Recession coming? Click on Insider Trading Dot Com

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  Run for your lives! The Liberals have gone from optimism, to guarded optimism, all the way to gloom. Next six months: look out. It looks like "all of us are going to have to make sacrifices." "All" of course means you and me. It won't hurt the big guys who take in their belts by cutting back on caviar.
  I was really sore when I read in the Globe and Mail "In Tough Times, the Tough Cash In". A specialist in executive compensation, one Martin Harris of HayGroup says that studies have shown that leaders who keep their work force in line with demand are likely to have companies with the highest profitability. Translation: fire the riffraff and keep the bottom line up.
  I went looking around the Web for sites that would tell me how much these guys get in stock options. There is no site. Not the Securities Exchange Commission, not the New York Stock Exchange, not the Toronto Stock Exchange, not even the Ontario Securities Commission. We exchanged E-mails to no avail. But there is hope. The Canadian Securities Association has announced there will be a website with insider dope coming in October. I can hardly wait.
  Meanwhile, there is always the much-read Insider Reports in the financial sections. A few of the juicier ones: A guy at TrizecHahn Corporation, which also owns Barrick Gold where the profits have turned skinny, gets to exercise options for 14,500 shares at $18.10 each and right away sold them at $28. My calculation: a quick profit of around $150,000!
  How about the senior officer at Manitoba Telecom ­ 5,000 options at $14.63 and a quick sale $41.95. That's about $150,000 profit. Best is in the "troubled" hi-tech sector where an insider at Celestica Inc. exercised 5,000 options at $5 (U.S. yet) and flipped them for $54.21. I'm sick. You do the math.
  I can hardly wait for that Insider Trading website. How about you? Drooling is fun, especially when you are taking your belt in a few notches because times are hard. For who exactly are they so hard?

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Posted: September 10, 2001

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