Hi Brian, RE: "What do you say about the fact that Ottelini recently sold 2/3(900,000 shares) of his INTC position? Surely he would not have sold such a large chunk of his stake if good times were around the corner. And if this is indeed true, how can you ever blame the recent stock market downdraft on Bush?"
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I share exactly the same opinion Paul Engel shared with us: things probably are going to be in the tank until the war situation is over.
As far as Otellini goes, if he felt things were so bad, why not sell all of it, not just 2/3rds?
Every year I download insider transaction reports from Yahoo into a spreadsheet, looking for any nasty patterns. I haven't seen anything wrong in any particular person.
I do think Intel should impose a January-only selling for all their executives, especially blocking out July & August's back-to-school sales period.
As a group, there were around 94 insiders' sell transactions in 2000. In 2001, it went down to around 33 sells. In 2002, around 120 (an unusually high number of sales happened in April-02. Wasn't that around Bush's terrorist warnings?)
Yahoo's report shows Otellini sold around 2/3 in his previous sale too, just like this one, so I don't see a difference there. It shows he didn't sell anything last year.
What I think should bug you though, are the comments reportedly made by Bill Gates regarding IT spending 2-3 years out. Bill G has one of the best visions in the high-tech industry - I can't think of a single time he has been wrong. He (and other industry leaders) ought to share more of his/their vision to the tech industry. I think it would be welcomed.
I've stopped writing covered calls, but BG's reported comments makes me consider writing some short-term ones on maybe a very small portion of the portfolio (though the stocks look deep enough in the tank that I still think it may not be worth the risk of a recovery).
I had the general impression the high-tech industry was going to be about a year out, not 2 to 3.
Regards,
Amy J |
