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STOCKS TO WATCH: Brocade, Carrier Access and Disney

3 min read

Expect the following technology stocks to be among Tuesday’s most actively traded issues: Brocade Communications, Carrier Access and Disney.

  • Brocade Communications (Nasdaq: BRCD)

    Brocade will be active after a Barron’s report said that President Gregg Reyes is comfortable with analysts’ estimates for the current fiscal year.

    Analysts are expecting the data-storage equipment maker to earn 63 cents a share.

    Most analysts placed Brocade's five-year average earnings growth rate at 50 percent, the newspaper said. The company has avoided the meltdown in technology stocks during 2000, gaining 107 percent during the year from 1999's closing price of $44-1/4. The stock closed down $3-43/64 to $91-13/16 on Friday.

    “The truth is that no one, including us, really knows just how fast our market is growing,'' Michael Byrd, Brocade's financial vice president, told Barron's.

  • Carrier Access (Nasdaq: CACS)

    The telecom-equipment maker will be worth watching after it warned late Friday that its fourth-quarter earnings will fall short of analysts’ estimates.

    Company officials now say it will post a loss of between 2 cents to 4 cents a share in the quarter, well below the First Call Corp. estimate of a profit of 16 cents a share.

    Sales for the quarter are now expected to be between $26 million and $27 million.

    The shortfalls are anticipated because a large original equipment manufacturer (OEM) has told Carrier Access it does not intend to take the majority of an $8 million order, which was scheduled for shipment in the fourth quarter.

    A second customer said capital budget restraints will prevent it from ordering its normal level of equipment in the fourth quarter. This customer has traditionally purchased between $3 million and $7 million of Carrier Access equipment, Carrier said.

    The stock closed off $1.13 to $9 Friday.

  • Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS)

    Disney shares should move higher Tuesday after it and Comcast Cable Communications (Nasdaq: CMCSK) resolved a disputer that will allow cable customers to continue receiving Disney programming in six markets.

    Under the agreement, Comcast will continue to carry ESPN and other Disney programming as well as six Disney-owned ABC-affiliated stations in Comcast's cable markets.

    Philadelphia-based Comcast and Disney had wrangled for a year over how Comcast should compensate Disney for being allowed to carry the ABC stations.

    The deadlock was similar to a New York-area dispute that saw 3.5 million customers of the No. 2 cable company, Time Warner Inc., lose their ABC stations for two days in May.

    The parties had until Sunday to arrive at a final offer to keep ABC on Comcast systems in Philadelphia; New York's northern New Jersey suburbs; Los Angeles; Chicago; Toledo, Ohio; and Flint, Mich.

    Without an agreement, about 3 million Comcast subscribers, 1.5 million of them in the Philadelphia area, would have had to use antennas to pull in ABC programs like ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,'' ``Good Morning America'' or ``Jeopardy.''

    Disney shares closed up 19 cents to $28.94 Friday.

    Reuters contributed to this report.>