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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (63392)	3/18/2003 12:38:38 PM
From: GVTucker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

. Sure some financial players who understand the intricacies of this whole options "expense" mess will ignore the numbers, I'm not sure that is optimal- for one thing, I as a startup company insider would want a true, fair price for my company and not some "wink wink nudge nudge" situation where only the financial world knows to ignore the numbers we are putting out- while everyone else (intl investors, individuals) thinks my company is a dog. The IPO market has ALWAYS been a "wink, wink" market. The banker floats a possible price to the institutions. At a certain price the institution gives an indication of what its interest is. It's a game, pure and simple. I never said the financial world would ignore the numbers. I said that expensing is irrelevant. Big difference. The people who think that options should not be expensed won't include the expenses. The people that think that they should be expensed will include them. Every institutional investor bends the rules to conform with what is their own opinion of reality. BTW this discussion makes it look like you don't think options are real expenses. Then you misunderstand my point. I adjust everyone's financial statements to reflect what I think is a better reality. Options are just a small part of that picture (or large part, depending on the company). For example, three years ago, I thought that Cisco was underreserving drastically for revenues to high risk ventures that had a high probability of not paying. On my own adjustments, I decreased revenues to what I thought were a more reasonable level. When Intel was booking a large portion of their net income from Intel Capital and not operations, I ignored those earnings when I valued the stock. Adjustments happen every day. Financial statements are sets of opinions, not facts. Whatever opinion you or I have in regards to options expensing is just one piece of that puzzle. An institutional investor is going to change the valuation of google just because of something FASB says. It has nothing to do with ripping off the founders or such.