I'd like to comment on CheckFree and Netscape.
These are both good long-term shorts. CheckFree is definitely hyped-up right now, it's stock price is inflated. Eventually, you will make money on a short, but why not just short Intuit? They will own a lot of Checkfree stock and so will go down at least some when Checkfree does, plus they will go down anyway because Quicken, TurboTax, etc. will get mauled by Microsoft... it's a little bit of a safer short I would say.
As for Netscape, they are also claiming the same territory as Microsoft. Will they win? I once thought they would, but now that I've actually tried Explorer, I like it a lot better. Explorer is coming with a lot of machines nowadays, possibly more than Netscape? I think the market share will definitely turn in Microsoft's direction before long.
Microsoft has the tendancy to wait for someone else to invent something like Quicken or Netscape, and then build a better version of it. It's amazingly similar to the Japanese companies. I wouldn't invest in anything that stands in the way of Microsoft's R&D. I'd probably short most, definitely Netscape or Intuit.
~Ben |
