To: Diana R. Chambers who wrote (3470 ) 10/2/1999 1:55:00 AM From: michael r potter Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Poor Safeguard all the way to the bank. In early '93 there were only 4.8M sh outstanding. Talk about obscurity, it almost traded by appointment. Some mornings there would not be a single trade for over an hour. Despite that the stock went from $3.20 to $70 and spun off some extremely lucrative rights. It is now better known. I find comfort in the purported negatives cited in the article, as that translates into a relative lack of hype and fluff built into the current price vs. some of the nothing.coms with multibillion $ market caps-which means that there is less fluff to be taken out during market down cycles. It also allows for continued discovery and upward valuation as it becomes better known and appreciated. Management may be older in years, but not old in thought-just very experienced in the most positive way vs. some of the hot shot upstarts. Some people equate market cap with brilliance, and many of the 28 year old visionary geniuses steering companies with hyped valuations will learn that what appears so is not. There will be coming a time in the not to distant future when true experience and wisdom gleaned from doing this for many years will be a commodity sorely missing and painfully apparent with many of the new hot start ups. Some will go out and hire experience and wisdom, and make it through OK, but with SFE, I am comforted that it already comes with the package. And...they are highly ethical to boot! Not perfect execution at times, but very very good. Their future despite high price volatility related to the tech. exposure is very bright. As Mr Musser would probably say, the future has never looked brighter for Safeguard. There is no comparison what they have going now compared to just a few short years ago. The price is higher, but justifiably so. Long term holders have nothing to worry about IMO
