Hi Carolyn, agreeing with Blue about "the parts'll be worth more than the whole". Gotta say i was Stoked from the git-go re: the ATT giveout from the breakup... more than your friend seems to be about it (was he spoiled by too many 909s earlier on than i ever was? LOL).
Now me, with no PHD just an Art Degree... i just put my thumb up to the landscape, looked at the proportions, & smiled. Smile is an understatement - i was/am THRILLED to be holding so many different stocks from that one ATT buy (my first outside of a mutual fund); actually IT BLEW MY MIND!! Wow, walking on Wall Street now!! LOL remember comparing it to being able to save mucho artsupply money on expensive tubes of paint colors by the Transparencies in layers process, which 909s the blends and lights and masses in the picture by judicious use of mattes under glosses!! At the time, i didn't understand, pay attention to, or trade stocks at all like i do now, and was so puzzled about why news was downgrading it so and saying the shareholders were ripped off, etc. My simple mind just thought "WHAT ARE THEY, CRAZY?? NOTHING'S WRONG WITH THIS!!! As my simple mind would be thinking that same thing if it were today... except that now i know some of that would be the work of manips!
Also i fondly recall how in '96 the nicely nicely value of the orig. ATT shares give-outs Really Rocketed from what had been a real nice climb... immediately following the LU shares arriving in the mail!! When i got those first shares of Lucent, i remember thinking the slapdash calligraphy red-circle on the beige parchment was rather unworthy for this spinoff of mostly BellLabs/NewTelecomProducts div., the logo looked kinda crummy. Appx. 1 share of LU for every 4 of ATT held was given as i recall. Well it didn't stay in the 20's for very long, WHOOOOOEEEE!! Around the time of PACB re-merger with BEL or BLS (fergit which one) it diminished the shares held in both but upped the pps nicely; that exchange was followed up by a 2-for 1 split before too long, which increased the shares & gradually also the pps! The give-outs from ATT ALL 909ed (with the exception of NCR) after not too long Proceeding from the time of break-up. The Original ATT shares were still held; free certificates kept coming in the mail at first and for years. My original investment in ATT is a Big-Bagger 909 ManyManyTines, counting all the splits on top of a few quacks of these cores these last coupla years!! Yep.
Then ATT split 3-for-1 earlier this year: they had been considering an issue of tracking shares (to the holders AND the market, sent a personal letter to shareowners that wasn't reported in news til later) (i like the Company BTW) for the cable div. but split instead. T's re-purchase of (was it UMG or USW? i forget) was a buy-back, the AIT/SBC merger (as is every ticker mentioned here, i think i talked about 'em all) is a consolidation of ATT spinoffs as well. With all the Co's. and shares T's got in there now again along with the growing DOTCOM, cable, & wireless (some big EPS % there!!) they could Do It Again, and I DO hope they will!!!
If MSFT does this for us for The Milennium, i hope it does it the same as ATT did and doesn't fool around with tracking stock ipos not given to shareowners, etc. It gets me riled when these Companies do that; when they say it goes into earnings - yeah right - the way i see it is, it's just more money getting gobbled up again by A Big Fat Scrooge from shares that rightfully belong to my original investment, not other new holders! Like i said, I'm Simple. And Yep, OinkOink, thats RIGHT!!
I'm predicting the value of each and every MSFT spinoff (well, maybe there'd be an exception like NCR in there if there are so many of them as T did) would go up in value and then start their splits quick as well... 909s streaming in from all points of the compass! Just Like Good Old Times with interesting re-consolidation shenanigans too going up against the fcc/feds again and again, just like ATT did. But MSFT would be 909ing much faster because that's how the market's moving now and it wasn't way back when. I'll sure be buying more shares of 'em all if/when MSFT breaks up! Watch 'em Do It To It!!!
Count Me In On All The Fun!!!
909s,
Joan |
