I won't spend any time kissing Bill's ass as he's probably so sore from all that he's gotten today he needs some recovery time. Bill - you were right, we were wrong, lets leave it at that.
Comment for CMason though -
Talk about DD? Two other friends and I did a LOT of DD on this company. We checked the products with users, we called Carberry religiously (I talked with him for at least an hour each time). We knew the right people, etc. Still, after all this info gathering, you could either make a strong case FOR or AGAINST the company. I choose the FOR position based on strong info that they would be bought out (and I'm not just talking about a rumor from granny). Obviously, this never came to pass, even though I think they were very close to cutting a deal when the stock ran to 18.
So, even with all the info we had you either had to be an employee, an auditor OR had some inside information - which one are you? I submit you can do all the DD in the world and at the end of the day you really don't know what's going on with a company unless you have one of the aforementioned edges. I'm curious to know what sources led you to go short - how did you have info that we did not? If you're in the business, know a market maker, know someone on the board, etc. then I can understand how you were smarter than the longs - would be interested in your story to gain perspective.
One other thing - I reviewed 10 of Wexlers picks on his thread and found eight of those to be losers (stock went up in value). Isn't hard to pick one loser in a stable of ten, don't you think? Comments welcome as I think you have the most level head of the shorts.
Curious - did you start as a long and switch over to pure shorting - or do you go both ways?
For the remaining longs, a few comments:
1) Forget the lawsuits - you'll just be making some Palo Alto or So. Florida bankruptcy attorney fat. I've been through two as follows:
Tandon Corp - 1985 - floppy disk drive business, very volatile - mgt lied to investors, was inept in the business, etc. - took two years to settle our class action suit - we investors made .05 on every dollar.
Seagate Corp - 1988 - again very volatile business - after a disastrous Q investors decided Al Shugart needed to be strung up - class action suit netted me .15 on each dollar (a huge sum in these types of cases!!!). My advice - don't file a suit. Company will tie up too much capital that should be going into improving the NT firewall vs. some dickhead lawyers pocket. Don't let your emotions get to you - forget the suit.
2) I plan to sell my balance this week if I can get 2. I still think there's some value here but plan to wait until the margin calls are out of the way (by Friday) and for the panic to subside. We also need to see what's going to happen with Carberry's replacement. The stock may get delisted and may be a good buy at much lower prices - need to wait to see how things shape up.
3) I've seen worse stocks hang in the 2 - 5 range and trade there so there may be a chance for some nimble traders to get some of their $$ back. But this will be tricky at best.
4) There were many signposts that we ignored along the way. Hope we've learned something from all this. |
