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To: GST who wrote (99564)	4/8/2000 10:25:00 PM
From: Eric Wells	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Net execs sold stock before big drop Sales may signal waning confidence By Del Jones USA TODAY April 6, 2000 usatoday.com Internet executives unloaded stock in the month before the market slide and escaped part of the pain of the Nasdaq's 17% drop from its March 10 high. Sales of insiders' restricted stock typically average $1 billion to $3 billion a month, but jumped to $12 billion a month from November to February, says Bob Gabele, research chief at First Call/Thomson Financial, which tracks insider sales. 'The explosion is primarily in technology stocks' and may have contributed to the sector's recent drop, he says. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show: * Drugstore.com founder Jed Smith sold 150,000 of his 950,000 shares for $3.9 million in February after leaving the company in August. The stock, about $23 when Smith sold, Wednesday closed at $9.88. * Insiders of MicroStrategy, including CEO Michael Saylor, sold shares totaling more than $80 million in the weeks before the stock dropped 62% in one day. * Beyond.com's ex-CEO, Mark Breier, sold 80,000 shares in February after he quit in January, raising $444,000. Although investors may shrug off systematic sales by Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, Glenn Curtis of InsiderTrader.com says insider sales at upstarts might signal waning confidence. 'At smaller companies like drkoop.com, if insiders aren't going to put their money forward at low prices, from an investor's perspective, why should I?' Curtis says. Former surgeon general C. Everett Koop, chairman of drkoop.com, and Nancy Snyderman, a physician who's a medical correspondent for ABC and a Web site contributor, each sold $3 million of stock at about $9 a share in February. The stock closed Wednesday at $2.69. Drkoop.com spokeswoman Stephanie Fulton says there was a lot of selling by insiders in February because they only had a seven-day window between the lock-out period after the company's initial public offering and the quarterly earnings blackout period. 'People are diversifying their portfolios, and they have every right to do so,' Fulton says. VerticalNet CEO Mark Walsh sold 110,000 shares in February for $23.8 million when the stock was over $200 a share, before a 2-for-1 split. Wednesday's close of $55 is the equivalent of about 50% of where Walsh sold. Walsh dismisses the notion that his selling contributed to the stock's drop. 'No, I don't think insider selling has anything to do with it,' he says. 'A typical trading day for us is 1.5 million shares, so my sale in February could have nothing to do with it.' Walsh says more than 90% of his wealth is still in VerticalNet.