Sue Slashes Target Price…Again

OOOOPPSSS. as of today target price set by Mark Sue is 15 cents lower than the market price.. People made more than 15% return by not following Mark Sue's sell recommendation. Funny Funny Funny.

Nortel is almost trading at Mark Sue's target price. Investors who followed Sue's "sell" recommendation lost 15%, people who did the opposite made 15%.

many - agree completely. There are many different styles in these forums. I gravitate between analytical and sarcastic, depending on the level of frustration with the topic with the subject of a specific thread. I regard the Nortel cabinet team with a fair amount of contempt because of a serious lack of results...and especially because they get awarded 20% pay raises for failing. Where else can you find a job like that?

However, I try to base my posts on a point rooted in fact or experience.

Posters like Sexybeast are a stain. They have nothing of substance to contribute so for the most part I ignore them, unless I can use them to make a point.

many is an old man who can't get out of bed.
As I said..if all you cowards have any guts and care to show actions with your
convictions, get out your picket signs and stand in front of entrances at your
local nortel establishment.
Maybe then you at least would have some credibility and a little respect, until
somebody stuffs you with your picket sign.
That's what I thought...all hot air...many, anw and all you other bashers.
People who hide in the shadows and take pot shots don't deserve anyones
respect...just a laugh...unless they put their money where their mouth is
and go public.

ANW don't pay any mind to Sonny Boy. Anytime someone calls him on one of his posts, he resorts to ad hominem attacks. Like a schoolyard bully he threatens physical violence knowing that it will not come to pass. When that fails to impress, he goes and tells his mommy.

Like the child he is, he does not understand most of the words he uses and relies on emotion to cover his ignorance. He is either a fired ex-employee who blames all of his troubles on someone else, or just another drunken troll who hasn't learned to express himself appropriately. I doubt he has any friends, let alone ones at nortel.

Hopefully his parents will take away his computer soon.

I meant, "This is *not* xenophobic, it's my experience over several years."

No difference really if it is or isn't.

With _very_ few exceptions I've found the immigrated on-shores, aside from Europeans, have very poor educations. Give them a problem where they can look up the solution and whack it into code and they're fine. But a problem where they have to find the solution themselves they are lost. Whatever they come up with out of trial and error is spun into _the_ solution, whether it works or not, and if not then there isn't a solution and time to move on, and it's left at that. This is xenophobic, it's my experience over several years. I'm fine if others have found theirs to be different.

Another Nortel Watcher.
You are a hamstrung basher with no sense of honour, purpose or decency.
Keep attending your toastmaster club in the privacy of your own bedroom
and get a life.
Nobody cares what you say, nobody believes what you say and personally I say
to prove you have guts why don't you picket in front a nortel building while
employees walk by? Maybe you could stand there with your signs spewing all
the nonsense you do here, on the yahoo message board and on the Roese blog.
I don't work there but I have friends who do.
They think you are ridiculous.
I sense jealousy in your posting.

Sexy Beast - no individual or group of people who had to work with someone with your attitude could ever be successful, no matter where they happened to be from. Your post is delusional.

The 'entitlement' theme in these posts is a cancer. If this is representative of a significant portion of the workforce that's left in Nortel, the company is in far worse shape than I thought. I've been viewing the malaise at Nortel as primarily a leadership issue, but perhaps the leadership and the workforce who haven't found better jobs elsewhere have reached the point where they're well suited to each other.

Totally incorrect analysis ANW.
If we are talking about maknig yoyo's, scissors, tires or running a simple
surface mount technology line then maybe you have a point...but even at that
the quality of product builds is brutal when you go overseas.
You don't know what parts they are using, how they put them on, what their
sample control/esd procedures are like and how well they tested the stuff.
Applies to hardware and software.
They ile through their teeth to hit their metrics and nobody has a grip on their controls
usually due to lack of government policies in said country..the government covers
for them and keeps the quality control people from North America out of the loop
purposely. Witness the tainted food and consumer toy violations that have occurred
and continue to happen in China. Same thing in the other countries mentioned here.
The more crap they can get out of there and the sneakier they are doing it...the better
so far as the communist party is concerned.
Anyhow when you increase the complexity anywhere above what was noted here that
is when the wheels fall off. And as mentioned in notes below there is alot more to
it than the simple tasks I mentioned in this speal.
Again..if you want to pump outsourcing pack up your things and move.
Also..I disagree with your view that these people can be competent if properly
managed. That's just garbage and a cop out.
So now you are blaming the managers and executives.
The only "blame" are the idiots who decided to move operations in the first place.
You seem to have more faith in people overseas than your own brethern in
North America (if indeed you are North American)?
Shame on you.

With _very_ few exceptions I've found the immigrated on-shores, aside from Europeans, have very poor educations. Give them a problem where they can look up the solution and whack it into code and they're fine. But a problem where they have to find the solution themselves they are lost. Whatever they come up with out of trial and error is spun into _the_ solution, whether it works or not, and if not then there isn't a solution and time to move on, and it's left at that. This is xenophobic, it's my experience over several years. I'm fine if others have found theirs to be different.

NewBlue - My main point was that the quality of output from the major offshore companies is almost always the result of how effectively the offshore team was managed. What training was provided? Who from the core team is on-site with the offshore team? Is this the right person(s)? What communication tools and processes were put in place? Etc, etc. Imagine yourself on the receiving end of a large complex s/w program originating in India - what support would you want to enable your productivity?

If you take a software program and throw it over the fence it doesn't matter where you throw it, the result will be poor. You'll get the same result if you throw it over the fence to a subcontract s/w design house in Cleveland.

Offshore resources can be an effective tool, but not when administered by managers who don't have a clue how to run it and are simply doing what they're told by an equally as clueless executive.

Another Nortel Watcher wrote:
"I will strongly suggest that the sub-par output you experienced is a consequence of poor lab management, not of the talent available in the off-shore labs."

I don't think the labs themselves have anything to do with it, unless what you're calling a "lab" is a cube with an engineer sitting in it. Without all the xenophobia as expressed by Sexy Beast, I tend to agree that a lot of the product coming out of the off-shore R&D centers (or even from many of the RFTs who have immigrated on-shore) is sub-par and we in NA spend an awful lot of time having to revisit those solutions to correct inefficiencies and flawed implementations. Sure, it's cheap initially, but once you factor in all the time taken to hunt down and repair bugs in code originating off-shore, or even the time taken to re-engineer a solution that is too simplistic in its design and implementation to be extended acceptably, we're right back where we started.

Another poor R&D scenario is off-shoring pre-release PV. Turnaround time between the test engineer and the development engineer can be extremely time consuming. Accessing equipment to recreate and debug complicated problems is problematic (configuring, reconfiguring, boot and rebooting (especially due to system hangs where you need access to a power switch). This method of product development and release is fraught with peril. These types of decisions are definitely a result of poor management and tight-fisted, cheap business units.

If the company wants to off-shore its product development, then fine. However, they should also off-shore the entire R&D team as well (product management and team leads, engineers, test engineers) and then see how well the product does over its lifetime. My guess is, it's at best a wash and at worse a financial disaster.

Sexy Beast - your comment is one I would expect from an ignorant xenophobe. The effectiveness of offshore R&D is an output of their leadership. If your experience is that the output of the offshore locations is sub-par, I won't debate your view. However, I will strongly suggest that the sub-par output you experienced is a consequence of poor lab management, not of the talent available in the off-shore labs. My opinion is based on extensive experience.

The turks, indians and chinese are all a waste of skin in my opinion when
it comes to Technological outsourcing.
And don't get me started on the mexicans..good grief.
All of the above..incompetent to the max. You can throw in the poles on that one also.
Rather than move jobs under the guise of outsourcing, low cost centers
and all those other B.S descriptions the jobs need to be kept in North America.
If it means a salary reduction so be it.
If you need to cut the fat out of overpaid managment..so be it.
If you need to reduce the salaries of people who are not diverse and are not
performing..so be it.
If it means laying off people who don't contribute directly to revenue..so be it.
Let's look at this logically and realistically.
Who is being helped in North America when jobs move out of the country?
Nobody over here.
All this breeds is contempt, layoffs and good people walking away because things
are handed off into the hands of incompetents who in the long run hate north america
and could give a rat's ass about the people over here.
For all you pro outsourcing pumpers..it is not the way to go and it is traitorous
to your own country. If you like those places so much..go live there.
The only people who I can imagine support this are the high paid executives who
in the short run make money because it looks like they are saving money but in the
long run the company loses.
There are ways to remain competitive in North America. You have to explore all
avenues before you sell your own people out.

Time to go long NT.

ha ha ha yes. you are %100 right. this guy is a total looser. he started with a target price of $28 with buy rating and ending now with a sell rating with a price target of $7, when the stock is actually trading at $6, which means that average 15% return on investment when we follow mark sues sell recommendation. very funny. he should have done all these target changes before the stock price droped, not after.

It is clear that the analyst community is now waking up to the fact that Mike Z and his management team have literally taken the Nortel BOD hostage. The BOD selected Mike Z after they rejected the business plan presented by the 2 Garys. After 2 years of no real results, no new products or revenue streams, and round after round of lay offs, all the analysts can see is negative growth and increased executive pay levels. The BOD is captive to their decision to hire Mike Z and to allow him to put into place a business plan that is clearly failing. By every metric - stock price, revenue, margins, employee productivity - Nortel is a disaster heading towards bankruptcy. The so called business transformation is a joke. The plan will cut over $400M out of sales, distribution, service, and marketing capabilities at a time when Nortel need to desperately grow its revenues with a consistent stream of revenues from all product lines.

It will be interesting to see if Nortel can roll over the $750M of debt coming due in 2008 and at what interest rate. The 2 Garys wanted Nortel to be a Canadian - American development entity because of the productivity that could be achieved out of Ottawa,, Richardson, and Santa Clara. Mike Z believes that India, Mexico, and Turkey will be the answer to Nortel's new product development future. It was & is a very bad call.

Do you know that Turkish government has recently introduced new incentives for R&D companies. Turkish engineers are well educated more than enough and work for almost 1/3 of wage what their Canadian or US counterparts get. With the new incentives introduced by the Turkish government it is now more and more logical and profitable to do R&D in Turkey. it must be the same for India and Mexico.

Inalmm: I agree about Turkey. I have has positive dealings with a company called Argela. One shortcoming is that they are very EMEA AsiaPac focused. There is little to no North American expertise, so the product does not always fit well with translations and protocol variants here. I think for international roaming applications they are excellent.

My experience with India has been less than good. I do not think it is a question of competence, but more that what is acceptable for availability and survivability in their market is less, so their design tradoffs are sometimes hard to manage. I have also had some problems with scaling applications from two companies in particular.

I have not dealt with a company from Mexico yet, so I cannot comment.

I still say there are plenty of very talented and under employed people here in North America that are being overlooked by companies for price (which IMO is not often a good long term view) or sheer HR/Recruiting/orginizational incompetance.

Disgruntled, I would agree with that view regarding record lows. Good point !

1st "Nortel watcher", I think a better way to look at it is share price as it relates to market cap. Was there not a dilution of the share price circa 2004-5, because in order to raise money at one time(post 2002) didn't Nortel issue more shares thereby diluting the stock?
So the market cap of $2.5 bill is now an all time low?

Mark Sue may be the only guy I can think of with less credibility than Mike Z. He's always a a day or two behind the market.

No offense Mark but let's keep the message as accurate as possible...the stock hit a new 52-week low today but its record closing low is actually $5.40 set in Sept. 2002 and its record trading low is $4.30 set in Oct. 2002..

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NT#chart1:sy...

Nortel Watcher:

Good catch. I appreciate it!

Mark

Somehow this reminded me of almost every meeting I attended:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zNCrMEOqHpc

So next time the Zman tells the press its a "good buying opportunity" be on the lookout for any executive style hand gestures!

this looks better

20-Mar-06 20-Mar-07 19-Mar-08 % Change Market Cap
NT $28.60 $25.87 $5.80 -79.72% $2.54B
ALU $14.77 $11.96 $5.15 -65.13% $11.65B
JDSU $32.00 $15.21 $12.86 -59.81% $2.82B
MOT $21.98 $18.82 $9.33 -57.55% $21B
ERIC $38.43 $36.55 $17.39 -54.75% $27.65B
EXTR $5.07 $4.14 $3.11 -38.66% $360M
CIEN $35.56 $25.43 $28.19 -20.73% $2.45B
FLEX $10.17 $11.02 $9.61 -5.51% $8.02B
CSCO $21.68 $26.34 $24.47 12.87% $145B
JNPR $19.50 $18.75 $24.45 25.38% $12.8B
NOK $20.70 $22.14 $29.33 41.69% $112B

I tried posting on the Nortel Roese blog but they screened my comment out. John Roese talked about all competitors declining in stock price. Some people believed the song, dance, smoke and mirrors. But Er! check this out John to see your regime's contribution for last 2 years.

I am showing this that yes others declined due to market conditions, recession fears and telecom industry, but no other company has evaporated as much value as Nortel. Now you can say this is a oranges to apples comparison. I'd say there is no comparison now in terms of market cap, revenue ratio to market cap and net profit. This is a has been which cannot survive in a Tech 2.0 world.

Fantastic work. Give yourselves a round of applause with another bonus. Start working on your plan to reach Extreme's market cap. Analysts on the other hand do not know what is going on. Their's is a number crunching game which changes just days before or after results are announced.

20-Mar-06 20-Mar-07 19-Mar-08 % Change Market Cap
NT $28.60 $25.87 $5.80 -79.72% $2.54B
ALU $14.77 $11.96 $5.15 -65.13% $11.65B
JDSU $32.00 $15.21 $12.86 -59.81% $2.82B
MOT $21.98 $18.82 $9.33 -57.55% $21B
ERIC $38.43 $36.55 $17.39 -54.75% $27.65B
EXTR $5.07 $4.14 $3.11 -38.66% $360M
CIEN $35.56 $25.43 $28.19 -20.73% $2.45B
FLEX $10.17 $11.02 $9.61 -5.51% $8.02B
CSCO $21.68 $26.34 $24.47 12.87% $145B
JNPR $19.50 $18.75 $24.45 25.38% $12.8B
NOK $20.70 $22.14 $29.33 41.69% $112B

Roese is the King of Puffery.

I thought analysts were supposed to be AHEAD of the pack :)

Oh lets see,..hmm,.. lets travel back in our internet time machine,.....
(this is where the TV screen goes all wavy!!)

http://www.allaboutnortel.com/2007/08/03/zafiro...

Zafirovski Bullish on NT Shares
August 3rd, 2007 | by Mark Evans |

Hey, Mike Z. thinks it’s a good time for investors to buy Nortel shares. After the stock fell nearly 6% yesterday to their lowest level 2002, he said “This is a very good buying opportunity.”

#

By Disgruntled Ex Nortel on Aug 6, 2007 | Reply

“In fact we will meet our target of $50 a share!”
(mumble….mumble,…”right after another 10 to 1 split”,..mumble,..mumble,..)



From now on I expect my comments to be held in nothing but the highest reverence.