Conference nyoss1::market_investing

It's interesting buy I just got my quaterly from my Scudder Capital Growth
Annuity, and it's the number one holding.

Michael

	I read recently in the WSJ that U.S. West with there strong
	presence in telecommunications (being one of the baby bells)
	and Time Warner with there strong presence in cable T.V. were forming 
        an alliance to share access to technology. U.S. West bought a 25% stake in Time Warner Entertainment
	worth an estimated 2.5 billion dollars.

	The cable companies have 65% of the country wired with
	broad band coax cable which the phone companies would love to get
	access to. Current phone lines just don't have the band width for
	much expansion into multi-media. The cable companies have the
	band width to carry massive amounts of information but don't yet have
	access to the services provided by the phone companies which they 
	would like to tap (no pun intended) into.

	My guess is that cable companies are going to do quite well in the
	90s as greater use of multi-media and interactive T.V. makes it's
	way into our homes.

	FYI: Geographically U.S. West has the largest service area in the 
	     country. However, NYNEX generates the most money.

	Hope this is useful information.


	Pat

    You may want to check out the feature article in this week's NEWSWEEK.
    It is titled "Interactive" (spelled out with punctuation marks as it
    would be found in a dictionary). I just glanced through it so I don't
    have all the details but it was about the future of computing, cable
    TV, networking etc and how they will/may be tied in together in the
    future. Time Warner was mentioned because of it's alliances with other
    companies in developing the new technology.  Like I said, I didn't read
    the whole article but I did read enough to recommend that you check it
    out if you are considering buying stock in Time Warner ( or any of the
    other "communications" type companies for that matter).
    

    Seeing as how my Scudder Cap. Growth funds are doing rather well (up
    over 16%) and Time Warner is one of their major holdings,I'd be
    inclined to procure some of that stock.
    
    Ken

  It was databases that was going to change the world in ways never seen
  before. It was CAD's turn next. Artificial Intelligence was going to 
  make possible a completely automated home in ten years where you don't have 
  to work at all. Neural networks were going to make possible cars with
  brains that you don't have to drive at all. Now we are going to have 
  interactive TV where you can play Jeopardy from home. With 500 channels
  you can choose one of 25 Jeopardy Channels. :-)

  Although every one of the above technologies have left their marks in the
  world, they were nothing compared to expectations. So too shall "Interactive
  TV". When the dust settles and visibility is fair, you'll probably
  see interactive TV with lots of channels and very little imagination about
  what to do with them beyond Nintendo and Sega channels. Multimedia PCs may 
  completely replace ordinary PCs (remember the time when no one saw the need
  for color graphics terminals!). And that's about what may come out of this.
  Newsweek will have an article about how the whole thing was not as big a 
  success as they originally thought they would be.

  So I wouldn't be too optimistic about Time-Warner or anybody else gambling
  their money without having a clear  idea about what it can be used for and not
  just what the technology is.

  Nari

    re: .5
    
    I agree, but do think there is a large market for an interactive
    Seka channel.  
    
    I see some unique possibilities, especially with the new helmet-vision
    (or whatever they're calling it) TV goggles on the market now.
    
    
    								Fred

Before anyone rushes out to buy Time Warner, they should probably take
a very long and hard look at the Time Warner balance sheet which is, to
be kind, a mess.

This is a company that has *lost* money ever since Time paid far too much
for Warner.  They invented a new way of glossing over this minor difficulty
called EBITDA:  Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.
It's very hard to find real bottom line numbers in their annual reports.

Having sounded a warning, I must also say that they seem to be doing rather
well in fixing up their balance sheet lately, which is why they have been doing
as well as they have lately on the market.  Given all the debt, though, I would
advise anyone looking to invest to do so with facts and figures to hand.  This
is a huge corporation, and new technology isn't going to play much a role on
the bottom line for some years to come.  What will have a major effect is how
well their movies and television shows do this year.  No hit movies -> lousy
earnings.

-- Andrew