August 15 LOOMS: 10K due, MII to be sold by Mid-August, plane is gassing up!
"Consummation of this sale is contingent on finalization of mutually agreeable terms
and conditions for both parties, and is currently expected to be completed by mid August."
Timing is Everything
July 2000
When a company has good news, it wants the whole world to know it. It
faxes, emails, or calls all of its large investors. It sets up a conference call to
spread the good word. It then puts the good news on its website and sends out
a self-promotional, fancy press release. It does this while the whole world is
watching, usually right before the market opens or right after it closes. The
news release is a virtual love fest and everyone is invited.
When a company has bad news, on the other hand, it’s a whole different
story. The company hangs its head in shame and does what it can to bury the
news. Case in point: Computer Associates. As
Computer Associates was closing the books on its 2nd
quarter recently, it realized that
its earnings per share were
going to come in about 75%
below expectations. The company had to get the news
out, but it wanted to do so in the sneakiest manner
possible. So, Computer Associates elected to release its
unfortunate news on Monday July 3rd at approximately
11:00 PM. At the time of the news release, nobody
was in the office and nobody was paying attention.
Computer Associates figured that everyone would have
one too many cocktails on the 4th of July and forget the
crappy news that the company had released a day
earlier. It didn’t work out that way, but you can’t blame management for
trying. Computer Associates is not the first, and certainly won’t be the last,
company to try and bury bad news by releasing it on an obscure day at a time in
which the North American Continent is fast asleep.
StreetMonkey has compiled a list of favored times and dates that are used
by sneaky companies who have bad news to report, but don’t really want to
report it. If you have a position in a company that waits for one of these
opportune times to release news, you should sell the stock in that company as
soon as you get a chance. If a management team tries to sweep bad news
under the carpet, there’s no telling what other ugliness lies up their sleeve.
The Friday after Thanksgiving. This is a crappy news release
favorite. Wait until everyone is completely engorged with turkey and
stuffing and then release news that everyone will be too tired to read
due to the large amounts of bird in their systems.
Late Friday before Labor Day and Memorial Day Weekends. Again,
another easy target for the wily company that has not met expectations.
Everyone is traveling to get to a beach or some sort of summer getaway
and thinking how awful they look in a bathing suit.
Anytime between Christmas and New Years. Basically, another
sucker punch by a company that has screwed up. Most people are
either on vacation or groggy from multiple nights of eggnog, mistletoe
and parties.
Late New Year’s Eve Day. This one takes the cake for obvious
reasons. Liquor, liquor, liquor.
Here at StreetMonkey we promise never
to release bad news at times when no one
can read it. We promise to release any and
all bad news about ourselves and others in
a timely manner and when everyone is
awake. When the SEC or the FCC finally
catches up to us and shuts us down, or we
just get too darn tired to write anymore,
we'll tell everyone that we are out of
business immediately. And when we have good news? We'll throw a party.
You'll all be invited.
streetmonkey.com |
