Don't Leave Two Tech Giants for Dead

This column was originally published on RealMoney on Oct. 31 at 12:00 p.m. EDT. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers.

The prospects for Intel(INTC) and Microsoft(MSFT) -- as stocks, mind you -- has never been lower and less top-of-mind. That's my take when I canvas the Street and ask people what they think of these two stocks.

Intel is perceived as a hopeless and poorly managed loser that has let AMD(AMD) get the better of it. The fact that it reports 8 times a year and gives guidance each time has led people to believe that it has become a stock that no one will ever get an edge on, so who cares?

Microsoft is worse. Here's a company that is so consistent, it's viewed as being un-ownable. It's viewed as a piggy bank for Bill Gates, who seems to sell no matter what, making the stock an endless printing press that lacks a government bond's upside.

In many ways these two views are, astoundingly, what makes these stocks most interesting. They are both left-for-dead roadkill that nobody gives a darn about.

Meanwhile, I believe that the personal computer is integral to the next stage of consumer gadgetry. The personal computer's screen and its ability to do so many things makes it so that, rather than irrelevant, it's indispensable. We want instant "on," we want better software, we want more Web-surfing tools and we want to be able to take our PCs anywhere and use them. Does that sound like a prescription for obsolescence? Is that a bearish long-term perspective?

These two are inexpensive stocks -- whoever thought that could happen? -- that people are just as comfortable being short as long. At one point on Thursday night, there was a guy trying to sell Microsoft down to $23, for what reason? A penny guidance? There are people who truly believe that Intel has to trade back to the teens to be interesting again, when, if anything, you have to believe that if Intel were to just change someone at the top or how it communicates to Wall Street, you would have a much bigger stock.

Earlier today I was asked if I still believed in a fourth-quarter tech rally. I found myself laughing, because I can understand why we always rally so hard in November and December: because the prospects, the spirit and the will of the bulls is always so crushed by October that you can't help but rally.

That's where we are today.

Kind of nice, when you think about it.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints