BobO, when journalists smell smoke, they look for a fire. That's their job. The SEC gets all sorts of complaints every day, but it's not every day they spend more than six months checking a single company out as they appear to be doing with OSTK. More smoke. Do you really expect these same journalists to sit idly by? I'm sure they know you'll be writing about how you knew they'd be writing follow-up stories on OSTK and NFI. Yet they persist. Why? So they can give you the "satisfaction" of saying "see, I told you"? No, it's because that's their job.
You mention about all the so-called experts that have all sorts of evidence of a massive short conspiracy. Yet it appears the SEC is looking at OSTK itself, not those alleged to have been attacking it. Why? Have the shorts pulled the wool over the eyes of the SEC?
In "slide 38", where you attempt to show how tight the group of core stockholders is (to the tune of 18.7M shares), you say that the Top 10 institutions (who control about a third of the outstanding shares according to Yahoo) have been "loyal to him [Byrne] and with him for the last decade." Hmmm... let's look at who the Top 10 was in 2004 and just how long and strong they are today.
30-Jun-04 31-Mar-05
Tiger Technology Management, LLC 1,150,000 1,089,095
Krevlin Advisers, LLC 1,118,296 600,000
Ashford Capital Management Inc. 625,536 365,160
Lord Abbett & Co 402,589 (not listed)
Barclays Bank Plc 349,531 543,677
Arience Capital Management, L.P. 245,122 (not listed)
Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 233,973 (not listed)
Dimensional Fund Advisors Inc 229,324 (not listed)
Highside Capital Management, LP 225,000 (not listed)
Goodnow (Edward B.) 206,394 (not listed)
Source: finance.yahoo.com and web.archive.org
I see a slight reduction in #1, a 46% drop in #2, a 42% drop in #3, and #4 is not even listed anymore (365,160 was needed to make the cut, so there was at least a 9% drop there as well). Yes, other companies have replaced the bottom five on the updated list, but your point was how long and strong the Top 10 have been over the last 10 years. Heck, not only have the 2004 Top 10 reduced their holdings, the fact that six of ten companies are different in the last 12 months shows that the concept of there even being a Top 10 was a fabrication!
Lastly, I see 51,000 net shares purchased by insiders at the retail price ($40-49 per share). Yet I also see more than 600,000 shares purchased via options at $7.09. Have you calculated what effect this has had on the share price because of the resulting dilution? Source: finance.yahoo.com
- Jeff |
