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

To: Pancho Villa who wrote (635)	3/2/1998 9:32:00 AM
From: dfloydr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4155

Hi Pancho: I do not know the merits of Ray Dirks arguments at all. I have not dug around the numbers. I have used CNC as a trading vehicle successfully three or four times in the past two years. I closed my last position ... a long one ... a month or two before Dirks controvertial report on CNC. I have not yet tried to short CNC. As I have pointed out on this thread before, Dirks blew the whistle once before on an insurance outfit ... one of my "clients" ... Equity Funding in LA. Everyone though him nuts back then until ... poof ... one day we found out why they had armed guards at the door to make sure no one like me got into their offices. He knew his insurance accounting well enough back then, but that was a case of fabricated internal growth. CNC has been growing by acquisition and rationalizing the acquisitions ... that is a different game. Still there could be lots of room in that game for choosing your accounting. More than anything I am out because I become a skeptic any time I see things going up less and less for logical reasons and more and more because they always have.... CNC, and this market too, remind me of that book "Popular Delusions and the Extraordinary Madness of Crowds". I will add that a friend of mine ... no small ego himself ... left CNC because he felt egos were becoming delusional. Someone on this thread pointed out that they are building themselves massive palatial homes. They never seem to lack for jet transportation. Often signs of trouble. It does strike me as odd that with all that glowing language in the earnings report the stock has declined in a very strong market. And you are right, they are always going back to the well for more money. Sorry Pancho, I'm not much help on this one. Floyd