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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (166946)	6/24/2002 8:59:10 AM
From: willcousa	Respond to of 186894

Stock options are like paying your bills with blank pieces of paper. Who wouldn't like to be able to do that? They are great for earnings (they even give the company a tax benefit), great for the employee if the company has success, more an open question for the shareholders because they pay for this eventually. As a shareholder I generally like them for a growth company as they preserve capital to be invested in growth. If options are not working for a company or it doesn't need the tax benefits another approach is to use phantom stock which does not dilute the shareholders quite so much.

To: Amy J who wrote (166946)	6/24/2002 9:00:18 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Jacques, Continuing from my previous post, so, AG wants to have a "knee-jerk" reaction to Enron, so he can kill nearly an est trillion dollars in future investor gains, projecting out ten years? (Please refer to my previous post.) That's essentially like saying, he would like to kill high-tech over the next ten years. And goodness-knows how much in tax revenue will be lost too? From an old post: What does Enron's fraudulent behavior of hiding debt (that you listed in your post) have to do with employee stock options that Greenspan wants to attack? I find it ironic that Greenspan's proposed cure for Enron-style fraud and the dotcom utopia is to penalize innocent employees. AG said, "some of the unsustainable euphoria that surrounded dot-com investing at its peak may have been exacerbated... " and "substantial capital arguably was wasted on a number of enterprises whose prospects appeared more promising than they turned out to be." --- And how is that the employees' fault? If anyone is guilty for the dotcom utopia, it's the VCs and founders, not the employees. So, let's look at the components of the pie: Founders get shares, aside from evergreen provisions. VCs get shares. Only employees get the bulk in options. So, yeah, let's penalize the employees and their options, the folks who aren't even responsible for this problem in the first place. What kind of logic is that? (And for Enron, it was the officers fault. At large high-tech companies, officers get no more than 10%, while employees get 90%+). Regarding Enron, rather than fixing the book-keeping rules around disclosures of debt through intermediary parties, he's proposing to penalize employees? Huh? federalreserve.gov AG: "Clearly, most high-tech executives believe otherwise. How else does one explain their vociferous negative reaction" Very simply so: If Greenspan negatively impacts stock options, he negatively impacts motivation. Stock options = motivation. Motivation is an intangible, something that's difficult for Economists to measure, so they dismiss it because they can't measure it. Never mind it's the most important ingredient for business success, innovation, and enhancing this country's GDP. AG: "employed..capital misused." His focus on penalizing innocent employees, rather than penalizing fraudulent behavior, is bizarre. Are Silicon Valley execs really going to roll over and die on this issue and let AG get away with creating a policy that'll have a negative long-term impact on this country's growth by hurting employees' motivation? Excessively taxing SOPs will negatively impact motivation, innovation, and growth. It should be mandatory for government economists to work a few years at a Silicon Valley company, where the ingredients (particularly the intangible variables) to innovation are well-understood. Regards, Amy J

To: Amy J who wrote (166946)	6/24/2002 9:02:23 AM
From: greg s	Respond to of 186894

Hi Amy, Excellent rebuttal! greg

To: Amy J who wrote (166946)	6/24/2002 2:11:28 PM
From: Jacques Newey	Respond to of 186894

Amy J, Re:"My ms-401k was started in 1990, and was, and is, fully in MSFT, and at MS. That's an account I don't touch for several reasons." Sorry if I got the facts wrong. My apologies. You stated that you had been reading Buffett since the 1990's. My point was that if you had understood what Buffett was saying, you might not have put so much (100%)of your 401 (k) into INTC back in 2000 when it was selling for much more than what it it is selling for now. Here's one of the posts that caused my confusion: Sunday Sept 30, 2000 Message 14486575 “Yes, I tried to place my entire 401k into INTC yesterday. Btw, the stock prices I get through my 401k seem to be lousy. They (Waterhouse, which is where our 401k plan is) seem to select the worse times to buy during the day? I'll have to ask them how they get these stock prices - day time high? closing price? mid-point price? average of open and close?” Can you see how I might have been confused by that? The point is that you were buying and pumping INTC pretty hard back in Sept and Oct of 2000. Don't think it necessary to cause any further pain by reminding you what INTC was selling for back then. In the series of posts below you even go as far as to state that you thought INTC was a better investment than MSFT. I'll take your word for it that this was only your train of thought at the time but you never took action on it. This whole dialogue started when you claimed Buffett didn't have a clue about options. Since he is a man that I admire for his investment acumen (although not all of his qualities), I came to his defense. Not that he asked for it or needed it for that matter. Your cockiness and close mindedness caused me to jump in. I do not have a bone to pick with you. I have no ill feelings to you. I think you are a positive, intelligent, and sincere person who cares about others. This is evidenced by your concern towards one of those who took your advice during the INTC downward spiral. I do feel sorry for you, primarily because you and others lost so much money in a company that you believed in and thought you understood. Disclosure: I lost some money on INTC too, but I tried to learn something from the experience. You (and I) were mistaken about Intel's prospects back in 2000. Could it be that you might be mistaken now about otpions as well? Could it be that Buffett knows better than Jacques, Amy, or Andy for that matter. His long and short term (non tech) investment performance certainly suggests it. Is it possible that techie could learn something from a non-techie? If there is such such a chance, I'd suggest going back and re-read all that you read about Buffett in the 90's and read, and read some more. I've got references if you would like them. Please get past the "anything other than tech is no good" mindset and "he's a sexist, therefore he doesn't have a clue" shroud that you keep throwing up as a road block. You might learn something. I certainly did. Sincerely, Jacques Sept 30, 2000 Message 14486484 “ I just bought INTC today-glad to see sandspring looking for fill of 41 gap as targetted support. Robbie Stephens said today that INTC will be making positive comments about future eps within the next 1-2 weeks.” Sept 24, 2000 Message 14444490 “I guess it depends upon your investing style and your belief in the company and market potential: do you get in now, or do you wait and try to time it right? I'm more conservative, so I just buy INTC on the dips. I take the risk of downward-slides (like the one on Friday), but I never take on the risk that I'll miss an INTC run-up. And I think that's the correct strategy, since overall, INTC is a stock that has always gone up,” Sept 27, 2000 Message 14464758 “Bought a lot more INTC yesterday (sold some SUNW). Not sure where the bottom is though. I imagine it'll eventually occur : )” Sept 27, 2000 Message 14464532 “INTC run-ups are hard to guess. But when they happen, they tend to happen quickly. So, I never try to guess them, but I also never risk missing one. So, patience is generally the virtue I use (i.e. LT), after I've analyzed a company's overall market/products/financials.” Message 14533812 Oct 7, 2000 "INTC had drastically risen well-above its historical highs (most of the market did too). It seemed like the price had gotten ahead of itself. And the faulty launches didn't help either. RE: "though still enormously ahead." Or, even when measured by Nasdaq's ytd. RE: "The exact same thing has happened to me with MSFT." I hear you on that one. MSFT makes up 100% of my other 401k. But fortunately, it's been that way for many years. RE: "So what are the thread's thoughts about how long it might take to get back to the high?" Probably another split at the end of next year or the year after." Oct 7, 2000 Message 14533812 “I'm buying INTC now because I feel Intel-based servers could be everywhere in the business sector. I believe there is lots of room to grow in this particular market segment. “ Oct 12, 2000 Message 14563518 “I think this is a great buying opportunity.” Oct 17, 2000 Message 14597845 “Hi John and Thread, I bought some INTC shares (~$35) and leaps today.” Oct 18, 2000 Message 14613539 “I'm more keen on INTC than MSFT (as a LT investor), namely because Intel doesn't have to compete with shareware chips and Intel seems to be better at avoiding anti-trust issues. Also, Intel's fabs are a powerful barrier-to-entry and make Intel very powerful.” Oct 18, 2000 Message 14613232 “Using this strategy, the drop in INTC has allowed for a nice increase in the number of INTC shares I own, by quite a bit. (But now, INTC can head back up!)” Oct 18, 2000 Message 14613166 “Hi Gary, RE: "But just looking at the reports(Intel and Microsoft) and if I have money to invest, I would place them in Intel. " ---------- Exactly why I joined SI back in Jan of 1999 (in addition to the special membership discount SI was running at the time). Oct 19, 2000 Message 14622248 “Thanks, but one of my many purchases on the way down was eventually bound to be right (at some point) - too bad all my other purchases on the way down weren't.” Oct 24, 2000 Message 14653456 “I haven't seen you post on the Intel thread since the big drop. I hope you're doing okay. I'm very sorry for my post to you (just before the big drop) where I said that I felt INTC was a good stock. I think INTC is a good stock, however, my timing was absolutely terrible.” Oct 31, 2000 Message 14692680 “By some of the stories, investing in INTC today looks quite easy by comparison to 1985.”