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To: Mike Buckley who wrote (53973)	5/4/2003 6:01:22 PM
From: hueyone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

And by avoiding the specifics, Huey will no longer be in a position to characterize my posts as touting free cash flow numbers. Mike, I apologize for using the word "tout" in reference to you and free cash flow. That was wrong. After all, you just gave a comprehensive report for Siebel where you included many different benchmarks, including a free cash flow number that significantly dropped and for which you headlined in big, bold letters in your usual format.(Interesting that Sebl has mostly rallied since your report though. Perhaps we are getting all worked up over these numbers for nothing.<g>) In fact, I incorporate the method he uses on a regular basis to get an additional view of a company's financial performance. That's because I believe having multiple views of the companies we examine leads to a more informed opinion. I am also equally interested in your free cash flow numbers as well as other measures, because it is entirely possible that some other measures or your numbers will have a bigger influence on the actual price of the stock than the free cash flow numbers that I am looking at, not to mention that the numbers are important from the point of view of watching overall trends. Who knows for sure what metrics investors will decide are the most important metrics to watch (if any), and in many cases, there may not be much difference between your adjusted free cash flow numbers and my adjusted free cash flow numbers anyway. However, I believe my adjusted free cash flow numbers are important from a point of view of trying to get to "owner earnings"---imho, as if one was buying the business in its entirety, and are useful to know in trying to ascertain risk. I also think S&P Core Earnings are a very useful measure for looking at the performance of the core operations of these companies in question. Warning: More repetitious commentary coming. What really bothers me however, is the possible widespread perception that the quality of reported free cash flows are comparable between companies. Imho, they are not. I am personally convinced that Sebl's free cash flow has a very extra large dollop of equity financing baked in to it, and that Siebel's free cash flow shouldn't be rewarded with the same perception of quality that many other companies' free cash flow may be rewarded with who don't have that exta large dollop of equity financing baked in to the number. as inspiration for Huey's repetitious commentary Well, I did try something new with my Amazon A, Amazon B post--so folks could see how one company is able to report much higher free cash flow than the other even though the two companies were doing largely the same thing and the final impact from operations and financing on the shareholders equity statements was the same. Don't know whether anyone actually followed it though. I can barely follow that post myself sometimes.<g> Regards, Huey

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (53973)	5/6/2003 2:07:34 PM
From: Trio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Mike, Having read: (as well as the posts which followed) "I've given some additional thought in the past day about my posts regarding free cash flow and have decided to discontinue specifics about that going forward. In the future, I hope to have the discipline to frame my comments in such a general way that they won't so predictably serve as inspiration for Huey's repetitious commentary about the financial analysis. And by avoiding the specifics, Huey will no longer be in a position to characterize my posts as touting free cash flow numbers." ... I trust it was tongue in cheek. Such dialogue "free cash flow" and "S&P Core earnings" reflect, or should reflect intellectual honesty in a search for truth. This is what I value on this thread. TRIO