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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hedgefund who wrote (59011)	1/25/2007 8:00:21 AM
From: Randall Knight	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196972

How could buying back shares before good news be considered unethical? Because of insider information? Trading on insider information is unethical only when it benefits those individuals in the know. Buying back stock benefits all shareholders. How can that be unethical? If there isn't any 'big' news in the offing, as a shareholder I'd be pretty upset that management isn't buying back shares right now. That leads one to speculate as to what news there might be that could make management hold off buying back shares. Possibilities have to include anything that would involve the use of QCOM shares such as a merger or takeover.

To: hedgefund who wrote (59011)	1/25/2007 8:01:51 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 196972

I am not a securities lawyer but it seems that buying back shares at a time when the company knows of a favorable material event is not illegal. Existing shareholders are not harmed because the share price goes up as a result of the repurchases, they reduce the number of outstanding shares, etc. Those who may have wanted to purchase shares at price X but will not do so at price Y because Y, being a function of the buybacks, is higher than the wish to pay, would have a hard time showing any damages. The ethical angle is a difficult one. An argument can be made that the ethical thing to do under the circumstances is to advance existing shareholders' interests by buying back the presumably undervalued shares. I don't think Q owes any ethical duty to the market as a whole. There must be something more to the ethical angle than Keitel revealed since I don't see any significant one in the one he mentioned.