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Technology Stocks : Altaba Inc. (formerly Yahoo) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rational who wrote (5575)	1/2/1998 11:07:00 PM
From: Bill Harmond	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27307

Sankar, What's a cheat sheet?? I deal with Montgomery Securities (Yahoo co-underwriter) and they downgraded Yahoo to a hold rating in early October based on valuation. Is Montgomery a promoter you refer to?? By the way, Sankar, I'm not oblivious to much concerning Yahoo; unless, of course, I'm oblivious to the Softbank loans that were going to be called by Korean banks. :)

To: Rational who wrote (5575)	1/3/1998 3:34:00 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27307

No brokerage firm sends "cheat sheets" for companies like GE to their clients. They send such sheets projecting hypergrowth only about fantastic companies like Yahoo! to keep enough investors bullish, while the promoters exit at a decent profit. [SEC is likely to mandate that no material other than prospectus and SEC filings be available to investors.] Sankar, I have news for you again: In selling an IPO, brokers are already restricted (by the SEC) to the S-1, the "prospectus" or other SEC filings and are not permitted to provide any other written material to investors, including analyst reports. Underwriters do not publish analyst reports on the companies they take public until some period of time (30 days I think) after the IPO. The "cheat sheets" you speak of are "sales points" memoranda that are distributed to the underwriters' salespeople for quick reference purposes and simply summarize the historical and proforma financial information contained in the prospectus, several "key selling points" (which explain in summary form the company's business, it's strategies, management experience and similar points an investor is likely to ask about) AND "RISK FACTORS". Though they are not supposed to be distributed to investors, but sometimes are, they are hardly the "hype" materials you make them out to be. They also DO NOT include financial projections or earnings estimates. That said, things might, of course, be different if the brokers you are dealing with are disreputable "penny stock" brokers or the same firms that are being investigated for mob ties in promoting and manipulating bulletin board stocks. If you play in that world, you deserved to get screwed. Now, before you call me naive, I agree that there are people in large reputable firms that are not themselves reputable and I have no trust or love for NASDAQ MMs. There are also a lot of public companies that lie, cheat and steal. Hell, even "hype". The approach of many companies in press releases and interviews with media can be considered hype sometimes (E*Trade descibing itself as "an Internet-focused technology company" for example). The hype that can push a stock like Yahoo! to ridiculous (IMO) level has nothing to do with IPO "cheat sheets". How long ago was Yahoo!'s IPO? Bob