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Non-Tech : Conseco Insurance (CNO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JM who wrote (461)	12/8/1997 12:40:00 PM
From: dfloydr	Respond to of 4155

My decision was to step aside. I have made a few gains on CNC over the years, but I do not like being in the midst of a food fight between far bigger players than myself. I can not know what is really going on and I am not expert enough to certify their accounting. I know I do not like mountains of good will as no one can spend, or borrow against, good will and in the end it often gets written off in one big disappointing chunk. On the one hand, CNC's record has been stupendous and management does own a giant chunk of the stock. That is good/promising/encouraging. And maybe they will do best to buy in all the stock at these lower prices and make Dirks moot. PS: I am not in CNC - short or long - at this point. On the other hand, Dirks is about the only analyst I have seen in 32 years who has ever had the guts to go out on a limb and say "the emperor has no clothes". And that time (Equity Funding) everyone dumped on him, management screamed foul but he was so right the whole company cratered. In that case - and there is no hint of such with CNC - there was outright fraud involved - management resorted to creating policies to keep things going ever upwards.

To: JM who wrote (461)	12/8/1997 12:41:00 PM
From: Don Kelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4155

I took a small speculative short position in CNC after the Barron's article. Another reason I shorted the stock is because none of the bulls on this or other threads I could find have specifically addressed many, if any, of the lengthy and very explicit charges made by Dirk. Neither did the company for that matter, though that was probably the smart thing to do. I would be very interested in hearing the other side of the story by some knowledgable proponent of this stock.