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Technology Stocks : IFLY - travel sales on the web pure play -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LTK007 who wrote (3483)	1/3/1999 9:51:00 PM
From: IFLYer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4761

Max90 - you can harp on this subject for the rest of the year if you want. If you look at the record of Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, etc. they all have some bad worms or shady deals in the past, but that does not mean the entire brokerage house or mutual fund is bad, or everybody who worked there are bad. If you want to make accusations about somebody, you better come up with concrete evidence rather than resorting to innuendo or guilt by association. For what I know, no company can file for public offering with any officer having committed a felony in the past. I am still waiting for the S-1 file from Hubric. And if you have a life threatening sickness like you have claimed, I think you should go and take a rest.

To: LTK007 who wrote (3483)	1/3/1999 10:04:00 PM
From: IFLYer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4761

For one thing, management and quite a few insiders have their shares locked up for another year, or two years from IPO. Tell me another stock with similar lock up situation. Just about every IPO has shares locked up for only 6 months. So what kind of stupid mob is this to have their own shares locked up for 2 years? Does that mean management is trying to build this company for the long term?

To: LTK007 who wrote (3483)	1/3/1999 11:19:00 PM
From: JimBeamII	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4761

Max -- just my 2 cents: It appears that most of the excruciatingly tiring carping about the IFLY managements' reputation and competence began based on Chris Byron's MSNBC article. An objective reading and analysis of the article does not appear, to me at least, to be nearly as condemning as what many of the posters on this thread have made it out to be. The relevant clip regarding why IFLY's stock went up Monday, and my analysis, follows: " Why? One good place to start looking for answers would be the co-underwriter of the company's IPO: First Liberty Investment Group Inc. The SEC investigated an employee and a consultant of the firm, a microcap underwriter, as part of a 1997 probe of penny stock swindles. If that avenue leads nowhere, then investigators might ask questions of at least one IFLY board member: Pasquale Guadagno. Guadagno may be pure as the driven snow in all this, and no evidence is known to suggest otherwise. But he might have some helpful suggestions for investigators since prior to joining IFLY's board he served as a senior vice president of a now-defunct Boca Raton swindle-shop, Euro-Atlantic Securities, that was expelled from the National Association of Securities Dealers for market manipulation and deceptive sales practices. Maybe Pasquale has some thoughts on how IFLY got from $6.50 to $16.12 in a day." 1. A First Liberty employee and consultant were investigated by the SEC in 1997. I don't know whether either were convicted of any wrong doing. But in terms of an under writer of the IPO, I don't really care. Point: I know people who have been investigated by the SEC (and IRS) who were not convicted of anything. Unfortunately, neither agency publishes a public notice that its investigation has cleared the person under investigation. In any case, it is quite a leap to suggest a company's management is corrupt or manipulative because the under writer of the company's IPO had SEC problems. 2. Byron suggests if nothing pans out on the First Liberty probe, ask Guadagno why the stock went up. Byron admits Guadagno may "be pure as the driven snow in all this, and no evidence is known to suggest otherwise". My question is, then, why make the statement against the man based on prior company affiliation? There's no evidence that I have heard which indicates Mr. Guadagno has ever been charged, much less convicted, of any SEC or criminal infractions. There are a lot of analysts and pundits like Byron who cannot conceive of the idea of the "net mania" phenom -- much less the idea of individual investors making a decent living trading their own stocks. He is concerned about the years of education, study, and architecture that has gone into the stock market that, he feels, is being subverted by individual investors and day traders. In short, it appears that he and others are quite elitist and cavaliar when it comes to protecting their turf -- The Street. I found his article to be quite jaded, and bereft of fact as it regards IFLY -- other than the fact the stock price popped. He does not put much value on e-commerce or the fact that IFLY has added substantial value to itself by building IRIS. Throwing up a web site is one thing; however, putting together an interactive itinerary search engine, order entry system, and e-ticket interface to the airlines is quite a major accomplishment which requires substantial capital to successfully implement. It also seems to me that the company did its best to implement it in 1998, as it told its investors it would do. I've been in software engineering for 20 years and I'll tell you, that's commendable. So, why did IFLY jump from $6+ to $16 (now $12 1/4)? IMHO, it is because they have added this extra value and people who are interested in seeing the new internet sector expand are excited about it. This is certainly not meant to be a flame or negative input. I have tried to support my analysis with objective rationale. Prosperous Trading to all! jb