To: John Parillo who wrote (491 ) 5/14/1998 9:02:00 PM From: Doug (Htfd,CT) Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 19700
John, I've long been a CMGI bull. I sold my last block this week, taking an average profit of over 400% in 14 months. To those buying CMGI at these levels, I say "good luck." I've seen my $14.50 per share investment ($7.25 adjusted for the recent split) increase dramatically, and I've taken my profits. The behavior of CMGI now is reminiscent of that in late 1995, during the last Internet Stock Mania in late 1995. Then, it had rapidly increased in price on rising volume. On 12/5/95 it sold its remaining interest in AOL (acquired dirt cheap from AOL in exchange for a home-built browser) for $57 MM (about $10/CMGI share at the time), resulting in a $3.70/share nonrecurring gain on its quarterly statement. In January 1996, insiders started filing SEC disclosures of sales in December, Dawson-Samberg said it had cut its CMGI stake from 9.8% to 5.9% by sales in December. It split 2/1 around the end of January. Look at the five year chart at quote.yahoo.com At about that same time in early 1996, Mr. Market decided to take profits on "Internet Stocks" for about a year. Back then, red-hot "Internet Stocks" included companies like Netscape, Cascade, Ascend, Spyglass, Borland, U.S.Robotics, NetManage, FTP Software, STAC Electronics, Quarterdeck, Applix, Novell, Hummingbird, NetCom, UUNet, LSI Logic, Astea, PC Docs, S-Three, Global Village, Telescan, and many others you probably never heard of. Some of those collapsed in price in 1996. Some got bought. Some came back. Some did not. In 1996, CMGI joined a year-long Internet Stock correction that ended in it falling 75% in value, from a (split-adjusted) $40 to under $10. In the depths of those lows, as tax-loss selling in December pushed its price down into single digits, Microsoft quietly bought 5% of the company on the open market in December 1995 at prices under $7.50 (adjusted for the recent split), and disclosed the fact in several quiet but public press releases. The general public had several months thereafter to buy at even lower prices. Even after the CMGI quarterly report disclosed on March 6, 1997 that MSFT had bought 470,000 shares @ $14.50 ($7.25 split adjusted), I was able to buy shares for $6.06/share (split adjusted) on March 24, 1997, only 14 months ago. CMGI's story was not fundamentally different on March 24 than it was in late December 1995, when Microsoft bought in. Only Mr. Market had changed. Microsoft's $6.8 million investment in CMGI has appreciated to over $110 million in less than 18 months, because Mr. Market has changed his mind. Again. All of this has been discussed repeatedly in this thread, and the factual story still lies there on SI and at EDGAR for those interested enough to read it. A great deal of CMGI's perceived market value lies in its holdings of LCOS, of which 1,000,000 shares were today announced as for sale in a public offering by CMG@Ventures, according to a Press Release at biz.yahoo.com Lycos itself plans to sell 2.45 million shares. CMGI is managed by very savvy people. If they think that today's market price for LCOS is a good spot to sell 1,000,000 of their remaining shares of LCOS, they probably know what they are doing. After all, with LCOS's 6.4 million share float increased +50% by the 3.5 million share sale announced today, its stock price might not be as vibrant in the next year as it was in the last year. If CMGI's managers and insiders think that today's market price for CMGI stock itself is a good price at which to sell their own shares, they are probably worth listening to. Look at insidertrader.com and I think you'll find that in the last 60 days, CMGI insiders have sold or filed to sell some 200,000 shares at prices far below what today's market is asking, not counting SEC filings this month. I'm not a premium service subscriber to insidertrader, or I could tell you if more insider trades were filed since 5/1. They may be buying at these levels, though I'd be surprised to learn that. This is pretty much the same scenario as was found at the end of 1995. Perhaps history will not repeat itself. Meanwhile, I've liquidated my investment in CMGI and am looking to invest the proceeds in other issues now depressed in price, as CMGI, LCOS and others were 15 months ago. Doug (no position in CMGI, still holding a few shares of LCOS received as a CMGI dividend)