Paul,
You said: "It is true that people tend to persist in their views even in the face of facts. Some people have little patience with this. As to your general comments about the thread I have to ask my standard question. Do you own any of this stock, for how long and at what price?"
I admit I'm one of those with little patience for intentional ignorance. Chalk it up to an engineering/math background.
I don't believe this forum is a "twelve-step" program where people should have to "qualify" themselves before being able to speak... "Hi, I'm xxxx, and I'm a financially dependent shareholder. My descent into this living hell began when..." It's a public forum (well, public to the extent that anyone who pays the $75 can say anything they want).
To answer your question however, I don't own any Novell stock at the moment. Almost all my available investment dollars happen to be tied up in my own business right now (talk about high-risk non-diversified investments!). I'm sure some people will interpret this to mean I'm not "qualified" to express some opinions on this forum. However, I've probably got as high a percentage of my net worth (if not higher) riding on a bet on the future of Novell and it's products as anyone else here, so they can blow it out of any available orifice.
In any case, I've never expressed an opinion on this forum on the stock price, whether today, in the past, or in the future. I've tried to limit my statements to things I'm at least somewhat qualified to express an educated opinion on, or to state easily verifiable facts. I don't recall anyone ever challenging any of my statements on a factual or debatable basis, although there have been a few negative responses of the "rant and rave" variety. I usually don't respond to these, since any fool can see them for what they are.
I agree completely that anyone contemplating owning Novell stock would benefit tremendously from reading past posts on this board. I've read every post for almost the entire last year. I'm in the process of rearranging some retirement funds in order to buy some stock in Novell, since that's all the investment funds I have available right now. In the past year, I haven't seen one single post on this board in the past year that presents a convincing argument to me that this is a bad investment at this point. There is a lot of talk and, to a certain extent, completely justified indignation about how it has been a bad investment in the past, but that's the past. I guess some people are just stuck in it.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, and all the other contributions you make to this forum.
Jerry |
