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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (18225)	7/21/2003 5:13:04 PM
From: hueyone	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19079

I don't appreciate it because I can see the level of foresight and competency most investors have wrt business just from being on these stock boards. Yes, I totally agree. It doubt whether employee/investors who truly don't think that stock options are an expense have ever had any experience owning and operating a successful business from the very top level of a company themselves; otherwise they would likely understand the difference between earnings and cash flow goosed by equity financing versus earnings and cash flow produced by the company's internal operations. And in cases where they do understand it; I think they just don't want to admit it. The CFO of Oracle, Jeff Henley, whom I have heard from several sources is a very bright man and well respected in CFO circles, admitted last October that stock options have an economic cost and that the company would consider voluntarily expensing them, but I never heard any subsequent support from Larry for Jeff's statement. Even so, Oracle seemed to be controlling their options expenses the last time I looked. And of course MSFT management recently came clean on this issue as well. #reply-18153001 JMO, Huey

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (18225)	7/23/2003 10:34:27 AM
From: MeDroogies	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19079

Steve Jobs could've been incented many other, and equally valuable, ways. I'm not saying it wasn't money well spent, just that deferred stock would have been just as valuable and more quantifiable. I do agree that if management is the only portion of the company benefitting, then you've got a problem brewing. I loved working at GE, but was always angry at the options never being shared below director level. Of course, when I did get options at my next job, it was an issue of corporate piggy banking. At the end of the day, these are really 2 different issues, though. 1 - Options, which I still don't like due to their lack of transparency, are less easily accounted for and less capable of promoting good behavior than deferred stock. 2 - Corporate management, which you hope will always be "good", sometimes isn't (but how can you tell?). WRT SEBL, I'd be inclined to agree with you vis-a-vis Yahoo, except that YHOO had several very good years before it went south. SEBL may have shown some good years via fancy bookkeeping, but that isn't what the picture, as currently painted, seems to indicate.