In fact, in every earnings conference call, Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq - news - boards) CEO John Chambers always uses lingo right out of the pages of The Gorilla Game to tell us how great it's gonna be -- lots of chest-pounding stuff about "crossing the chasm" and "riding the tornado." During the tech wreck, though, the stock market hasn't acted as though the gorilla game is going to work for Cisco.

Take a look at the chart below. It shows what would have happened if you'd invested $100 in Cisco and $100 in its smaller rival in the core router market, Juniper (JNPR:Nasdaq - news - boards), on March 10, 2000, the day of the top in the Nasdaq Composite. Under the gorilla theory, you'd think that Cisco's advantage would start opening up as soon as the market started to tank. It did for a while -- but then Juniper took off in late 2000 while Cisco languished. But by the time the Nasdaq bottomed in early April 2001, the two investments were about equal -- equally horrible, that is.

Cisco vs. Juniper If you'd put $100 in each on March 10, 2000, here's what would have happened to your investment

Since the April bottom, Cisco and Juniper have both rallied. For a while, Juniper took the lead. Its forceful CEO, Scott Kriens, kept the forecasts rosy, as Chambers was preparing investors for the worst. But now reality has come to both companies. The $100 invested in Juniper, now at $33, is just slightly ahead of the investment in Cisco, at $30. In other words, at the end of the day, the gorilla game simply hasn't worked for Cisco during the tech wreck.

But I think that's changing. Right now, Cisco the gorilla is hell-bent on what it calls a "golden hatchet" strategy aimed first and foremost at Juniper. Don't forget that Juniper was the upstart that came out of nowhere two years ago and stole a whopping 30% of the core router business right out from under Cisco. Morgan Stanley's ace networking analyst Christopher Stix was telling clients Wednesday that every big new deal for high-end OC-192 gear is going to Cisco, because Cisco is on a mission to offer customers discounts as big as it takes to "win at any cost." Not great for Cisco's margins -- but Chambers must think it's worth it over the long haul to run Juniper out of the jungle once and for all.

I think Chambers' golden hatchet will work -- so get ready for some serious hacking at Juniper's still-lofty multiples. The gorilla game is about to get played for keeps around here. As an adviser, I've got a long position in Cisco now and no position in Juniper.

AMD Fights Off Intel

The gorilla game hasn't worked for Intel (INTC:Nasdaq - news - boards) during the tech wreck so far, any better than it has worked for Cisco. But in this case, I don't think it ever will.

Take a look at the chart below, comparing $100 invested in Intel with $100 invested in its tiny microprocessor rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD:NYSE - news - boards). Both stocks held up well for the first six months after the Nasdaq's top in March 2000 -- but AMD did far better. But as the tech wreck intensified, both companies got back in sync -- to the downside. But since year-end, when most semiconductor stocks put in their bottoms, Intel has drifted lower, while AMD has more than doubled. Today the $100 invested in gorilla Intel is worth only $51 -- but the investment in little AMD is actually showing a profit, at $107.

Intel vs. AMD If you'd put $100 in each on March 10, 2000, here's what would have happened to your investment

Intel's midquarter update is Thursday -- maybe it'll pull something out of its hat that will get it back into the gorilla game. But right now I don't see what it's going to be. The reality is that AMD's last-generation Athlon processor outperforms Intel's next-generation Pentium processor. AMD's price-to-earnings ratio is half that of Intel's. And AMD has spent decades learning how to survive getting whacked with Intel's golden hatchet -- that one ain't gonna work here. So I'm betting against the gorilla on this one: I'm long AMD and have no position in Intel.