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Technology Stocks : Vitesse Semiconductor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lee Fredrickson who wrote (2735)	7/15/1999 3:13:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4710

Lee, my guess is that a lot of this activity is employee stock options related. In order to avoid an Alternative Minimum Tax trigger an employee must immediately cash out, so I don't view the shift as negative sign for the business. But I do suspect that you are correct about the additional shares depressing prices. Employee stock options are a license to steal from shareholders. They are not accounted for as a cost of doing business, so the impact is not seen on the income statement. Nevertheless, they represent real compensation costs which management expects the shareholders to bare. Consequently, earnings are overstated. I believe that these instruments are abominations that should be either ended or accounted for explicitly. TTFN, CTC