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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BGR who wrote (47207)	2/16/1999 5:14:00 AM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

BGR: There is an easy answer,...don't accept my estimates. (g) Actually, I don't believe I have ever provided a hard number, but instead for two months, I've indicated an expectation that Dell would provide "mild disappointment". I have also indicated during that same two months that given the 50 price-to-book, if that call proved accurate, it would translate into a very significant share price drop. The reaction of the Dell thread is an excellent indicator that most involved "investors" have no idea of why the stock was hit so hard by Nile"s revelations. For me four words say it all,...50 price-to-book. We'll find out tonight if my call was accurate. Incidentally, I did lay out how we try to develop a handle on Dell in past posts. Like you, I would be surprised if Niles did brilliant homework. I haven't seen much evidence of this over the recent past. If any contributors have, by all means, so post. For those of you who think that "leaks" don't occur, I would suggest a review of the trading that occurs in the two or three days before many, many stocks post disappointing (or "blow-out") numbers, and /or a review of First Call analysts' "revisions" before numbers are reported. I'd also bet that the same people would not have believed that a company would purposely lie to the public, as appears to be the case with respect to MU's recent quarterly report. Unfortunately there is a great deal of pressure on companies to both provide optimistic expectations, and then follow-on pressure to beat those expectations by whatever means. Semi fraudulent accounting, phony acquisitions, smelly write-downs, stock buyback nonsense, put option scams, and phony cash flow from employee options are a few of the results of this pressure. I used to be proud of the more-or-less honest activities of "The Street". That is no longer the case. Best, Earlie