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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (28993)	9/24/1999 2:29:00 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

The Ballmer Crash of '99--(he wanted to pick new buy back at lower cost to MSFT.. my insertion ggg Ike) Inside Upside September 24, 1999 Steve Ballmer is my hero. Alan Greenspan has nothing on him. While the Fed chief is off trying to reassure the country that Y2K is not going to bring about a whole series of market-pummeling disasters, Ballmer makes one simple, indisputable statement and the NASDAQ drops 108 points! Steve's da Man! Do you find it amazing that Ballmer can trigger a sell-off simply by saying tech stocks are absurdly overvalued? Me neither. Unexpected, maybe, but not surprising. Microsoft is an important company. Ballmer actually has more credibility for his views on what's happening in tech stocks than Greenspan does. Ballmer simply didn't know -- until now -- that he has Greenspanesque power. The shame is that the Microsoft crack flack team is now probably going to put a muzzle on him. "No more speaking the truth, Steve, you might cause a market crash!" What we need is more of the truth. Think about it. What if not only Ballmer, but Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, Steve Case, Tim Koogle, John Chambers, Scott McNealy, Larry Ellison (well, maybe not McNealy and Ellison) and other highly respected tech execs started admitting that their stocks were absurdly overvalued? A little bit of a reality check from people not known for hyperbole (which is why we can eliminate McNealy and Ellison) would be really refreshing. Would the stock market crash in a wild panic? No. But it might regain a little bit of sanity. Maybe people's overheated enthusiasm would be tempered a little, and some of the ridiculous market fluctuations we see now would dampen. Would that be so bad? A little honesty is not going to cause a long-term crash. I can guarantee you that, long term, tech stocks will still go up. Tech companies will still go public. VCs will still invest. Maybe some speculators and Day Traders will find their jobs a little more difficult. That's as it should be. We all know that short-term stock changes are largely a matter of investor psychology. Lately, the investors have been downright neurotic. So a little bit of plain speaking is way overdue. So I'll try to make a point as plainly as I know how -- by plagiarizing someone else. I mentioned in a previous column that I had listened to a presentation by my old pal Geoff Moore recently. Moore is one of the greatest writers and pundits in our industry, with an enviable talent for explaining things lucidly. One thing I didn't mention in that column is an analysis he gave of tech stock valuations. He absolutely nailed it. Technology stocks, especially Internet stocks, said Moore, are all overvalued. But the seeming paradox is that the tech sector as a whole, especially the Internet sector, is undervalued.