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Technology Stocks : PSFT - Fiscal 1998 - Discussion for the next year -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raptor who wrote (1393)	7/8/1998 6:25:00 PM
From: Melissa McAuliffe	Respond to of 4509

Raptor, I agree. But if they were going to manipulate anything (not that I'm saying they would) I would think they would want to see the stock go up not down. I just can't see the point in wanting your own stock to go down. Anyone on this thread who thinks psft will report .21 is in for a negative surprise, IMO. That would be sheer foolishness on their part and one thing we know...psft mgmt is not foolish when it comes to reporting earnings. .16 is a much more reasonable estimate. Maybe .17 but no higher than that. Just MHO here obviously.

To: Raptor who wrote (1393)	7/8/1998 8:39:00 PM
From: LLCoolG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4509

Mr. Raptor, In no way am I trying to name drop or anything about Ron Codd--in fact I bet that most people could talk to him on occasion if they called for him. Every time I have talked to him he has called me back from a car phone as he is traveling, so he gets the messages. The Board does not manipulate the numbers, but I think you are extremely naive to believe that companies' accountants cannot manipulate these numbers. And fraud is a very hard and very expensive thing to prove in a court of law. Look at all the class action suits that are filed every day. Nothing substantial ever comes from blatant misconducts, let alone subtle accounting moves. And I am not suggesting that PSFT tanked their stock price purposefully. I don't think they wanted the stock at 40. But they may have floated a trial balloon so to speak by only beating the estimates by a single penny. If it stayed in the 50's for a quarter--fine. If it goes to 45--fine. Maybe it continues rocketing up--that would certainly take some pressure off, right? Especially in light of the comments about how the growth rate is slowing down. That is what I think happened, and also believe they will avenge the Street reaction by smashing $0.14 in 2 weeks. And no, Ron Codd, or any other CFO will never give specific numbers or guidance, unless you are a mega-analyst. But it does happen. One more thing that I find interesting is the insider trades. When I unsuccessfully shorted this stock, I found it amazing that all the executives were dumping stock like crazy while the stock continued to rise quickly. Over this time I have realized that executives, especially in technology companies, have planned sales. PSFT has had massive insider selling throughout the past 2 years. I don't think it is because they think the company is facing an impending doom, like others, or really care about future appreciation of their shares. They just want cash flow in the millions of dollars flowing in, period. So PSFT employees selling shares in the 40's, 50's, or 60's would probably happen anyway, irregardless of company future performance. Just look at Ron Codd. He sells a ton every year, probably rakes in a cool $8M or so every Christmas (split-time), and still ends up with more shares the next year than he had the year before. So in wildly succesful companies, insider selling is not a great marker to gauge. Didn't mean to get you riled. Besides, this was a great day. Hasta. G