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

To: Lucretius who wrote (51293)	3/10/1999 9:29:00 PM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

LT: It's a guess, and I wouldn't provide odds on this one, but I'd bet that Intel warns. My thinking relates to the original cause of the more frequent use of "warnings" these days, which is the fact that a few well organized legal firms, (of which Milberg Weiss is the most prominent) make a remarkable living by establishing "class action" law suits aimed at publicly traded firms, whenever there is a flop in their share prices. It's a neat game. The argument they always use is that the insiders were selling before they told the public the details about the bad news (i.e., the bad news that caused the stock price to flop). In many cases, it is little more than legal extortion, but in some cases, it is deserved. Either way, M.W. keeps its 150 lawyers (at last count) busy and makes a bundle in so doing. Usually, the involved firms just settle,....either to avoid expensive and time-consuming legal jousting or to avoid having to squirm in public when the insider selling has preceded public disclosure of nasty revelations. Since (in general), insider selling has been so massive during the past year, and as there has also been an inordinate amount of questionable accounting/reporting, and as the SEC has become more high profile in its supposed quest for more accurate reporting, I can't see Intel exposing itself to the possibility of more high profile legal wrangling, just to keep a lid on an obvious "ugly" quarter, just to gain a few weeks before it will have to be reported anyway. The only other possibility is that the accountants have been given a mandate to shape things up for this quarter, (see MB's thoughts on this from yesterday). In the current environment, this is a high risk activity, but more than possible. Not warning only delays the inevitable, as Intel has a bag full of problems (many of which have been discussed on this and the Myth thread). Best, Earlie