1x Msft Discussion Threads

[energyi] 07/4/2002 15:55

FR,
Microsoft is now a Dow component, so it would also drag the Dow lower.

[financialruin] 07/4/2002 15:41

Microsoft at $55.87 is down somewhat from its one year average ($64.31) and its two year average ($64.09), but is still modestly above its post 9/11 low of $49.71. The test will be the $50 level and if MSFT fails to hold this level over the next two weeks it could fall precipitously and could drag a good proportion of the Nasdaq down with it.

It’s a shame that MSFT cannot be as imaginative in the design of their software as they are in the design of their accounts, but 3Q accounts (due 18th April 2002) will need to demonstrate a level of creative brilliance if they are to save themselves from the ravages of the current market place.

[news-surfer] 07/4/2002 15:33

i put a £10 a point short on msft back in mid-jan @ $68.50ish. will now be trying to play it. in the run up to the 18th we should get lots of 200+ points a day movements making it easier to play as a daytrade.

[energyi] 07/4/2002 14:51

Monday will be interesting if $55.50 gets taken out.
PMEAS, what do you know about this stock?
It seems you mentioned it last week

[goldstone] 06/4/2002 18:56

Ruin,
MSFT SELLS Puts on its own stock.
If the price drops, they will be forced to buy their own
stock at a higher than Market price as the holds of puts
exercise them. If they must then sell that stock in the
market, it may trigger a further drop. Does sound something
like Enron, doesn't it?

My, my... If venerable Microsoft (and posterboy Bill Gates,
the "World's Richest Man") are seen to be running a confidence
scheme, What can this mean for market confidence???
March quarter announcements coming soon.
Didn't an MSFT director just resign???

[financialruin] 06/4/2002 18:42

Microsoft to be the next Enron

There is hope yet for all those long suffering users of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft are going under! Or, at least, this seems to be the view of Bill Parish who has done much research into the "Microsoft Pyramid Scheme".

He makes the point that only 35% of Microsoft's cashflow comes from product sales. The remainder comes from Employee share options (20%), Tax refunds (36%) and, amazingly, put option speculation (9%).

Yes 9% of cash flow from selling put options. This means that, should Microsoft go bankrupt, the purchasers of those put options have all the security of a bankrupt company to honour their options.

Such financial "practices" may have done much to blow up the financial bubble that Microsoft has become, but will most likely lead to a precipitous fall when the truth becomes known.

"Microsoft issues a massive amount of put options. During the same quarter ended 3/31/99, Microsoft sold put contracts on their own stock for $400 million, basically betting that the stock will not decline. They need not worry because they are allowed to “cook the books.” Of Microsoft’s significant cash balance, it is also a financial fact that more than 65 percent of that cash did not originate from product sales but rather from tax benefits associated with the exercise of stock options, employees prepaying their own wages, and the sale of put contracts on its own stock. Microsoft's financial innovation is making a mockery of financial integrity, ethics, and the securities laws, just as Insull did in the 1920's."

See:

[goldstone] 06/4/2002 18:09

(Slider / From Silicon Investor):
We're seeing a seminal cyclical shift... and a historic one imho.

The recent shift to home oriented activities that has kept the home electronics sector & retailers in general relatively strong; as well as the home builders & Real Estate Market is just the beginning of a cyclical shift out of the stock market and into safety.

The "Home" is the first flight to safety arrival point; but it won't be the last.

Unfortunately we are in a real estate bubble... partially because we just exited a near decade long "Mortgage & Credit Bubble"... the credit & lending bubble of the last decade created an environment that can't be sustained....unless we revisit 4-5% Mortgage Money (which we may, but not untill we see DOW 5-6000 imho and I honestly think we will over a continued 3-4-5 year Bear Market for Stocks.

It amazes me that nearly everyone now acknowledges the irrational, speculative bubble in Internet Stocks and in Technology & the NAZ 5000-mania. But; yet that same reality seems to ignore that this was just the beginning of a traditional longterm cyclical correction of a paper asset bubble.

Stocks will indeed follow for a multitude of reasons.

It is incredibly naive to think that we can exit a historic speculative paper asset bubble and work our way thru a traditional Bear Market Correction and never even return to "normalized" valuation multiple levels; let alone true "Bear Market" multiples.

Dow 6-7000 is "reality" and DOW 5,000 is Bear Market territory and where we are now @ Dow 10,000... is nothing more than the last remmnants of a speculative mania that is stubbornly hanging on...(but, not for long imo).

We DO have a near marketwide "earnings quality" crisis that is not being discounted one iota by the market... and the earnings quality crisis (read accounting quality crisis)has and will continue to be met head on imho; with a much slower and more drawn out global recovery than anyone anticipates.

Throw in the shift of capital to the "War on Terrorism Machine" and a couple more "Rogue Wave" crisis events and the stage is set for a very intersting chapter in Market History to unfold imho... and if that is not a reason to be a market "pessimist" and position one's investments in a near purely defensive position... I don't know what would be.

I think we're going to see yet another wave of missed earnings and lowered guidance that will begin to paint 2003 as the "potential" recovery target and investors who have allready begun to shift assets to Real Estate and the "Home" will begin to capitulate after seeing yet another year of negative 401K & Investment returns.

The Street will have a hard time selling Mr. & Mrs. Main Street that stocks are cheap and that Happy Days are right around the corner... once that mindset shifts out of paper assets and momenteum builds... it won't stop and turn on a dime.

"Stocks" will be hated before this is over... history is amazing... it gives so much and asks so little (vbg); but yet so few heed its lessons...

We've seen a degree of market intervention by the Fed and the powers that be; that is unprecedented. This manipulation and the rapid & reckless expansion of money supply & credit is going to lead to a global currency crisis and gold will return as the historic currency of last resort as it allways has been & allways will be.

Fiat was an experiment that will end badly and imho; we're merely seeing the beginning of the end.

...only time will tell; but we will see a day where the masses beg for the return to the gold standard... and we will.

I think we've got 3-5 more years of painfull history lessons yet to come and yet another generation will humbled.
LINK:

[goldstone] 06/4/2002 16:18

Microsoft insiders made zero buys, 21 sales and 21.46 million shares were dumped, presumably many by Bill Gates...

Chart, ST:


Chart, LT:


Can the US markets hold up when insiders are selling so heavily?
...and her's the poster child of the last decade's boom: Worst of all!

Chart: Dow, LT:


READ THIS before you buy another share:


And what about the $1 Trillion loss?:
Buying binge could cost Corporate America $1T

[pommy] 01/2/2002 06:30

its feb 1st - not april 1st. :-)

[jazza] 20/7/2001 12:31

A little more info regarding Microsoft.

Q1 2002 earnings forecast to be below analyst expectations, full year 2002
earnings forecast to be above expectations. Make of it what you will....



Microsoft (MSFT) now expects first-quarter earnings of 39 cents to 40 cents a diluted share on revenue of $6 billion to $6.2 billion. The mean estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call were for earnings of 45 cents a share on revenue of $6.27 billion for the quarter ending Sept. 30.

The company is also projecting fiscal 2002 earnings of $1.91 to $1.95 a share on revenue of $28.89 billion to $29.5 billion, above prior guidance of $1.90 to $1.94 a share on sales of $28 billion to $29 billion.

[jazza] 20/7/2001 12:04

IBM, Intel and Microsoft have all 'warned'

When all have fallen, who's left to fall?


So who's left to fall?

[hatman] 19/7/2001 21:55

...after the market close. Whoops!

[solomon] 12/7/2001 12:21

Wasn't it Microsoft that started all this. I mean when the antitrust case came to the fore, the NAS began it's descent. Nas 5000 before christmas then? Where's Romeo?

[alchemy] 12/7/2001 06:31

Solomon

Yes it was and the bottomed at 40 at year end and have recoverd 75 % since then.
Market's job to look ahead and all that... some bet heavily on anti-trust outcome.

And somewhat off topic maybe I see their dotNET thing as being huge.

[dymaxion] 12/7/2001 05:01

Conspiracy theories? :-) nas bounces off 1600 what nice timing by MSFT :-)

[martini] 11/7/2001 23:41

Might be better to short the ealry rise if over done as these things usually are.

[technet] 11/7/2001 23:30

Microsoft (MSFT) 66.50 +2.02: -- Update -- Company sees revs of $6.5-$6.6 bln vs. consensus of $6.43 bln; company will take $3.9 bln charge resulting from the impairment of certain publicly traded and private equity securities particularly in the cable and telecommunications industries; management expects results from operations to be in line with previous guidance; including the non-cash charge, diluted earnings per share is expected to be approximately $0.01; MSFT 69.75 +3.25 vs. 4 pm close.

And we thought our portfolio's had lost money ;o)

[biomax] 11/7/2001 23:30

whats should we buy for a quick trade?
i guess any tech which won't be marked up

[bullshare] 11/7/2001 22:55

M; Teflon underpants then;-)

[martini] 11/7/2001 22:49

If the after hours trading follows through to tomorrow a few tech shorters will be scrambling for the exits :)

[bullshare] 11/7/2001 22:45

Don't completely hold your breath. Yahoo was marked down sharply on Double Click figures but then rose quickly after hours as it brought its own forecasts out.


But saying that, the last time I looked at the NAS future it was up 75 points.