To: Ron B who wrote (552 ) 6/24/1998 2:49:00 PM From: Rob S. Respond to of 765
First they may lower the options price for insiders to soak up cheap stock. Then, maybe, they will buy-back stock. The notion that management is looking out for investors ahead of themselves is true for about 10% of companies today and for about 1% of high-tech companies, IMO. That's why its not safe to 1] trust management to give investors the straight story until after they have informed their investment community friendlies. 2] try to "maximise stockholder value" unless they benefit themselves. Over the long term it's usually in their best interest to develop fair relations with small stockholders and get the price up and stable, but I would bet on either a lack of concern, self-interested manipulation or stupidity to keep things volatile in the meantime. Part of managment's job is to require forecasts for sales and to tract end-user market demand and their customer's product and inventory build cycles. they need that critical information to do effective planning. If they suddendly flip their expectations and are "in the dark" about how things have changed 180%, then you have to assume that either they are incompetent or are letting the actual circumstances to be blown out of proportion to their personal advantage. This is all background for many tech stocks. You don't even need to know or care about this sort of stuff to invest in techs. If the stock price has moved to the extreme in one direction or the other, that is all you need to be concerned about - the rest is speculation based on past experience and understanding of the greed motive. Most tech stock investors have seen this sort of dramatic "surprise" many times, even if the signs were obivious to anyone who bothered to look into it - like checking with distributors and OEMs. My own experience goes to that of knowing CPAs who said they were aware of companies that manipulated the books to magnify normal seasonal inventory and market fluctuations. Just ask about any seasoned sales manager or accounts receivables/payables clerk how many times they have been asked to push out or in deliveries, payments or receipts. You'll never prove this goes on but I have seen it personally. Whether or not their is any personal advantage to be gained by management in EQNX moving from one extreme to the other (selling cheap optioned stock along the way), the advantage to smart investors is to buy low and sell (or sell short) high. Do what the insiders do, rape and pillage the market for your stock. To that end, now looks like a good time to buy EQNX.