mfidelma@bbncc5.UUCP (Miles Fidelman) (01/16/86)
I would think that by the very nature of the net, it should be possible to spot investment opportunities earlier than the general public. Excluding insider information, such things as new technologies, local developments (e.g. a local construction project is announced), etc. can provide good opportunities if known about early. Of particular personal interest is knowledge of initial public offerings whose stock will take off, early enough to reserve a block of the offer. I would like to propose an experiment: Would readers of this group be interested in identifying and reporting such opportunities, and secondly, tracking them to see if we can indeed spot such opportunities early enough to benefit from them. Miles Fidelman (mfidelman@bbncc5.ARPA)
bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (01/20/86)
>From: mfidelma@bbncc5.UUCP (Miles Fidelman) > >I would think that by the very nature of the net, it should be possible to >spot investment opportunities earlier than the general public. Excluding >insider information, such things as new technologies, local developments >(e.g. a local construction project is announced), etc. can provide good >opportunities if known about early. Of particular personal interest is >knowledge of initial public offerings whose stock will take off, early enough >to reserve a block of the offer. I know it sounds contentious and illogical, but I was just reading some book that indicated that a lot of that stuff above *could* be construed as insider info, I think the example was something like "I get off a plane in Des Moines and from my window I can see that the xyz company is breaking ground for a new construction site, I know that xyz co.'s stock is low because they're supposed to be broke, I call my broker and buy 1,000 shares"...insider trading" (!) Don't waste your 'breath' with what makes sense to you personally, does anyone know the guidlines? Would announcing the info to the net make it not insider trading? I know that it's a lot like tax evasion, the laws are rather illogical and easy to break and the chance of getting caught are rather small, esp for the small, private investor, but they do something horrible now (like 3X the profit plus fines/jail etc.) I for one would be in favor of discussing these things and whatever it was he had in mind (dry trading experiments.) People are very secretive about their ideas on stock predictions, I guess cause they either figure they'll use it or don't want to be caught wrong in public. Maybe we should have a moratorium on criticism and all try out in public some predictions just to see what people think. Here's one: C-Cor electronics (OTC) has been trading around 6 for over two years now. They supply parts to a lot of networking companies (among others, broadband in general I think), they should grow with networks and cable tv and are probably already under-valued, I know for example Ungermann/Bass buys parts from them. That however is not enough info, just an observation (maybe they are horribly in debt?) Anyone know more info? I believe Barron's or Fortune recently listed them as an unusually cheap buy, but it didn't change their price. Of course, anyone who buys C-Cor based on that paragraph is a fool. I own no shares of C-Cor. -Barry Shein, Boston University
steve@bambi.UUCP (Steve Miller) (01/21/86)
> >I would think that by the very nature of the net, it should be possible to > >spot investment opportunities earlier than the general public. > Would announcing the info to the net make it not insider trading? No. SEC currently requires information that would permit profitable trading to be announced in widely disseminated journals that are available to the public at large. The Wall Street Journal qualifies, but subscription newsletters do not. Note that this does not prohibit one from make a recommendation based upon public information. That is, if I think IBM is a good buy because of what I read in WSJ, I can tell my sister and she is allowed to trade on that. If I learn that DEC is about to announce a new product and I tell my sister, she is not allowed to trade on that. Since most users access the net by logging into systems that are not publicly accessible, SEC would be likely to take the attitude that the net is not comparable to the Wall Street Journal.
steve@bambi.UUCP (Steve Miller) (01/21/86)
> >I would think that by the very nature of the net, it should be possible to > >spot investment opportunities earlier than the general public. > Would announcing the info to the net make it not insider trading? A professional trader has just told me that when information is made public, an important consideration is that such information be made available to all members of the public simultaneously. The net would not meet this criterion.