Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 
Making sense of technology stock valuations is a mind-roasting task particularly when there are no known and tested valuation techniques to ascertain quality. 

The first quarter of the year 2000 saw the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) awash with news of IT and Internet related tie-ups, propelling share prices of many Second Board companies to dizzying heights. Like its start-up counterparts around the world, many of these Internet ventures are not yet revenue generating, let alone profitable.

Whilst many of these Internet start-ups may or may not succeed, they have captured the attention of investors with their potential. The share prices of these companies appreciated strongly at the mere mention of the "e" word. Even now, most companies are planning to or have already launched their own e-commerce/e-business outfits. 

However, the past three months have seen a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the technology sector. A global correction in the technology segment resulted in the sector's benchmark - NASDAQ - moving southward. 

It is against this backdrop of these events, that zoomFinance posed these questions. How are such stocks to be priced? Even with the sharp falls in recent weeks, many technology stocks remain at incredible valuations compared to 'old-economy' stocks. How do we make sense of this? 

Vincent Khoo [VK] (SG Research (M) Sdn Bhd)
Vincent Khoo has over 10 years of experience in investment research. He is currently Vice-President of Research at SG Research Malaysia, covering technology, automobile and F&B stocks. He began his career in the U.S. where he spent four years as an analyst assisting in managing a growth stock portfolio for a pension fund client, prior to moving back to Malaysia where he spent another six years as a buy side analyst in houses such as Phileo-Allied Securities and Kezan Securities. Vincent is a chartered financial analyst (CFA) and has a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the University of Cincinnati. 

Kee Kin Onn [KKO] (CIMB Securities Sdn Bhd)
Kee Kin Onn is Vice-President of Research at CIMB Securities. A KPMG chartered accountant by training, he now specialises in infrastructure research as well as oversees the market analysis at CIMB. His advisory experience is wide ranging having advised companies on listings as well as mergers and acquisitions (M&As), investment allocation and selection and financial planning and communication. Kin Onn is an avowed collector of qualifications especially in his field of finance, financial planning, management and accounting. He has professional awards from U.S., Britain and Australia.

Stanley Ng  [SN] (Microsoft Knowledge Capital Center Sdn Bhd)
Stanley Ng is the director of Business Solutions Group for Microsoft Malaysia. He also manages Microsoft Knowledge Capital Center. Prior to this he was Microsoft Malaysia's Internet Business Development Manager responsible for working with the Internet community in Malaysia to adopt and develop content on Microsoft products. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems from the University of Oklahoma. 

Daniel Chan [DC] (Andersen Consulting Sdn Bhd)
Daniel Chan is a partner at Andersen Consulting in Kuala Lumpur. A consultant for the past 17 years, his experience has brought him to work with large local corporations as well as multinationals. He is presently the driving force behind the electronic commerce practice for Andersen Consulting in Asia and has spent his past year actively working with clients building various e-commerce applications. He is of the belief that companies should focus on Internet technologies to improve their own efficiencies, not just in logistics, but also in customer service. Daniel graduated with first class honours in mechanical engineering from the Imperial College of London.

Ho Chin Beng [HCB] (The DotComBrokers Pte Ltd, Singapore)
Ho Chin Beng is the chairman of The Internet Call Centre Pte Ltd, the world's first multi-country direct customer care service provider for the Internet, and concurrently President & CEO of The DotComBrokers Pte Ltd, a venture capital corporation and six-star dot-com incubator operator in Singapore. Chin Beng, a Harvard-trained MBA also sits on the boards of several other Internet companies. He is a life member of the Economic Society of Singapore and an ex-committee member of the Harvard Club of Singapore. He was an international banker specialising in Southeast Asian syndicated loans and ran a Singapore "Big Four" Bank's Representative Office in Myanmar.