain for 1998. President Bill Clinton's biggest regret may be that Essex had to withdraw from management of Clinton's blind-trust account after selling a controlling interest to Affiliated Managers Group. Current Essex favorites include Amazon.com, Global TeleSystems, Comcast A (Special), Williams Cos, and Yahoo.

3Com Corp is finally recovering from its 1997 merger with US Robotics, and CEO Eric Benhamou predicts 3Com and partner Siemens AG could gain $1 billion in new sales from voice-data convergence equipment by 2003. 3Com is also poised to cash in on the estimated $1 billion Storage Area Network market. Benhamou plans to cut over $100 million from operating expenses by shrinking inventories. Al Tobia of NationsBanc Montgomery predicts earnings of $1.40/share for the fiscal year ending May 1999, and earnings of $2.25/share for the fiscal year ending May 2000. Earnings were $0.36/share, or $133 million, for the quarter ended Nov 1998.

Information storage and retrieval companies are becoming an increasingly important segment of the technology industry. Stocks of storage management software firms, such as Legato Systems Inc (Palo Alto, CA) and VERITAS Software Corp (Mountain View, CA), have soared recently, but still have high growth potential. Veritas saw revenues of $56 million for the quarter ending Sep 1998, up 83% from the year-earlier period. Disk drive makers such as EMC Corp (Hopkinton, MA) are also poised to cash in on the need for data storage. EMC's sales increased 37% to $1 billion in the quarter ending Sep 1998, yielding profits of $201 million.

Invesco Strategic Health Sciences, a $1.2 billion open-end fund, and Invesco Global Health Sciences, a $500 million closed-end fund, have been successful while other funds have declined. Manager John Schroer's strategy is discussed.

The Prudent Bear Fund is a unique mutual fund that keeps a short exposure to US stocks. Founded in 1996 by David Tice, the fund had a difficult time during the roaring bull market, but has begun to look more attractive as the market falters. The shorting of specific stocks is discussed.

Mazzeo and Carhart have pled guilty in New York to stock fraud charges. John W. Moscow, the deputy head of the Invertigation Division of the Manhattan District Attorney's office, predicts that other charges will be filed in the international fraud and money-laundering conspiracy.

An SEC investigation into the accounting practices of medical equipment servicing company COHR could reveal the illegal diversion of funds from the company's non-profit arm to its for-profit company, according to some COHR employees interviewed.

Margolies, age 39, learned critical market analysis at hedge-fund M.A. Berman. He and his staff of six analyze firms for 100 clients using a rigorous 20-question formula, checking the responses with a wide network of sources.

Championship Auto Racing Teams plans its initial stock offering at $15 per share to raise $69 million. The company is responsible for operating automobile races. Revenues are received from sponsors and sanction fees paid by promoters. Possible effects of the offer on team owners are examined.

Several companies are developing products that treat or diagnose the bone disease osteoporosis. Merck has achieved great financial success with its Fosamax drug, while Eli Lilly stock has varied greatly recently due to sales of its Evista drug. Products of other companies are described.

Samsonite CEO Richard Nicolosi made several mistakes that have caused the luggage maker's shares and profits to fall. Nicolosi attempted expansion in a market that is small, very competitive, and slow-growing, and he alienated independent retailers by opening Samsonite retail shops.

3Com has seen sales of telephone modems drop to disappointing levels, causing analysts to lower earnings expectations. But critics overlook the potential of 3Com and US Robotics in the market for cable modems that will revolutionize Internet access for home users.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals has decided to extend the testing period for its diabetes drug pramlintide another year. The decision was particularly painful because the company's financial reports show losses of $33 million for nine months ending September, 1997, with %50 million in working capital.