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SCO Execs Dumping Stock
Posted by
michael
on Tue Aug 12, 2003 03:17 PM
from the pump-and-dump dept.
from the pump-and-dump dept.
luigi6699 writes "According to the Salt Lake Tribune, 'SCO Group executives have sold about 119,000 shares of their company since it filed a lawsuit against IBM in March...' Their CFO started the $1.2 million sell-off just after the lawsuit."
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SCO Execs Dumping Stock
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Re:Kinda says it all, doesn't it. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~MuParadigm/journal/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 09 2003, @06:23AM)
I just found this really hilarious quote on one of SCO's early press releases (http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=41
"Caldera and 'Unifying UNIX with Linux for Business' are trademarks or registered trademarks of Caldera Systems Inc."
Not only were they putting Unix code into Linux, but they fucking TRADEMARKED it!!!
Does anyone have any Ace Bandages? I need to wrap something around my torso before I bust my gut laughing.
Re:Kinda says it all, doesn't it. (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.shuman.org/)
A better chart (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd take a look at the trend in this linear SCOX Chart [yahoo.com] for better information.
Re:A better chart (Score:4, Informative)
(http://jesperbrodersen.dk/ | Last Journal: Friday July 18 2003, @07:09AM)
-> man, the last comment fits my sig
Re:A better chart (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe better to buy puts (Score:4, Interesting)
Put options give you the right to sell the stock at a later date, but at, say, today's price. The only risk is the price of the put, wheras when you short stock you have arbitrary exposure if the stock goes up.
Also, it is probably easier to get approval from a broker to trade puts. Shorting stock basically means him lending you stock. Buying puts avoids that aspect of it.
Re:Stay far far away from both. (Score:4, Insightful)
By the way, since we're quoting people, Warren Buffet, the biggest player in some of the biggest and most sucessful insurance companies in the world- and who knows a thing or two about risk management, called options "financial weapons of mass destruction" in his latest annual report and detailed his plans to get out of the options business as fast as he posibly can. Read all about it at BerkshireHathaway's website.
To highlight the problem, he has no idea how long it will take for him to even be able to get out of it. The way options are used for risk management has led to arrangements that are stupifyingly complex. It's kind of like this- would you trust a billion line program not to crash? Of course not because you would never, realistically speaking, be able to figure it all out.
Look at LTCM and Enrons adventures with options. They all thaught they were pretty smart too. Because options deal with hypothetical situations, valuing them is extremely difficult. You have many situtations in which people have widely differing valuations and this can cause chaos for accounting. Fancy formulas can only take you so far. The more complex things get, the more chances there are for things to break.
This is a man with as close to an impeccable record as it gets and he wouldn't lose any sleep if options were outlawed. Beware, because some very savy people look at options and see a great big steaming pile of financial risk.
Everyone shoudl put an option-driven perfect-storm-style financial meltdown on their list of possible 21st century catastrophies.
Re:A better chart (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday October 03 2003, @10:40AM)
Whats sad is when you compare it to Redhat
Re:A better chart (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday January 28 2007, @05:20PM)
Re:A better chart (Score:4, Interesting)
I _really_ favor candlesticks as do many others familar with techincal analysis.
Of course, it's more dramatic to see the drop on a linear scale
SCOX = tanking
due in no large part to the assesement (as reported in Cnet etc.) of how _expensive_ it's going to be for them to defend themselves against big blue's patent claims. If they don't succeed in that, then they will have about 0 in revenue.
Re:Kinda says it all, doesn't it. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/~Shadow%20Wrought/journal | Last Journal: Saturday November 17, @12:05PM)
What does this say about SCO's belief in the lawsuit? McBribe was blathering on about how IBM's refusal to indemnify its customers showed what IBM thought of its case. How about the chiefs dumping all of their stock? Yeah that's a major confidence builder!
Selling not as descriptive as Buying (Score:5, Informative)
Yahoo lists 82k insider shares sold in the last 6 months. This is only 1.4 percent of insider holdings. Even if the number is much higher this is not a huge exodus yet. In fact it shows a bit of confidence. After all, this was a $2 stock in January.
This could be taken as SCO's officers hedging their bets, however its hard to say because no matter how lousy SCO's situation might be if it loses, these people may be already diversified well enough with outside holdings to risk it all. It's tough to say is really what this means. The CEO's cash salary was only $82k last year. We all know a CEO can't possibly live on that little. Maybe he needed a Bentley. Hard to say.
Now if they were buying shares, that would say a lot more about the case. People sell for many reasons, but there is only one reason to buy: you think the stock is going to go up and stay up until the next selling period for insiders.
I wonder what the various linux companies are doing?
Re:Selling not as descriptive as Buying (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 07 2007, @09:12PM)
Drop in the bucket. (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday November 02, @02:49PM)
$1.2 million worth among ALL the execs after a factor-of-ten jump? Peanuts. I'm surprised it isn't far more.
Even if they are darned sure they're going to win (and you NEVER know for sure with a court case), this looks like a bubble. It's much more likely to pop than keep rising. Even if it keeps going up the big inflation is probably over.
"Take the money and run." As I learned the hard way by NOT doing so before MY company took a factor-of-1,000 dive in the internet bubble-pop. Went from a paper multi-millionaire back to a multi-thousandaire - i.e. a working stiff with a mortgage - with enough still out on a credit card to just about cancel out my cash reserves. These guys have been through it before and it's hardly surprising if they want to lock in - or spend - some of their gain.
By the way: Looks like their war chest just got a $40 million boost from Computer Associates, who just caved on a suit SCO filed against them in 2001.
Re:SCO hasn't hidden anything (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday January 06 2005, @02:26PM)
Don't pretend they're making an honest profit here because there's no way to interpret that from the facts.
Oh, and putting food on the table is only good if you can do it while not taking food off of the table of others (i.e. if you produce something, or otherwise add value to the system). In my humble opinion, anyway.
Regards,
Ross
Re:Kinda says it all, doesn't it. (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.computechnica.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday November 05 2002, @09:28PM)
Another relevant Koshism (Score:4, Insightful)
proven wrong (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.getfirefox.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 05 2005, @08:47PM)
Also check out this story (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/~i_am_nitrogen/journal/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 09 2003, @02:10PM)
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Aug/08122003/business/
Re:Kinda says it all, doesn't it. (Score:5, Funny)
- David Boies' law firm, Boies, Schiller & Flexner, represents SCO. Boies represented former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election recount and tried the U.S. antitrust case against Microsoft.
Wow... Sounds like just the winning lawyer I'd want on my side in a battle against a multi-billion dollar company.Re:Kinda says it all, doesn't it. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://userfriendly.org/ | Last Journal: Friday June 16 2006, @02:34PM)
Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.diggdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 02 2003, @01:26PM)
SCO Group to Shoot Babies
By Jeff Heard
Lindon, UT - The SCO Group announced the launch of a campaign to shoot 1% of all babies born in the US.
"Statistically, 1% of all people are Linux users. Rather than have these young hoodlums grow up without any respect for our intellectual property, we have chosen to nip it in the bud, as it were," said SCO's CEO, Darl McBride.
In addition, during the campaign announcement, SCO said that individuals could pay $2,499 per child for immunity from execution. "The price goes up to $5,200 dollars after that family's firstborn reaches 18 months, so it is in their advantage to pony up now," McBride continued.
The announcement brought cheers from SCO's chief investors and supporters, including the Gartner Group, and the BSA (Blind and Shortsighted Alliance). The organizations hailed it as "A brave, innovative step in the fight against intellectual piracy."
An RIAA spokesperson that was also present said that they were taking serious looks at SCO's proposal for fighting piracy in the music industry. "I think this will be a great deterrent. It will force parents to talk to their kids about the evils of intellectual piracy. In a free economy, this kind of thing is a must."
SCO, which stands for "Satanic Cultists' Operation," changed its name from Caldera in 2002, when it was acquired by an obscure organization which exclusively employs 1200-year-old undead trial lawyers. They are now embroiled in an ongoing legal battle with IBM, Red Hat, and the Open Source community over alleged copyright infringements embedded inside Linux.
Speculation has been abound about what will happen if SCO wins the lawsuit. Some have suggested that Linux will disappear entirely from the market. Others have speculated that if SCO loses the lawsuit, it will use its connections with the Underworld to assemble a massive Army of the Dead, march on IBM headquarters, and crush it into a smoldering oblivion. When asked about the possibility of an undead Armageddon scenario, a senior IBM spokesperson said, speaking in stereophonic bass-tones, "This will not happen."
When booed during the announcement by a large rotten tomato-wielding crowd, McBride exhorted, "I am disappointed with your reaction to our announcement. I must say that your decision to throw tomatoes does not seem conducive to the long-term survivability of your firstborn children."
Source (Score:5, Informative)
(http://trugeek.com/)
SCO Group to Shoot Babies [bbspot.com]
And haven't you heard? On
An even better "REAL" news story at the SL Trib (Score:4, Informative)
Check out this additional story about SCO [sltrib.com] at the Salt Lake Tribune website.
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
SCO Execs Dumping Stock
Slashdot - 10 minutes ago
Lindon, UT - The SCO Group announced the launch of a campaign to shoot 1% of all babies born in the US.
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Google News search [google.com]
That is flippin hilarious, thanks for the laugh!
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
>>about shooting babies, but outside of your
>>close-knit circle of pasty white, pear shaped,
>>stinky nerd friends, that is not funny and
>>it's rather offensive.
Hi. Welcome to SlashDot. Are you enjoying your first day here?
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Hey now, we're not that close-knit.
Re:Context... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 19 2002, @10:25AM)
(The eldest, by two minutes, is disassembling his toys, God Love Him! -sniff!-)
Re:Context... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.tanningbeds.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 05 2006, @07:23AM)
Its always funny until someone has to pay a dual royalty for having two children. At $2499 each, that means you own SCO 5 grand, and that price will double in less than a year when they hit 18 months! Still laughing?
The article didn't mention if you received a license for one cpu along with the immunity from the standard baby killing. I couldn't find out on the SCO website either...
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:4, Funny)
Why are you disparaging little children who haven't learned to express themselves by comparing them to adults who complain about trivial things? Do you think it's funny to insult defenseless children for communicating in the only way that they can? Sure, babies cry. But that's ALL THEY KNOW HOW TO DO! Pick another term for adults who complain all of the time.
And before you reply with one of those smart-alecky oh-so-sarcastic responses so common to this website, FYI: I'm not doing this to boost my ego, I'm not doing this because I'm some kind of humorless "PC cop", and I'm not doing this to get cheap karma points.
I'm doing it for the children. Don't you care about the children?
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 24 2004, @06:10PM)
Eh, if my degree in Classics is ever any use, it's to remind people like you that leaving infants to die on their own tends to end up having them raised by shepherds or wolves and coming back to kill you accidentally on the highway...
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
You are the type who actively seek out situations where you can be offended, and then enjoy the satisfaction of whining about it, sometimes enough to ruin everyone else's fun.
My only wish is to cause you politically correct hyper-sensitives some offense which is so vile, so immediately repulsive to your delicate constitutions, that you shrivel up and die like a salted snail.
Bite me, moron.
Re:Fark: Obvious (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?39901 | Last Journal: Tuesday August 03 2004, @11:07PM)
Someone should have killed this guy when he was a baby...
Mainstream media? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mainstream media? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.rigidsoftware.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday September 24 2005, @11:58PM)
" Their CFO started the $1.2 million sell-off just after the lawsuit."
I kind of think they started this dump AFTER their stock when through the roof. WHy did their stock go through the roof? First profitable quarter ever. Why was it the first profitable quarter ever? Microsoft. RTFQ(Q=Quarterly report) [Sun also bought a license]
This was for UNIX licensing, little different that the law suit related stuff sort of.
BTW, you should see all the sub $1.00 stock options flying about.
Im into these fools for about 100 shares. On the short side.
Re:Mainstream media? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://geocities.com/nelstomlinson | Last Journal: Wednesday January 22 2003, @01:19AM)
This guy [slashdot.org] caught it when it was on Google's Top News [mindspring.com] page.
This is funny, but it shows that we need to take things like Google with a grain of salt. There's no human in the loop, and sometimes it shows.
well... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://cruppel.com/)
Re:well... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://mirror.cs.vt.edu/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 13 2004, @11:24AM)
All the more reason to cruise on over to PinkFairies.Org [pinkfairies.org] and check out the SCO Code Bounty Hunt - Where we're putting money on the lack of SCO code in the kernel!
~Will
What a coincidence! (Score:4, Funny)
And the contents of my toilet had many similarities to SCO stock!
Re:What a coincidence! (Score:5, Funny)
Take some pride in your excrement! What did it ever do to you? Poor little s***s being thrown into the same category as SCO.
Re:What a coincidence! (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but was it a pump-and-dump or just a dump? If the former, you can go blind from doing that.
Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.lrsehosting.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 21, @06:21PM)
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/ | Last Journal: Monday January 07 2002, @01:07AM)
It's not exactly "insider info" that their lawsuit is shit and their stock as high as it'll ever go...
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://forechecker.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 07, @08:16PM)
This is a really overblown story. The figure they're quoting is only about 2% of insider shares, so it's not like this is a "pump and dump." Granted, nobody likes what SCO is doing, but this story doesn't cut it...
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
As much as I don't like what SCO is doing and would love to see them all die a horrible flaming death, what, other than possibly baritry (SP?) have they done that is illegal? Before the flames are unleased, please read the question again, it say ILLEGAL not immoral or stupid.
If the SCO execs all got together in, oh let's say November, and started buying large (insert abritrary SEC defined number) quantities of stock prior to announcing the suit, that could and to my untrained eyes would, be insider trading and/or fraud.
Now just to let you in on another little secret, somebody has to be willing to buy what you are selling. So the real question now becomes who are the morons buying good money for a portion of a company that may or may not have a revenue stream? At the present time, anyone who considers SCO stock any better than an other-the-counter, very junior mining stock should start learning a little about investment. The old adage "A fool and his money are soon parted" applies quite well to this situation.
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:5, Interesting)
"100 share lots, and the whole last 1o minutes (half the gain on the day) were done on less than 5000 shares. Thats less than 1/250th ( 0.4% - 4/10 of a percent) of the daily volume accounting for over HALF the closing price.
If you look at the whole runup at the end, less than 1% of the volume accounted for 80% of the closing price gain.
Someone is playing real monkey business with this stock.
I wish there was full disclosure with buying and selling like there is on political donations. It would be very interesting to see who it is that keeps manipulating the closing price."
That's Illegal.
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you think the corporations complain so much about class action lawyers? You don't hear them whining about the SEC.
I only say this because I always hear complaints about class action attorneys (which seems strange to me on Slashdot). They perform an essential, and very valuable public service. And yes, they make good money from it -- but only when they win.
Re:Where the HELL is the SEC? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other problem with class action litigators is that they keep a huge chunk of whatever damages are collected, rather than giving it to the people damaged. This makes their winnings a de facto penalty, rather than a repayment of damages. Penalties should be imposed by and paid to the government, in my opinion, not by and to individuals. If the class action attorneys can make so much money (and some of them have made a *lot* of money) from penalties, why shouldn't the SEC be allowed to enforce laws and extract penalties? In effect you've outsourced justice to a bunch of unprincipled vigilantes. Not good.
Its called automated selling. (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday July 29 2003, @01:57PM)
Re:SEC (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.allumbrados.com/)
With the selloff starting 4 days after the lawsuit was filed and SCO VP Michael Wilson selling his entire stake in the company? I'd say a few SCO execs are likely to get a call from our friends at the SEC, and they ain't gonna be talking about whether or not Tennessee's going to a bowl game this year.
Re:SEC (Score:5, Informative)
(http://thepeopleseason.livejournal.com/ | Last Journal: Friday August 11 2006, @02:09PM)
Then again, Wilson and the others (most of whom I've never seen interviewed in a Linux/IBM/SCO lawsuit-related article) might be part of the Caldera old-guard who believe that the lawsuit is stupid, baseless, or suicidal and are using this opportune time to pull out of an investment that they believe is doomed to fail.
It's a Good Thing(tm)! (Score:5, Funny)
What? It could happen!
Isn't there a law.. (Score:3, Interesting)
HA (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.loosewire.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 19 2003, @05:23PM)
no kidding they are dumping stock (Score:5, Funny)
(http://blog.peoplesdns.com/)
Well, this should go down as one of the most obivous scams that has happened on wall street since enron and martha..
*sigh*
Re: no kidding they are dumping stock (Score:4, Funny)
> Well, this should go down as one of the most obivous scams that has happened on wall street since enron and martha..
Yeah, but at least Martha did it with style.
SCOX price chart (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://freescreencast.com/ | Last Journal: Monday September 01 2003, @07:40PM)
Re:SCOX price chart (Score:5, Informative)
SEC complaint (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's Put SCO Behind Bars (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.omnifarious.org/~hopper/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 02, @12:21PM)
For this kind of investor fraud, and for extortion, SCO executives should be charged as criminals. Here is an excellent Advogato article [advogato.org] summarizing how and more of why.
Duhh, knew that... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.rigidsoftware.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday September 24 2005, @11:58PM)
We know they do not expect to win...
Matthew 6:21
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
My proposal (Score:3, Interesting)
Days of Our Lives (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.karljones.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 13 2003, @02:33PM)
"Like rats from a sinking ship, these are the days of our lives
That's Curious... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder why they're selling their stock?
Putting Your Guilt Where Your Mouth Is (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.secondpagemedia.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 20 2003, @11:39PM)
Benifit of the doubt though, insider selling does happen in companies to take profit, and if you look at SCO's 1 year preformance [nasdaq.com] going from 95 cents to 16 dollars at it's recent peak (an increase of nearly 1,700%), you would see why it would seem intelligent to sell.
i just put the basic facts to my mother (Score:4, Interesting)
2) asking for payment (extortion)
3) stock prices++
4) stock selling
Even she thinks something fishy is going on.
had to be said (Score:5, Funny)
Insider trading info... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.fastbugtrack.com/?source=sd)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday May 30 2003, @08:04PM)
Yes, but all of the 13.7 million outstanding shares were not held by the executives.
From further down the article:
Bench (the CFO) has sold 17,151 shares in three separate sales since March 10, reducing his holdings to 228,043 shares, according to the Washington Service and regulatory filings. Vice President Michael Wilson sold his entire stake of 12,000 shares between July 14 and July 18, the Washington Service said...
Also:
Before Bench's sale, SCO insiders had not sold shares in more than a year, according to the Washington Service, a firm that tracks insider transactions.
A suddent >5% sale gets noticed, but nobody can dispute that a 100% sale is significant to say the least. (Imagine if Billy-boy suddenly dumped 5% of his billion+ MS shares?)
Insider trading is a sham, BUT... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.krose.org/~krose/)
The difference between the two in my eyes is that insider trading charges can target people who have no control over the company's action. Case in point: Martha Stewart, who might have known that the stock was going to drop, but had no control over whether it did or not. Punishing someone for selling because of what they thought seems like an egregious violation of privacy and civil rights AND is incredibly hard to prove; but punishing someone for selling because they engage in the systematic dissemination of disinformation related to the enterprise for the express purpose of increasing their payout at the expense of other stockholders is perfectly justifiable. That, my friends, is fraud.
It pisses me off that they win. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://cityofcity.com/)
There's a lot of gloating here today, but I think that the SCO execs got what they wanted, the lawyers got rich, and everyone else would have benifited from this never happening in the first place.
gg.
With that legal team, they can't lose! (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.dixie-chicks.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 24, @05:17PM)
David Boies' law firm, Boies, Schiller & Flexner, represents SCO. Boies represented former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election recount and tried the U.S. antitrust case against Microsoft.
Wow. Now if that isn't a stellar assortment of huge wins! I'm sure President Gore, who was so helpful in pursuing the now-completed Microsoft breakup, will be happy that his old friend is ensuring that SCO gets what they deserve for their valuable contributions to Linux.
(Although, ironically, SCO may indeed get just what they deserve...)
Could I... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.allumbrados.com/)
If I go and buy a share or two of SCOX from one of the many rats fleeing their sinking ship, could I claim that my Linux installs would then be non-infringing since I would be a part owner of the company which "owns" the IP my 2.4.x kernel is supposedly copied from?
Re:Could I... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.evil-coders.net/)
The merchandise that home depot has is merely kept in order to be sold off, it's not "owned" by the company. As a shareholder, therefore, you do not have the right to just go and take merchandise, but you do have the right to go in to a shareholders meeting and tell them what you think the company should do to improve their sales of merchandise.
With SCO, you have more of a chance of being able to get away with saying that you're a part owner of the IP, because the intellectual property is OWNED by the company, and hence the shareholders do too
But of course it's not worth trying to figure that one out because buying SCO stock now would be completely retarded, and buying it so you didn't have to pay the BS licensing fees is doubly retarded.
so, in the end, does it even matter? who knows
Bill Gates too (Score:3, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday December 08 2005, @04:33PM)
I guess he releaiszed MSFT's days are numbered
I bet you (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.hulver.com/scoop/user/damballah/diary | Last Journal: Wednesday August 13 2003, @09:14PM)
Missing Information (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.fluidlight.com/drew)
Specifically, it doesn't mention the time period over which the sales took place. There is a relatively limited window of time during which "insiders" can sell stock. Generally, it's in the middle of financial quarters and definitely closes well before the quarter's beginning or end.
Although the article doesn't flat-out say it, it sort of implies that the execs selling stock have been doing it recently. Given the extraordinarily high level of scrutiny to insider trading abuses in publicly traded companies, I would be very surprised if the SCO insiders were anything other than legally scrupulous in their stock sales, particularly in the midst of litigation.
You may not agree with their position regarding Linux...no, let me rephrase that...you probably think that they are beneath contempt because of their position regarding Linux, but there's nothing unlawful or particularly unethical about realizing that your stock price is outrageously high, you're in an insider trading window and it's almost time for the new model-year Lexus introductions!
I think they deserve our scorn for playing fast and loose with the GPL and the Community in general, but I doubt they've broken any laws in this instance.
-h-
The SEC and Nvidia... (Score:3, Insightful)
Out of proportion? (Score:3, Informative)
For the record, a Form144 is not a sell, but simply an insider registration of stock previously unknown to the public float
By my calcs, the execs have cashed out for a total of 75k shares worth <$900k between the 5 of them. Not exactly the criminal mastermind plot the article made it out to be
There is a lot to bash SCO about nowdays
Sales (Score:5, Informative)
Other SCO Article from Salt Lake... (Score:3, Informative)
SCO not exactly the lovable little guy [sltrib.com]
I think it's pretty hilarious that SCO can't even get their local press to show them in a good light.
This means one of two things... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.shambala.net)
OR:
(2) Linux actually *does* have SCO IP stuck in it, and these execs just want to bail out while the stock is high and before people realize that Linux will survive whether it has to pull some code out or not.
Use the SEC Investor Complaint Form (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.geometricvisions.com/ | Last Journal: Monday May 02 2005, @05:35PM)
Re: Article on SCO Execs Dumping Stock (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.openemrhq.com/ | Last Journal: Monday March 01 2004, @10:58AM)
Hey you know what? (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.goofball.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 15 2003, @02:35PM)
1) SCO was on a fishing expedition when they conjured up the lawsuit (why just go at IBM and not every single organization currently using Linux?)
2) they're only in it for the money (as opposed to justice/vindication on the subject of their code supposedly stolen)
3) that they know their case is weak and their stock is likely to drop (you don't sell when you're confident in your stock, you might set a stop limit, but selling is a sure sign of no confidence)
In trying to find a bright side (I know this behavior is to be expected on their part, but it is pretty sickening), perhaps this could signal the end of this frivilous case and any concerns about the future of Linux?
Buy Low and Sell High (Score:5, Informative)
Look at SCO VP Wilson did. He bought at very low prices 12,000 shares for $7920 and turned around and sold the shares for about $129,000. That is a nice profit.
2003-07-15 WILSON, MICHAEL SEAN
Senior Vice President 6,000 Option Exercise at $0.66 per share.
(Cost of $3,960)
2003-07-15 WILSON, MICHAEL SEAN
Senior Vice President 6,000 Sale at $10.66 - $10.8 per share.
(Proceeds of about $64,000)
2003-07-14 WILSON, MICHAEL
Senior Vice President 6,000 Option Exercise at $0.66 per share.
(Cost of $3,960)
2003-07-14 WILSON, MICHAEL
Senior Vice President 6,000 Sale at $10.77 - $10.87 per share.
(Proceeds of about $65,000)
Is it just me.... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday January 03 2003, @01:17PM)
Begin business plan\
kick sand in the biggest bully's face
try to convince him he should apologize
Try to quietly run like hell while he's getting ready to kick the crap out of you.
End business plan\
Yeah, that'll work.
-Goran
What they'll do next. (Score:5, Interesting)
So what to do? They would have a hard time topping themselves in the outrageous statement department. I see at least four more pumping actions they can pull. They can loudly announce that they will "soon" be filing suit against large corporate users. When the price flattens out again, then they can actually file some of them. Then it's loud announcement time again. This time they'll bleat that individual users and small organizations are being sued. Then they can actually sue a few.
They're like a turd on the ground. Yeah, we'll be able to squash it but the smell will stick to our shoes for a loooong while.
Do the math, SCO will be bankrupt in December (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://laminack.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 15 2006, @03:06PM)
Someone ought to add a "sco" program to Linux... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Saturday July 19 2003, @12:23PM)
[eco2geek@Jean-Luc]$man sco
NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
-q, --quote
-dp, --display-proof
-skl, --sco-kernel-license
-l, --legalize
-lb, --legalize-boot
-v, --version
AUTHORS
DISCLAIMER
SEE ALSO
sco 1.0 - August 2003 - SCO(6)
A different idea (Score:5, Informative)
Then there was a landmark case in this country back in the 1800's (Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad) that established that corporations are legal persons. They have all the rights that an actual person has, except they exist potentially forever and don't have any of the responsibilities that you and I have. So essentially General Electric is in the eyes of the law an incredibly large, multi-billionaire. But unlike you or I, GE cannot now be put to death for its crimes.
Adbuster suggested that either we revoke corporate personhood, or we institute the death penalty for corporations that cannot behave. Ahem, can anyone think of any corporations we might apply this to?
Welcome to Business Ethics 101 (Score:3, Informative)
Don't do business with a Canopy company (Score:3, Informative)
Canopy just won a $40 million settlement from CA.
Canopy is indirectly suing IBM though a company they control: scox.
Canopy won a huge settlement with microsoft: also by using scox, then called caldera.
Top exec at scox, sontag I think, said: "contracts are what you use against people."
Canopy controls about two dozen shell companies. All in the same area of Utah, all owned by Mormons. All the top execs are graduates of BYU, all sit on each others boards of directors, all have long business histories together. All own stock in each other, and trade that stock frantically.
If you do business with Canopy, Canopy will sue you - it's as simple as that. That is the only reason Canopy does business with another company.
Canopy companies don't really produce anything. They try to figure ways to sue other companies, and they do it very well.