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Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

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Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#2
I'm no expert, but this just screams doom to me. When someone inside the company sells their shares in this quantity it's _always_ before something big. I won't speculate at what is going on inside, beyond all the negative image lately, but it can't be good.

And if he wanted to diversify his portfolio then he should buy some APPL! (Laughed at my own joke, too.)

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#3
post #2

I'm no expert, but this just screams doom to me. When someone inside the company sells their shares in this quantity it's _always_ before something big. I won't speculate at what is going on inside, beyond all the negative image lately, but it can't be good. And if he wanted to diversify his portfolio then he should buy some APPL! (Laughed at my own joke, too.)

It doesn't scream "doom" to me; Ballmer's sale looks like it was done mostly for tax purposes.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#4
post #3
post #2

I'm no expert, but this just screams doom to me. When someone inside the company sells their shares in this quantity it's _always_ before something big. I won't speculate at what is going on inside, beyond all the negative image lately, but it can't be good. And if he wanted to diversify his portfolio then he should buy some APPL! (Laughed at my own joke, too.)

It doesn't scream "doom" to me; Ballmer's sale looks like it was done mostly for tax purposes.

It still sounds bad to me. It says to me that Steve thinks there's more upside in lower cap gains taxes than hanging onto the stock. In other words, MSFT is stagnant now and it's going to be stagnant for years to come.

If Steve had been doing what Bill does—selling off a big chunk of stock every quarter—no one would've even blinked at this.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#5
post #2

I'm no expert, but this just screams doom to me. When someone inside the company sells their shares in this quantity it's _always_ before something big. I won't speculate at what is going on inside, beyond all the negative image lately, but it can't be good. And if he wanted to diversify his portfolio then he should buy some APPL! (Laughed at my own joke, too.)

I'm assuming that what you're describing is not the case. Selling because you know that something big is about to happen is insider trading.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#7
I believe the main reason why MSFT is stagnant is that the biggest shareholder (Bill) is selling this stuff constantly. His must have sold tens of billions of MSFT is the last few years. It is just the inverse of a company like IBM that is actively buying shares.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#8
post #2

I'm no expert, but this just screams doom to me. When someone inside the company sells their shares in this quantity it's _always_ before something big. I won't speculate at what is going on inside, beyond all the negative image lately, but it can't be good. And if he wanted to diversify his portfolio then he should buy some APPL! (Laughed at my own joke, too.)

[deleted]

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#10
post #6

IMHO very good time for sale: few days after record revenue announce.

to me it sends the wrong signal to other share holders. Sell now while the share has a temporary peak.

their up and coming smart-phone business and being able to integrate that with their other online products like Bing will decide whether MS will grow or die. They are late in all domains, so they are gonna have to impress by pushing the experience to new heights.. which I doubt they will pull off considering they have a poor product development culture compared to apple and google.

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