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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (28276)	9/27/1999 12:13:00 AM
From: George Papadopoulos	Respond to of 42771

>All this says nothing about the financial fraud going on inside Microsoft: 1) deducting the taxes employees owe Uncle Sam when they exercise their options while NOT taking as an expense the difference between the exercise price and the current stock price; 2) failing to put on the balance sheet over $66 billion (the difference between excercise prices and current stock price of unexercised options X total shares)owed to employees who haven't exercised their stock options. This is not fraud...whatever they do falls within GAAP. A few years back the FASB (the independent accounting standards setting body) was about to finally issue some standards to take into account both of the points you mention BUT what followed was one of the most massive lobbying efforts by ALL directions (mostly tech companies)...in fact it was in such a scale that the FASB totally abandoned their efforts (unprecedented)...they haven't raised the stock option issue since then! >If the street looks the other way on all this by saying "everyone is doing it" then I guess we are all just gullible. I agree 100% with the above statement:(

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (28276)	9/27/1999 1:07:00 AM
From: Bearded One	Respond to of 42771

As Michael Kinsley once said: The scandal isn't what people do that is illegal. The scandal is what people do that is legal. I doubt Microsoft is breaking the law in any of their stock transactions. That's not to say that what they are doing is ethical. On the other hand, companies used to wait for several years of profitability before selling shares to the public. Now we have BUY.COM, AMAZON.COM, etc.. and they're doing secondaries fer crying out loud! If you're going to seriously try to look for any illegal (as opposed to just immoral) financial activities on the part of Microsoft, you'll probably be more successfull looking into possible 'revenue purchasing' schemes than trying to unwind their stock stuff.

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (28276)	9/27/1999 3:25:00 AM
From: EPS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Ok after all the drama let's see what you've got on PUTS: 1. "The problem will surface when the stock goes down. How will Microsoft satisfy their put obligations? How will they buy all this stock?" Please give me a break..even the USA could face the same problem with the dollar..At any rate nothing illegal here.. 2. "When asked this, Maffi - their CFO - chuckled that they would just issue more stock to satisfy the delivery when Wall Street "puts" the stock to them. " No proof of anything wrong either.. 3. "If there is a direct connection between these trades and a financial relationship with Microsoft, then one could argue collusion. If there is collusion, then one must examine the pricing of these puts. My guess would be the pricing is at very favorable terms." 4."There may be 168 million put option warrants out there - a small number when stacked against their total shares outstanding- but does this include all the listed put option contracts they've been selling over the past 4+ years? " really.. ======================== If this is all you've got then I don;t think you have to worry: big brother, and the other monsters are probably not after you... VD