NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/comp/os/os2/misc/39746

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-17 | 3.7 KB

Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.misc:39746 comp.os.os2.advocacy:10508
Path: sparky!uunet!torolab6.VNET.IBM.COM
From: [e-mail] (Martin Lansche)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 09:55:08 EST
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: IBM Stock Prices (Was: Future of OS/2 and IBM????????????)
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not those of IBM
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In <[e-mail]> Jean-Serge Gagnon 564-7183 writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Hugh Whalen) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Penrod) writes:
>>[Stuff about IBM laying off 25,000 people deleted]
>>
>>Ahem .... stable? I believe that around 1987 IBM stock was trading at
>>approximately $178 per share. Yesterday it was trading at $56 per
>>share. God help us if this is stability. :)
>
>This doesn't belong here, but I wish people would talk when they knew what
>they were talking about!!!! Have you ever heard of "spliting"? It's a
>process in which a stock is doubled, and it's value is divided. For example
>an IBM share that was worth $178 in 1985 would split and then you'd have
>two shares, each worth $89, which is exactly the same thing. Since the time
>when the share was worth $178, IBM shares have split twice, meaning that
>whoever had one (1) share worth $178, today has four (4) shares worth $56.
>In other words, this person has $224 for a cost of $178 (or less, of course).
>
>So PLEASE, make sure you know what you're talking about, before saying
>something so drasticaly influential to the minds of people who REALLY have
>no idea what it means other that money.
>
>PLEASE, no flames, I just wanted to straghten this out. If a discussion
>arises from this, please note I have set follow-up to talk.bizzare.
>
>Thanks.
>--
>Jean-Serge Gagnon, Ottawa University, Ottawa, Canada  K1N 6N5

I too wish to straighten this.  While Jean-Serge may be correct in his
assertion that at some point in the past IBM stocks were at $178 and
have been split (perhaps repeatedly), let me set the record straight.
Here I am speaking as an IBM stockholder.  Prior to the 1987 (88?)
stock market crash in October of that year, IBM stocks were selling at
approx. $200 (I bough some at $232 Can).  By Tuesday of that fateful
week, prices had dropped, I believe, to around $170, and after each
successive round of "layoff" announcements (the quotations are relevant)
it has continued to spiral down.  For the longest time, it hovered
around the $100 mark, climbed back to about $135, then fell to under
the magic $100 level.  In the last 3 months, it has creeped down to
about $75, and this week it fell below $60 a share (all prices in US$).
There has been NO SPLIT IN AT LEAST 7 YEARS, so the split argument does
not hold.  I wish there had been a split (I would be a richer man), but
there hasn't.
Sigh,
Martin Lansche
  ________________________________________________________________________
   Ilu Iluvatar en kare eldain a firimoin ar antarota mannar valion :
   numessier.  Toi aina, mana, meldielto -- enga morion : talantie.
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   The father made the world for elves and mortals and he gave it into
   the hands of the Lords in the West.  They are blessed, holy and loved,
   except the black one.  He has fallen.  (J.R.R. Tolkien).
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