Continuing Boom: Despite Stock Jitters, Tech Industry Shows Long-Term Strength --- Miniaturization, Price Drops, Firms' Need to Compete All Feed Global Growth --- Potential for a Chip Shortage
Corrections & Amplifications</br></br>A TABLE accompanying a page-one article on the continuing strength of the technology sector contained outdated revenue and earnings data for some companies. A corrected table appears in today's issue. (WSJ Oct. 16, 1995)</br></br>Looking at the roller-coaster ride of technology stocks in the past three months, money manager Neil Hokanson is cautiously dumping shares of Cisco Systems Inc., one of the most successful technology start-ups in business history.</br></br>But venture capitalist Don Valentine, looking at global demand for new technology, is hanging on to his big Cisco stake, and goes so far as to claim that selling money managers are "traitors" to responsible investing.</br></br>No doubt about it, there is a lot of confusion about the direction of high-tech these days. A world-wide technology boom is now a decade old, and the magnitude of that boom and the wealth it has created are difficult to comprehend. Cisco, which went public just over five years ago, now has one of the highest market capitalizations on the Nasdaq Stock Market, at $18 billion. Intel Corp., the world's biggest chip maker, could well be raking in the highest corporate profits in the world within several years, outstripping Exxon Corp. Hewlett-Packard Co. and Motorola Inc., already big, are among the fastest-growing companies of any size on the planet.