Please respond to Sivy on Stocks SIVY ON STOCKS from money.com May 7, 2001  Higher Flyer  Top techs such as Nokia may not look cheap by traditional valuation measures.
But they may still be good buys.
By Michael Sivy  Value is a relative term.
Every once in a while, you get a chance to buy shares in a company with annual earnings growth of more than 20 percent at a price/earnings ratio of 16 or less.
But that doesn't happen very often.
Most of the time, conservative investors are lucky to find 14 percent growth at a 16 P/E.
Slightly more aggressive investors might be happy with 18 percent growers at P/Es in the low 20s.
The most successful growth stocks, however, may never fall all the way down to those cheap valuations.
But that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy them.
In fact, there are good reasons to devote at least a part of your portfolio to those kinds of high flyers.
For one thing, those companies are typically among the world's most successful.
In addition, they receive ongoing support and sponsorship from Wall Street analysts.
As long as they continue to meet expectations, they will hold up fairly well in temporary market downturns.
And they will be among the first stocks to bounce back.
A perfect case in point looks to be Nokia [NOK].
The Finnish giant is the most successful firm in one of the world's most rapidly growing industries.
And since 1997, Nokia's share of the global wireless-phone handset market has risen from less than 20 percent to 35 percent, helping the company nearly double earnings per share since 1998.
Of course, no company can increase its market share indefinitely, but there are several factors that should help sustain Nokia's superior profit growth.
Since most everyone who would use a cell phone already has one, the bulk of the sales of cell phones using existing technology is replacement business.
And when existing users switch phones, they tend to maintain brand loyalty -- if they change providers at all, they migrate toward the

Sivy on Stocks: Higher Flyer
