Dairy shares are soaring as investors flee Internet stocks for the wonderful and wooly certainty the cow guarantees.

                                                                   Mad with
Dairy Shares


The cow has come to the stock market and dairy shares are all the rage.
Entire herds are being dot comed and even slaughterhouses have attracted
margin buyers who know something about having blood on their hands.

This dairy tale has its roots in a barnyard prank 35-year ago. It seems that
Alfred R. Berleley III, now president of the Nasdaq stock exchange, led a
250-pound calf to the top of the rotunda at the University of Virginia.
Having majored in Civil War naval victories, Berkeley did not know what to
do when the animal went into convulsions on the way down, clearly afraid of
heights. What to do?

Alfred and his merry frat pranksters tried giving the animal mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation but the beast wouldn't cooperate. They tried reading passages
from Deliverance, with no success. Finally, Alfred and company gave the calf
an overdose of tranquilizer and the animal died. All was not lost as the Chi
Phi Delta fraternity roasted the animal in the middle of campus and held a
BYOB party. Everyone dressed as farmers or slaughterhouse workers. 

Who actually coaxed the cow up the rotunda was not known until three years
ago, when Alfred confessed. He also paid $1,765 cost of trying to solve the
case and to rescue the calf.  This show of honor after only 32 years has
earned the thief a place in Virginia's pantheon. So much so that he is
scheduled to give the commencement address this year.  And this is what all
the fuss is about.

Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have received a draft of
his speech titled, "When the Cows Come Home to Roost." It is a shocker, to
say the least. Berkeley, who led the Nasdaq to a record 100% increase in
1999 over the previous year, has been the darling of the Internet companies.
Perhaps not for much longer.

In his speech he refers "to the colossal  fantasy and egotism that is
driving the Web companies that are no more than business fictions propped up
by well-articulated vanity. Most of these companies are accidents waiting to
happen, with little revenue, no margins and slight prospect of positive
cash."

"It is time," he continues, " to put our money, our hopes, and our future
back into the old verities such as steel, petroleum and, yes, cows. In my
opinion the latter is an under-priced and underutilized commodity. In a way
it is central to our economic DNA. When was the last time you has a Web
sandwich.?" 

Advance copies of his speech have sent the Nasdaq plummeting-and the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange soaring.  Cows, pork bellies, and sheep brains have
never been higher.

No word yet from the University of Virginia, but there are indications than
a lot of undergraduates are switching majors to animal husbandry.