Enron Mail

From:mark.taylor@enron.com
To:mzeleanor@juno.com
Subject:Ken Lay on Enron's stock price volatility
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Mon, 28 Feb 2000 10:55:00 -0800 (PST)

Why is Enron's stock so volatile now? Since today's session started, ENE
has lost another $2.50!

Mr. Ken Lay replies
I haven't had a chance to check our stock today, but I think for several
reasons
it's more volatile. But before I comment on that, our stock price is
still up even
if it went down that much today. It's up 40% since the beginning of the
year
when the Dow was down. As recently as mid-December, the stock price is up
about 75%. That's one reason why it's so volatile. Some people bought in
along the way, they've had a good strong increase, particularly with the
uncertainty in the marketplace, people just want to take some money off
the
table. As we become more of a technology stock, a high P/E stock, a
growth
stock held by growth portfolios, you're going to have more volatility,
just like all
the other companies that fit into that category. Throughout the market,
technology stocks quite often go up or down not just $3-$4 a whack, but
often
$10-$12-$15 a whack. What I tell Mark Koenig is I love that volatility
on the
upside, but I hate it on the down side.

We've had a change in the ownership of our stock. Increasingly, it's
being
bought by the growth portfolio managers, and increasingly it's being
sold by
the value and other portfolio managers that picked it up at much lower
valuations, and now at these values they want to take their money and
put it
back into lower P/E stocks. I know this makes everybody a little
nervous, but
this is probably the world we're in now. I'd rather be in this world
with a 50 P/E
than the more stable world with a 20 P/E.