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Real reasonReal reasonPosted Jun 15, 2004 20:23 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165)Parent article: Red Hat's Red Flags (Motley Fool) What the columnist neglects to mention is that the departing officer must be perfectly aware of all the points that were mentioned. Therefore, quitting on that day reveals more about the officer than it does about his employer. He obviously wanted to harm the company somehow. Evidently there has been a dispute, but we don't know any of the details. Without the details, we can't conclude anything about the company. We do know that this guy indulges his own spite, which warns us not to hire him without a lot of explanation. We don't know whether to sell shares, though.
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We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 15, 2004 21:44 UTC (Tue) by lakeland (subscriber, #1157) [Link] What you've said about the officer is quite correct. However, we do knowto sell shares (not that I own any RHAT). Question: Is the Redhat share price going to drop as a result of this announcement? Answer: Yes. Conclusion: You should sell, even if you intend to buy them back again next week. Actually, you might be a bit late, I see they're already down 10%. Remember, the share market is playing the game of predicting how other people will react. Since most investors will react unfavourably to this news, you should sell. This is regardless of the merits of them acting unfavourably. Here's a parallel. Say you happen to know SCO is putting out a press release that you think the general gullible investor will gobble down (perhaps you read it the second it is released). As a result, you 'should' immediatly go and buy SCO shares. It doesn't matter that you know the PR is bull, you are playing the game of predicting the behaviour of other investors, not playing the game of predicting the company.
We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 15, 2004 22:15 UTC (Tue) by lees (subscriber, #13854) [Link] Say you know SCO is about to put a press release saying some FUD,you being the director of communications for SCO. You buy some shares and then flip them later that week after they spike. Watch as you go to jail for insider trading. Your point about the markets is valid, the advice you give in the last paragraph looks dangerous to me.
We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 16, 2004 13:16 UTC (Wed) by TimCunningham (guest, #10316) [Link] Only if you have insider information.. which it certanly doesn't take to see that most of the SCO releases are FUD..
We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 15, 2004 22:20 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] Of course, once you read an article about something, you're too late to predict the market, and selling shares means you lose 10%. Responding to the obvious factors, rather than anticipating them, means that you'll be late and lose money. Since last week, RHAT lost 10% before today, and another 10% today. If the numbers turn out to be fine, it will probably jump back up to where it, and selling today with the plan of buying again in a week would cost you 10-20%.
We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 15, 2004 23:22 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] You have just advocated a crime. If you know that a public company is going to make an announcement, the general public doesn't, and you trade on that knowledge, you could be prosecuted for insider trading.I know an prosecutor for the SEC, and it's his job to bust people for this kind of thing. Most of the time the guilty party avoids going to jail, by taking the usual settlement offer of "disgorging" (yes, that's the legal jargon) all profits and paying additional fines. Apparently Martha Stewart was offered such a deal and chose to fight instead. Bad mistake.
We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 16, 2004 1:43 UTC (Wed) by lakeland (subscriber, #1157) [Link] > You have just advocated a crimeNo, I didn't. From my post: "(perhaps you read it the second it is released)". There are an awful lot of things which you can legally know but the average investor does not know. For instance, you know SCO has less chance of of winning the court case against AutoZone than winning the lottery. However, the average investor does not know that -- can you buy and sell shares based on your extra information? You bet. If you were also a lawyer then you'd be able to guess even more accurately. Insider trading is designed to ONLY prevent you using priveleged information. If you have unpriveleged infromation which lets you get one up on the other investors (such as bullshit detector that works on IT press releases) then you are welcome to use it. If you have unpriveleged information that you obtained through legal means a little before the other investors then you're welcome to profit by using it first. In fact, you're an idiot if you don't. Say you read that SEC filing by SCO, and you know a little bit more about the Indian legal system which makes you expect SCO will win their $300k back, you can perfectly legally use that information to guess SCO shares are going to rise when the information comes out. Similarly, if you have a PhD which tells you a product being hyped is physically impossible (vapourware) then you can perfectly legally set up a futures trade that could make you a killing. My particular example said that you got the information as soon as it was made public -- in other words it was public information when you got it and that makes it fair game. Of course, if you had a mate at SCO who tipped you off that a PR was about to come out then that's totally different. I believe you're even allowed to do things like subscribe to AP so you get stores 30 mins before they appear on the WSJ, but I'm not 100% on that one. I don't understand why people find insider trading so confusing. It is pretty simple -- If you are party to priveleged information (say you help audit the books) then you've got to be damn careful with any trade you do. However, if you are not party to priveleged information then you can do whatever you like. If you happen to be able to read more into the publically available information than other people then you're welcome to profit from that. The goal of banning insider trading is to put all investors on a level playing field, imagine if a developer at a software company was allowed to sell all their shares the day before announcing their flagship product was vapourware. Not quite sure how many times I repeated myself above, but hopefully you'll see my point.
We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 16, 2004 1:36 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] Besides the insider-trading questions, what you have described is consistent with sheep mentality thinking. Apart from the sudden and temporary price drops, thinking like that also causes silly stock bubbles (e.g. dotcom if anybody needs reminding). In both cases the trends are unstable: the true value of a stock is best calculated as an average over a period of time (say a few months).
We _do_ know to sell shares Posted Jun 16, 2004 1:52 UTC (Wed) by lakeland (subscriber, #1157) [Link] Er, yes? Your point? Trying to second guess the mob is a dangerous game.Made more so since they are all trying to second-guess you. If you are relying on the mob continuing to live a delusion and suddenly reality rears its head then you're in for serious trouble -- especially if you're a little slow. Of course, instead of making a profit on the share price you can make a profit on dividends and ignore the share price. This is certainly a much more stable income and does not present any of the moral or ethical dilemmas inherant in out-guessing the mob. But as the Fool article states, RHAT is already grossly overvalued in terms of dividend payout so I can't imagine why any investors would own shares in Redhat for the dividends.
Sure you can rely on dividends ... Posted Jun 16, 2004 18:30 UTC (Wed) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] ... assuming that the company will in fact pay a dividend, which is by no means certain.Besides, the stock price is automagically valued down when the dividend is paid, so the company is either going to be worthless somewhen in the future, or they'll make more money. Which you can't count on either. The bottom line is, in case some reader doesn't know it already, that there's no magic way to make money on the stock market. :-/
Investment vs. profiteering? Posted Jun 15, 2004 22:39 UTC (Tue) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] You keep the shares for the longer term investment and don't worry abouttiny little blips. If you are trying to sell this week and buy back next week... you really aren't investing. Yes, I understand lots of people are doing it... yeah, and??
Real reason Posted Jun 16, 2004 5:35 UTC (Wed) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] Is it known that the CFO quit voluntarily? Thelanguage "leaving to pursue other interests" and "spend more time with his family" are typical codewords for an executive getting fired.
Real reason Posted Jun 16, 2004 18:35 UTC (Wed) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] So either he quit because the numbers are bad, or he got sacked because the numbers are bad.Either way, the numbers are (likely to be -- no insider information here) bad.
Nope Posted Jun 16, 2004 19:45 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] The numbers are not bad. Red Hat put out an emergency preview announcement, evidently to head off rumor-mongers. It seems their revenue and profits are both up.
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