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To: JOHN W. who wrote (46707)	3/22/1999 12:53:00 AM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

>>2-Nov-98BEZOS JEFFREY PSold (S)180,000Common126.93 - 129.92$23,148,900<< Was that to pay the rent on his little loft?? Ps Will the first elephant leaving. Please turn on the light.

To: JOHN W. who wrote (46707)	3/22/1999 1:09:00 AM
From: JOHN W.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Gates in Internet 'gold rush' warning By GEOFF KITNEY in Davos, Switzerland The world's wealthiest technology entrepreneur, the Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, has compared the skyrocketing prices of Internet stocks with a "gold rush". And he warned that share prices were now too high to be sustainable. Speaking at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Mr Gates said there was now "massive risk" in investing in Internet companies because of the overinflated values of their shares. Backing a warning given last week by the chairman of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, and the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, about the risks involved in investment in spectacularly successful Internet shares, Mr Gates said investors were participating in a buying frenzy "like it's a gold rush". But he also said that for those prepared to take big risks there were still buying opportunities, and that his company would "partcipate a little bit" in the continuing frenzy. He said he had believed as long as a decade ago that prices for Internet stocks were too high, even when price/earnings ratios were much lower than now. "Obviously that view that they were going to go down didn't prove out. In the long run, will I be right? I think so," he said. Mr Gates' warning about increased risk levels in Internet stock investment was consistent with the overall theme of the meeting, which has seen cautionary warnings about the risks of further economic shocks ahead as the world economy continues to try to cope with the crisis sparked by the collapse of Asian economies.

To: JOHN W. who wrote (46707)	3/22/1999 1:19:00 AM
From: JOHN W.	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 164684

There's nothing all that new about an overheated stock market, or an investor feeding frenzy over a hot industry group. Nonetheless, this year's Internet stock fad seems to rank among the most extreme. The current Net mania has been compared to the software stock craze of the 1980s, the gambling stock surge of the same period or even the bowling stock fad of the 1960s. (It's also been likened to the mother of all speculative manias, the infamous tulip bulb craze in 17th-century Holland.) An even better comparison might be 19th-century railroad stocks. Those stocks were purchased by unwary investors preyed upon by robber barons, who saw public markets as an enormous cookie jar. What makes the current situation unique is the meshing of two related trends: wild enthusiasm for companies with any connection to the Internet, and an unprecedented explosion of opportunity for individual investors. Using electronic brokerages such as E-Trade, Datek, Ameritrade or Charles Schwab, individual investors can now set up what amounts to their own virtual trading desk, buying and selling stock with greater ease and at lower costs than ever before. At the dangerous locus of Internet stock mania and electronic trading, the mechanisms of the stock market have been strained to the breaking point.