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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hueyone who wrote (24221)	5/5/2000 10:23:00 AM
From: saukriver	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

MSFT--WDYWTGT Problem Huey, Many thanks for tracking down the Barron's article on MSFT's put warrant exposure. Even I don't think MSFT's stock will get to zero, so I don't see a $12B hit. It could have a one or a couple of billion in exposure, depending on what the market does. The bigger problems are (1) the private lawsuits (and the turborcharging of those suits by the findings of fact), (2) the brain drain, and (3) what I call the WDYWTGT Problem (the Where Do You Want To Go Today? Problem). To me, Microsoft's no longer has that laserbeam-like focus on how it wishes to extend its hegemony over the desktop into other markets. John Chambers at CSCO knows what he needs to do (if he has any doubts, he can turn any George Gilder piece on SONET). Dr. Irwin Jacobs at QCOM has a clear game plan. Tom Siebel knows his mission. I get the sense that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have pretty well completed their mission; I cannot know longer describe in a nutshell what they want to do in the future. That is either because MSFT has a secret plan. Or, it is because MSFT has no plan. MSFT has been spending money in (throwing money at) market after market. Cable. DSL. Wireless. Broadband. Voice recognition. Encryption. I come away with the sense that MSFT has no clear direction except to place a slew of bets in hope (like a reckless gambler) that one might payoff. (Conversely, people argue that it is like a mutual fund of investments a la Berkshire Hathaway whose Warren Buffett has been pals with Gates for several years). But the $5Billion investment by Microsoft in AT&T as preferred stock was just plain stupid. Microsoft got virtually nothing for it. Microsoft must have figured that the small preferred return from AT&T and AT&T's braindead technology offered better returns than re-investing such dough in Microsoft business. Microsoft's ad "Where Do You Want To Go Today?" campaign was ironic because that question is better posed to the company. saukriver

To: hueyone who wrote (24221)	5/5/2000 6:40:00 PM
From: IngotWeTrust	Respond to of 54805

Hueyone, that was an extremely cogent "put" article you posted, under the Fair Use, etc., doctrine to this thread from Barron's. I found the candor about "savvy corporate treasures' gambling" extremely helpful. I do hope, MIKE Buckley spent some time with the salient points as it supports both his efforts at research as to the liabilities, and the "between the lines" references as to how these massive put writes are funded by those "saavy types" which I elaborated upon in my post to MIKE yesterday. Again, nice post!