Techs Bring Another Down Quarter for OC Stocks
Beckman, Home Financier, TV Broadcaster End Up
By RAJIV VYAS
Chalk up another bad quarter for Orange County stocks, particularly technology shares.
Fifteen stocks in the Business Journal’s 20-company OC Tech index and 10 in the 22-company OC Billion Dollar Club declined in the first quarter.
The OC Tech index saw a first-quarter loss of about $5 billion, or 15% of its market value. The Billion Dollar Club, which includes companies with a market value of more than $1 billion, lost more than $4 billion, or 7% of its value.
The drops in value were steep considering that the Nasdaq fell only 6.8% during the quarter, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 3.3% during the period.
In the Billion Dollar Club, the two biggest losers in the first quarter were Irvine-based chipmaker Broadcom Corp., which saw an erosion of $1.7 billion in its market value, and Irvine drug maker Allergan Inc., which had a drop of around $1.2 billion in its market value.
Other stocks adding to the Billion Dollar Club’s decline were Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc., Costa Mesa-based Emulex Corp., and Exult Inc., Quest Software Inc. and Intersil Corp., all three of Irvine.
The real action in the quarter was in small and mid-cap stocks. The OC 50, an index of smaller public companies, fared far better in the first quarter than the OC Tech or the Billion Dollar Club.
With gains at Santa Ana-based Corinthian Colleges Inc. (which became the Billion Dollar Club’s 23rd member last week) and MSC Software Corp. and Simple-Tech Inc., also both of Santa Ana, the market value of the OC 50 gained nearly $1.2 billion, or 7%, to end the quarter at $19.5 billion.
In all, the Business Journal indices, which are more volatile than the national averages with their mix of tech and smaller companies, lost about $4 billion in market value in the quarter.
Several stocks did well.
Among them was Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc., a Billion Dollar Club member. The maker of diagnostic medical gear saw its shares rise by 17% in the quarter. A profitable healthcare company, Beckman is a relative Wall Street darling these days.
SimpleTech rose an eye-catching 162% during the period (see related story, page 5). The company is one of only a few publicly traded makers of computer memory products and has seen investors take to it because of a rise in prices for memory chips.
For the past year or so, SimpleTech and other memory products makers have seen profits crimped by lower memory chip prices,and lower selling prices for their products.
Another big gainer: Irvine-based New Century Financial Corp., a subprime mortgage lender whose stock was up 68%.
Chalk that one up to the hot housing market. Earlier this month, New Century upped its profit projection for 2002.
Santa Ana-based Acme Communications Inc., owner and operator of 10 TV stations, was up 53% in the quarter.
The runup is due in part to speculation that Acme could be an acquisition target or its stations could attract the interest of bigger suitors.
Last week, Acme said it is weighing an offer from an undisclosed party for one of its largest stations.
