Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcdchg!chinet!saj From: saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Atari Stock Update (hit n now if you don't want to read this) Summary: There's a jerk at work Message-ID: <1990Aug23.032316.2096@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 23 Aug 90 03:23:16 GMT References: Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX Lines: 35 I've really tried to keep a cork in it over this. Approximately 82% of the common stock of Atari Corporation is in the hands of insiders. The action of the stock price is not comparable to the action of the price of a broadly held stock. The who decided he didn't like Atari and is now a cheerleader for the (groundless) idea that Atari is about to fold claims to know something about securities analysis. If his employers believe that, we can expect a large bank to fold its US operations before Atari folds. This same person was surprised to find out that the financial reports his employer pays some thousands of dollars for are considered proprietary information. He has also beamishly repeated predictions of disaster for Atari after being shown that basically, Atari must inevitably show several good year-to-year earnings compariasons (which, by the way, probably has a lot to do with why people who didn't own Atari stock didn't scramble to buy it: the smart ones expected the improvement). This forum is a convenient place to swap information about STs and programs for them. One plausible-sounding jerk can give new readers a badly distorted idea of what's going on. Sure I could hit 'n', but this guy's a menace. A little of what I consider the truth: Atari had a decent quarter. They seem to have finished putting the losses from the Federated catastrophe on the books (if they had put the whole mess out at once, they really would have had to declare bankruptcy). They are still selling all the machines they are able to make (yeah, I'm a little bitter about the small number they're able to make). The stock is very narrowly held, which makes it EXTREMELY volatile. For Atari to have another decent quarter, they don't have to do anything new. They have several opportunities to generate good rather than decent results: any reason- able TT introduction, any reasonable 'Christmas ST' package, a second generation Portfolio or major Christmas sales of Lynx could be REAL helpful. I don't expect any of those, but again: Atari can have decent results without them. So anyway: whatever you think of the ST or of the way Atari Corporation deals with people, they are staying in business as long as the chairman wants them to stay in business. Steve J.