The backdrop behind this search for clarity is a badly shaken market. No, this is a world that has been struggling all year, and it is losing its strength in this protracted event. It is too easy to point to the dot-com phenomenon and suggest that the strain is all from the collapse of a highly speculative sector. There is much more to the story than that, as many parts of the equity market have wrestled with valuation questions all year. Lucent is a company that was the darling of the traditional tech set for many quarters.
Old economy meets new economy.
It was a well-established and capitalized firm that had shown more flexibility than many of its competitors or the Bell system companies from which it was spawned. In the cash rich, momentum driven markets of the late 1990's, there were few traditional companies that did better. The past four months have been torture for the shareholders. One might conclude from the price action that Lucent is going down the drain. The world is driven not by the past but by expectations of the future.