Being short on Novell has been the single greatest and peaceful investments that I have ever made. And I am completely unanimous in this <g>. Once in a while I've gotten a bit jittery when there have been a couple of serious takeover rumors, but Novell management, thank heaven, comes to the rescue and denies any and all rumors. This allows the stock to renew its downward spiral.
For fun, I have been reading dozens of articles on Apple. I retrieve them into my Microsoft Word word processor. I do a search for Apple and replace it with Novell. I change Amelio to Schmidt. And I change any dated material to be six months from now.
I then reprint the pages and file them for future reference. Six months from now, I will retrieve the same articles and will enjoy reading the comments about Herr Dr. Schmidt. Industry experts with then ask why the board had chosen a technologist instead of someone who could sell product.
These folks will ask why the board is so out of touch with the networking industry. The board will then look for someone who will be able to turn the company around in spite of X number of tries. They will look for a seasoned veteran who has star capabilities. He, a woman would never do, will last six months before burning out. He then will bide his time until he gets a good severance for pursuing other, personal, interests.
Sure, the stock will rally a point or two when he leaves, but it will continue its inevitable slide toward cash value. At this point, operating costs will begin eating into the cash hoard and it will slowly, but steadily begin to disappear. The stock will spike a few times as the money managers unload inventory by sucking in new fools (read value investors).
But seeing Novell at 2 1/2 (adjusted for a year-end reverse split) next summer will be well worth it. This thread will then be just like the one of recent days, where new people jump in and ask the oldtimers about the incredible value here--NDS, BorderWare, IntranetWare, GroupWise. They will talk about splitting the company up and entertaining the breakup value (as if NOVL were the former ATT).
And they will complain about the negative press. Why is the press negative, you ask? Nobody likes to talk about it. The truth is that Novell has ruined many journalistic careers. Imagine all of the columnists who have touted Novell technology in the past, only to see Novell kill or sell off the technology. Yeah, they are still having a credibility issue or two. To tout Novell takes real guts. People will either assume the columnist is out of touch, or on the company payroll, or that Novell just signed up for a one-year period of full page, full color ads.
Novell is stupid and stupid is what stupid does. I love this company. What a wonderful, god-given gift it has been financially to me to have such a strong group of such mediocre people assembled in one company under one stock. And being short this wonderful stock makes me feel like the smartest man in the universe.
AV |
