| I couldn't disagree more. Those who delve too deeply into that type of behavior may benefit in the short term, but pay the piper at some point. BTW, when DID one of the founders of QCOM (and a close personal friend of Dr J's from MIT), Andrew Viterbi, leave and announce his retirement? Right after the stock peaked in Dec '99. Likewise insider transactions always occurred in Dec '99 and Dec '00 (and other dates) to coincide with relative peaks in stock prices. How DO these people always consistently sell near the peaks? I guess that's why they're the execs, right? I mean, didn't co-founder Harvey White buy himself 200,000 shares of LWIN when it started at around $2 a share (and might have cashed out at over $100--price is now under $1)? Didn't Richard Sulpizio in spring of '99 said, "We are NOT selling the infrastructure division"? Wouldn't shareholders that acted upon that information, might have felt misled? If I remember right, when G* was DOA, Bernie and Irwin were singing its praises as G* stock cleared $40 a share only to later distance themselves from the project. Guess they totally missed the boat on that one...it happens...but then why all the funky G* accting? QCOM stock went up 2600%...likely due to Lehman Bros. & BT Alex Brown successfully mkting the stock not real value--where did the forecast data come from to rationalize $1000/share? If you bought stock at the beginning of '99, your first born might be named 'Irwin'; however, if you bought stock at the end of '99, you might hate QCOM stadium. Likewise, if you were the QCOM field engineer that almost went to jail for life in Russia (Richard Bliss) you might not feel so great about mgt. Or if, in some Companies (not mentioning any names) you were one of the foreign nationals almost set up by his boss to present a Company appointed agent with a bribe to seal the deal (and nearly prosecuted under the Foreign Corruption Act), you'd think mgt wasn't all that ethical and pushed the envelope too much. But it was always the middle mgrs doing that stuff (yet they were hired by top execs). You learn top mgt delegates such things and, if necessary, feigns ignorance later. Hence, they appear reputable--ALWAYS. You think the stock always naturally goes up and down like a yo-yo to coincide with mgt's strategic moves and industry announcements? Relationships are the fundamental currency of all business. Trust is fundamental to all relationships. Violate that and your business falls apart. Some are better at deceiving than others, while all who participate in these types of shenanigans will enjoy the benefits but also eventually suffer. Having said that, though, judgements are positional; it depends where you sit--nothing (and no one) is all good, or bad. However, regardless of these points, QCOM's success may or may not be realized for various reasons. |
