Cathay online- die neue Hartcourt? - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[BusterNo1]

January 13, 2000

What`s the Next Hartcourt?

Many of you have continued to e-mail me about Hartcourt -- I`m amazed at your stoutness of heart -- and to remind me that on Tuesday I promised to write in this space about ZiaSun Technologies Inc. (ZSUN) of Solana Beach, California; Tengtu International Corp. (TNTU) of the PRC; and Forlink Software Corporation (FRLK) of Beijing.
I still haven`t done so. I am sorry.

I`m stuck. Honestly, looking at these stocks has given me the heebie-jeebies. While reading through the company statements, the executive interviews, and scanning the charts, I`ve got to feeling a little lightheaded.

You know the feeling: "Damn, for mere pennies I could get RICH!"

I figure that`s the little red guy holding a pitchfork on my left shoulder.

It`s time for a reality check.

Let me just say it: this isn`t stock picking. It`s gambling.

ZiaSun and Tengtu have seen one-year gains of 437% and 2,226%, respectively. Forlink started trading at 10 cents in September and is now at $20, well into the oxygen-free zone. I`m not even going to write the percent gain we`re talking about with Forlink because it looks ridiculous.

Modern Multiples

Now don`t get me wrong. I`m definitely up for a hand of poker.

It`s just that poker has got to be called poker, right? And a stiff drink a stiff drink. Once I do that and make the necessary adjustments in attitude -- like put all thoughts of Benjamin Graham aside and buckle up -- I can start to have fun.

It`s the Nasdaq casino and the bulletin board bucket shop.

James J. Cramer of thestreet.com called it quits on the NASDAQ market today. He`s going back to the boring old tech stocks on the New York Stock Exchange -- IBM, Unisys, Compaq, Hewlett Packard.

"The over-the-counter market has become a place too frightening to play in," he wrote. "It`s easier to call the next 10 points in an older technology stock. Less of a battleground; more of a multiple."

In today`s China Internet market, the word "multiple" means "how many times has your stock doubled over the past three months?"

I`m still more used to looking at earnings statements, cash flow, and P/E ratios than trying to decide whether a given CEO is more like Ted Turner or the Reverend Moon.

Or whether a company`s "high-level connections in Beijing" and "series of exclusive licensing contracts" in the PRC are bogus or real.

The Next Hartcourt

So here`s the deal. I`m going to write about ZiaSun, Tengtu, and Forlink, and soon. Just not today or tomorrow. I`m going to do it right. For every company I`ll check EDGAR, read all the press releases, call the company`s CEO, then call some of his friends and some of his enemies.

In the meantime, several of you asked if I knew of a relatively cheap stock around that`s not been much talked about, that`s got its hooks into the China Internet, and that might be poised to be the next Hartcourt.

Sure I do. Take a peek at my hand: Cathay Online (CAOLE.OB), a foreign-invested ISP based in Chengdu that seeks to become the Hotmail of China, and has already built a Chinese-language E-mail service (www.torchmail.com) powered by USA.NET technology.

The stock price: $1.69, up 12% on the year. Well worth looking into.

Now if you`ll excuse me.

I`m going to take off my green eye-shades and put on my 100% Texas rawhide Stetson -- that`s for bull riding, ya know.

To reach Douglas C. McGill: [e-mail]

[Greeny]

Kann mir jemand sagen, ob Cathay online auch in Deutschland handelbar ist ?
Danke Greeny