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Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

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21–30 of 34 posts

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#21
post #12

This move is a little strange. It's a big chunk to sell all at once and some will interpret it as a de facto vote of no confidence in MSFT. The smoother way for executives to sell their substantial holdings in a company is to say they will sell X shares per year for Y years (typically in the name of diversifying one's holdings) and then put some independent third party (with no access to insider information) in charg…

Well, he'll be saving $65M in capital gains taxes by selling this year before the rate increases to 20%. No doubt that was a consideration.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#23
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 screams QE2 to me

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#24

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.

But to be fair, this is the only thing that makes sense for him to do: if your portfolio tilted into one company like his, you should diversify like crazy irregardless of company performance, otherwise one day you can find yourself unexpectedly and significantly poorer.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#25
post #12

This move is a little strange. It's a big chunk to sell all at once and some will interpret it as a de facto vote of no confidence in MSFT. The smoother way for executives to sell their substantial holdings in a company is to say they will sell X shares per year for Y years (typically in the name of diversifying one's holdings) and then put some independent third party (with no access to insider information) in charg…

Microsoft is less secretive about new products than a company like Apple, and with such large fairly constant revenue from things like Windows and Office, the shipment or degree of success of their other products doesn't seem likely to be that big a factor in near future price of the stock. External market conditions, like the state of the economy and trends with competitors seem to matter much more. The short term impact of Win phone 7 will be more one of mood than the bottom line. They're competing with a free smartphone OS limiting licensing revenue and it would take a substantial market share for search/ad revenue to matter much. Without a huge pool of touch apps and trained users, any non-desktop-binary running tablets would see a much slower adoption rate than the iPad is experiencing and even then what they could get would only capture a small slice of the selling price. And not really being something new, it's hard to see much in the way of surprises from licensing revenue for tablets that are Windows-desktop binary compatible. It seems the innovation there won't be from MS, but primarily from lower power Intel chips making them more viable. And even then, to be hugely popular with consumers, they'd have to be at a not so profitable price point. They'd also be mostly cannibalizing netbook/laptop sales to users bonded to Windows.

The sales don't seem likely to be tied to insider info, but may be viewed as an admission of agreement with the ho-hum view of most outsiders.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#26
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to http://www.google.com/finance?q=msft , 1% of Microsoft shares changes hands each day. This means that every 3 months, on average, every Microsoft share changes hands once. Bill's selling represents less than 100% and occurred over a decade, which is a much larger time interval. Nowadays mutual/hedge funds look at the company performance (earnings) and at the stock price and effectively pour in the capita…

> 1% of Microsoft shares changes hands each day yes, but these are transactions that follow the pattern of the market. Usually they even out, with a few days having more sellers and on other days more buyers. When you have a share repurchase program, you are basically giving a support for the market. It is hard for the stock to go much lower, because the company is always buying. Bill and Ballmer, on the other hand,…

When you have a share repurchase program, you are basically giving a support for the market. It is hard for the stock to go much lower, because the company is always buying.

This statement shows a common misunderstanding of finance.

The market cap of a company represents the market's best estimate of the value of that company. When a company does a share buy-back, the company loses money and destroys stock. The current value of the money used matches the value of the stock destroyed, and so the market cap should be reduced by the amount of stock destroyed. Therefore to first order effects, the result is that the share price should remain constant. (There are second order effects where some value is transferred from stock holders to option owners, which indicates that the share price should go down.)

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#27
post #21
post #12

This move is a little strange. It's a big chunk to sell all at once and some will interpret it as a de facto vote of no confidence in MSFT. The smoother way for executives to sell their substantial holdings in a company is to say they will sell X shares per year for Y years (typically in the name of diversifying one's holdings) and then put some independent third party (with no access to insider information) in charg…

Well, he'll be saving $65M in capital gains taxes by selling this year before the rate increases to 20%. No doubt that was a consideration.

Not if he invests in other stock that he could sell afterwards.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#28
post #15
post #12

This move is a little strange. It's a big chunk to sell all at once and some will interpret it as a de facto vote of no confidence in MSFT. The smoother way for executives to sell their substantial holdings in a company is to say they will sell X shares per year for Y years (typically in the name of diversifying one's holdings) and then put some independent third party (with no access to insider information) in charg…

The insider selling to buying ratio has been over 2000 in recent weeks. This is likely less of a dire sign of MSFT's prospects than it is a condemnation of the US economy after Heli Ben's QE2. I bet he pumps it into commodities, metals and markets like brazil that aren't devaluing their currencies.

To be honest, a devaluing currency is precisely what you want to invest in a country, as it makes exports from that country way cheaper.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#29
post #15
post #12

This move is a little strange. It's a big chunk to sell all at once and some will interpret it as a de facto vote of no confidence in MSFT. The smoother way for executives to sell their substantial holdings in a company is to say they will sell X shares per year for Y years (typically in the name of diversifying one's holdings) and then put some independent third party (with no access to insider information) in charg…

The insider selling to buying ratio has been over 2000 in recent weeks. This is likely less of a dire sign of MSFT's prospects than it is a condemnation of the US economy after Heli Ben's QE2. I bet he pumps it into commodities, metals and markets like brazil that aren't devaluing their currencies.

Yeah, because nothing says "I condemn the devaluing of this currency" like asking for 1.5 billion of it right as said devaluing is happening.

Re: Ballmer sells 20% of his MSFT holdings

#30
post #29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insider selling to buying ratio has been over 2000 in recent weeks. This is likely less of a dire sign of MSFT's prospects than it is a condemnation of the US economy after Heli Ben's QE2. I bet he pumps it into commodities, metals and markets like brazil that aren't devaluing their currencies.

Yeah, because nothing says "I condemn the devaluing of this currency" like asking for 1.5 billion of it right as said devaluing is happening.

So you think because he sold his stock he has to keep the dollars he got for it?
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