The hard hit telecom sector took another battering on Tuesday as Verizon ... warned there would be no growth in revenues ... [From Bloomberg, Reuters: What's more, Verizon said it doesn't expect improvement in revenue growth in the near term. It wasn't more specific.] ... Analysts warned investors to brace themselves for more bad news. "First quarter results are expected to remain depressed across all companies in the telecom sector." SoundView lowered earnings estimates for BellSouth, citing Argentina and Venezuela; stock loses 7% to hit 4 year low. ... Verizon will take a $2.5B charge and does not expect growth; stock down 3%. WorldCom promises to cut capex but still loses over 10%. SBC loses 4.5%, Sprint 3%, Quest 3%, Vodafone 3.5%, Nokia and Alcatel down. BT will cut 18,000 jobs and promises to find a way to pay off $14B in debt. Nortel maxes out its credit line for another $1.9B after banks decline to increase its limit; stock is down 51% this year. Analyst: "Nortel has sufficient resources to survive the downturn; the odds of a Nortel bankruptcy are less than 10%." ... The telecoms sector continued to get slammed as investors worry that the slowdown may have more to do with industry fundamentals than with the economy. ... "People were thinking that the slowdown in the revenues and the lines were recession-related. (But) upon closer [inspection], they're starting to focus in on the likely secular declines in the revenue growth coming out of the basic local services companies. It really shouldn't come as a big surprise. The basic telecommunications service companies are facing some very challenging fundamentals." Telecoms Stocks Fall as Hopes Dashed | 
