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To: GST who wrote (142425)5/21/2002 12:50:44 PM
From: H James Morris  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 164684
 
Bill "the SI trader" started the "new economy" thread on May 10th 2000.
Talk about bad timing.
>>Currently 100% invested: AMZN, ARBA, BRCD, BVSN, CMRC, CRA, DCLK, EBAY, HGSI, ITRA, MU, NPSP, PHCM, QXLC, SCMR, SCON, SONE, SYBB, VCNT, VIGN, VRSN, VRTA, YHOO.<<
I've just got to get a message to Billy. Hold on, hold on!
siliconinvestor.com



To: GST who wrote (142425)5/21/2002 1:07:08 PM
From: H James Morris  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164684
 
Johannesburg, May 20, 2002 (TMTweb/All Africa Global Media from COMTEX) -- Global brokerage Merrill Lynch has recommended to its clients that they sell US technology shares into the recent strength on the Nasdaq because it says mainstream technology "is not a growth sector anymore".<<
Gold bugs seem to be in control these days.



To: GST who wrote (142425)5/21/2002 1:36:42 PM
From: H James Morris  Respond to of 164684
 
66% of high tech entrepreneurs come from India.
So, now you know why they own 66% of silicon valley.



To: GST who wrote (142425)5/21/2002 7:25:47 PM
From: H James Morris  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164684
 
Gst, I'm going to move to Antartica, China or Cuba.
>>May 21 — A moderate Kashmiri leader was killed during a rally in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Tuesday ahead of a visit by India’s prime minister to the violence-wracked Himalayan province as fears grew of another war. Pakistan’s ambassador to Britain, Abdul Kader Jaffer, said the nuclear-armed neighbors are “very close” to all-out conflict over the disputed region.<<



To: GST who wrote (142425)5/21/2002 7:54:47 PM
From: H James Morris  Respond to of 164684
 
Bill stuck his 8th wife with homs.com. That's why they call him King Henry VIII, the father of Dizzie Tudor the virgin SI queen.



To: GST who wrote (142425)5/22/2002 12:44:01 AM
From: H James Morris  Respond to of 164684
 
Truth and stock options
CHANGES AFOOT IN FINANCIAL REPORTING
By Gretchen Morgenson
New York Times

It has taken an awfully long time -- not to mention a crucial assist from the debacle known as Enron -- but finally the investment world is inching toward truth in financial reporting where stock options are concerned. Even as Silicon Valley companies amass war chests to persuade members of Congress to keep stock options from being counted as the employee expense that they are, investors are more intent than ever on exposing the titanic transfers of shareholder wealth to executives and employees that options represent at many companies.

These wealth transfers are now relegated to the footnotes of companies' financial statements. But last week, Standard & Poor's announced that it would begin deducting the expense of stock options from its calculations of companies' core earnings. Such a move by S&P, one of the nation's largest purveyors of financial information, means that investors will be able to grasp option costs even if companies keep burying them in the footnotes.

Explaining its shift, S&P said recent news had ``moved concerns about costs related to employee stock options from the footnotes to the headlines.'' S&P officials also called for companies to detail information on stock option grants each quarter rather than once a year, as is the current practice.

Patricia McConnell, accounting analyst at Bear, Stearns, is in the midst of assessing, as she does each year, how much corporate earnings would decline if stock-option grants were accounted for as an employee cost. She and her colleagues have examined figures from 287 of the 500 companies in the S&P index and found some interesting points.

For starters, the dilutive effect of options on earnings will wind up being far greater in 2001 than in 2000, when she found that earnings would have declined 9 percent overall if options were deducted as an expense.

Option compensation expense at the companies studied grew 36 percent last year, to $47 billion from $35 billion. According to McConnell, the expense at the same companies in 1999 was just $21 billion. The transfer of shareholder wealth has more than doubled in two years.

At Microsoft, option expense came in at $3.3 billion last year, almost one-third of the company's reported net income. Option expense was $2.6 billion at Cisco Systems and $2.5 billion at Nortel Networks. Cisco and Nortel reported losses for the year, without deducting the cost of their options from their results. ``Companies are compensating their employees more and more through options, and they're not recording a good chunk,'' said David Zion, accounting analyst at Bear, Stearns.

Tax benefits also fell considerably at the companies scrutinized by McConnell. When employees exercise options, the taxes they pay on the difference between the option's exercise price and the option's price at the time of the grant represents a tax deduction to the company. Because most companies' share prices were depressed in 2001, fewer employees exercised options, thereby cutting the tax breaks.

Microsoft's income tax benefit in its fiscal year 2001 was around $2.1 billion, down from $5.5 billion in 2000. At Dell Computer, the income tax benefit from employee stock plans was $487 million in its most recent fiscal year, down from $929 million a year earlier. Wal-Mart's tax benefits were $106 million in 2001, vs. $118 million the previous year.

McConnell said she was somewhat surprised that more companies had not chosen to run their option expenses through their income statements last year. But she thinks that they will be forced to, sooner or later. In the meantime, thanks to S&P and the analysts at Bear, Stearns, investors are no longer in the dark about the extent to which their pockets have been picked.



To: GST who wrote (142425)5/23/2002 6:47:48 PM
From: H James Morris  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164684
 
Bill told us the telecoms where "unstoppable tornados"
Bill is a cementhead, he just got lucky being a SI Momo trader during the Internet bubble.
siliconinvestor.com
>>Telecoms investors were hit by a double whammy on Thursday as both Deutsche Telekom and the KPNQwest brought bad news to the markets.

Deutsche Telekom must work to refresh its tattered image

The German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom continued Wednesday's share price fall, sliding 4.8% to a new low at one point on Thursday after the credit rating agency Moody's cut its outlook for the group.

The stock closed down 2.1%.

The latest fall in the German "people's share" coincided with a filing for bankruptcy protection by the data communications services firm KPNQwest.

KPNQwest, which is owned by KPN and by Qwest Communications, filed for protection from its creditors under Dutch law after its entire supervisory board resigned.

"The market has completely written this company off," said one analyst, noting that most of the company's cash are held by banks which are demanding that its assets are sold.

But KPNQwest has not been able to find a buyer, so its parent companies have been forced to write off several hundred thousands euros.

Trading in KPNQwest shares was halted on Thursday.

The shares have lost 90% of their value this year, and closed at 0.58 euros on Wednesday.

Analysts predicted that the stock would fall when trading resumes on Friday.

Angry investors

Deutsche Telekom's investors have also taken a hit in recent months, and they are not happy about it.


Mobilcom wants its French partner to inject fresh cash

A key difference from the KPNQwest saga is that Deutsche Telekom's woes are felt by thousands of German people who have never owned any other shares.

The Deutsche Telekom privatisation in 1996 introduced share ownership to the German grassroots.

Few had expected the share to crash, so the share price's fall has come as a shock to many.

Deutsche Telekom's market value has fallen by 34bn euros or 32% in just over a month, falling by almost a billion euros a day.

On Wednesday, the company reported a 1.8bn euro (£1.1bn; $1.7bn) net loss during the January to March period, down sharply on last year's 358m-euro loss for the same period.

France telecoms

The incumbent operator across the border in France has also seen its shares slip to new lows following a row with its German mobile phone partner Mobilcom.

The wrangle - over whether or not France Telecom should cough up billions of euros to pay for Mobilcom's high-speed mobile phone network - could be both lengthy and painful.

"One of the possible outcomes is that Mobilcom goes bankrupt, and we would greatly regret that, so we have to work as fast as possible to find a solution," a France Telecom spokesman said.

France Telecom shares traded at about 20 euros on Thursday, down 90% since March 2000.

Mobilcom gained 0.25%.

KPNQwest shares, which have lost 90% of their value this year, closed at 0.58 euros on Wednesday.

Trading in the stock was halted on Thursday.

Analysts predicted that it would fall when trading resumes on Friday.