Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Microsoft - When to short -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike McFarland who wrote (86)	3/18/1998 11:27:00 PM
From: Russ	Respond to of 96

No, I was talking about something different. MS tends to pay a somewhat low wage for the industry, but grants extensive stock options to employees. The costs associated with that are treated differently than payroll expense, but they are a form of payroll expense. (Note: this is standard practice for most tech companies, but I think MS numbers are fairly extreme). For the last fiscal year, from the 10K at EDGAR, we have Net income - 3,454 million Earnings/share - 2.63 Stock buybacks for employees exercising options 3,101 million Net income treating this as a payroll expense - 353 million Earnings/share - 0.27 So, I was wrong. Actual earnings are 1/10th stated earnings (for the quarter ended September, they actually ran at a loss). Also, here's a quote from the 10K The market value of all outstanding stock options was $30.2 billion as of June 30, 1997. Microsoft enhances its repurchase program by selling put warrants. Note: These stock buybacks do not enhance the value of the stock by retiring shares from circulation. They're given to employees who can then resell them. Some day they'll go down, and hard, but that day may be a long way off. I think YHOO is way overvalued, but I don't dare short, and the puts are awfully pricey. -Russ

To: Mike McFarland who wrote (86)	5/8/1998 12:59:00 AM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 96

Gee, I've been ignoring MSFT, and did not even notice that the chart is looking bad... here is a message I posted on another thread (continued somewhat off topic--re MSFT) <But I think Gates sees that there are two major arenas that people buy computers for....work (Office suite) and play (games) and as always, he wants a piece of every pie. I've added the emphasis, ...and that could be Microsoft's downfall. From news.com: "Microsoft stock fell today amid renewed speculation that antitrust regulators would file another lawsuit against the software giant next week." news.com Will be interesting to see if there is support at $80 quote.yahoo.com I used to play the puts in MSFT, wish I bot a few a couple weeks ago...