IPO HIT BY JADED MARKET LUMINENT SHARES HAVE WEAK DEBUT.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

Luminent is in the same fiber optics realm as crosstown rival Optical Communication Products Inc. and priced its stock to move in its initial public offering Friday.

So why did Luminent shares gain a feeble 13 cents from their original $12 asking price while Optical Communication's $11 shares nearly doubled after its IPO last week?

Analysts said the Luminent IPO, delayed from a planned July offering, found the market jaded toward yet another fiber optics newcomer. The fact that the country is not sure who its next president will be isn't helping either.

``This is just not a good day for an offering, period,'' said Randall Roth, a research analyst at Renaissance Capital, a Greenwich, Conn.-based company that manages the IPO Plus mutual fund.

The latest member of Chatsworth's fiber optics community to go public, the MRV Communications spinoff issued 12 million shares of common stock to raise $144 million. Though the company turned profits in previous years, a series of acquisitions of related companies means Luminent expects to post a net loss for 2000.

For the first six months of 2000, the Nordhoff Street company reported a net loss of $10.9 million on sales of $43.6 million.

Though Roth thinks the poor showing is less about Luminent and more about its circumstances, Steven Tuen of IPO Value Monitor said its dim prospects for immediate profitability might be at play.

``When a company has trouble generating profits during good times, one has to wonder how they're going to fare during hard times,'' Tuen said.

Luminent stock finished at $12.13, up 13 cents, or about 1 percent, in active Nasdaq trading. MRV stock suffered from the tech slide affecting the rest of the sector as well, finishing down $4, or 12.2 percent, to $29.