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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Boplicity who wrote (27266)	4/16/1999 11:17:00 AM
From: Gregg Powers	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 152472

Gregory: To be candid, and I am NOT trying to be snide, I find it very scary that people believe a split to be economically meaningful in the first place. If a company is worth $100 (not $100 per share, but a total of one hundred dollars) and has 25 shares outstanding, then each share is worth $4. If the stock splits two-for-one, there are now 50 shares outstanding, each worth $2. Nothing at all has changed. That people get exited by 'a split' is suggestive of just many naive and unsophisticated investors have jumped into the market. Even worse, in my mind, is the people who understand the former, but cynically buy stocks in anticipation of splits because they are sure that somebody is stupider than them. Greater fool investing, in any form, remains dependent on that sometimes elusive greater fool. This stock market party will turn very, very ugly when the music stops. I am VERY distressed by the pervasive arrogance and greed I seem among many investors. Investment timelines, which were probably too short to begin with, have been further compressed from months, to weeks, to days, and now to minutes....companies that employ thousands, earn hundreds of millions of dollars, are routinely classified as 'dogs' if their stock fails to appreciate hourly. To wit, I was recently at an investor conference where investors excoriated the management of a company...because the stock had failed to keep pace with the market FOR THE LAST NINE MONTHS. The stock market is turning into one giant online lottery and its participants perceive it to be a no-lose game. Sadly this is not a new phenomenon; Holland had its tulips; the late 1920s had its electric utilities and blind pools; we have Internet traders trading Internet stocks. Sorry...didn't mean to vent my spleen at you...but it seems to me that the lunatics are running the asylum, and seem ready to expand the facility to accommodate the entire population. Best regards, Gregg