In both cases there's precious little reason to own these stocks, even though they're probably cheap. It's as if you own a house in the worst part of town, and you're willing to sell it at half its value. It may be a bargain, but nobody wants to live in the worst part of town.

To me the combination is a very sensible one. It's a good mix. Alcatel has done very, very well in the United States and elsewhere, but there's not that much overlap (with Lucent), so I think it's a powerful global position, possibly forcing Nortel and Ericsson to get together.

Having to search for a chairman and CEO could delay the turnaround for some period of time. They have a somewhat diminished but still strong market position.

WorldCom is frustrated because Wall Street investors just look at the total company. Wall Street isn't giving them credit for their growth.

Ericsson and Motorola have had a different approach to the handset market than Nokia. Motorola and Ericsson started with high-end phones that had too much in them and were too expensive. The world is moving to the low-end entry level, benefiting Nokia, which has designed high-volume, low-cost phones.

This isn't a pleasant place for either of these companies to be.