Well, you are clearly a more thoughtful investor that I was at the time. I was just lazy and didn't feel that I needed the $ from selling the position. And I had worked under Satya before so I let it ride...I got a call from my Broker/Advisor and he advised that I sell Microsoft stock. I had owned the thing for something like seven years and it had been dead money. He was particularly disgusted with the Nokia acquisition, why would a software company get into cell phones? I am certain he had read the bad press on Steve Balmer but I politely told him no, I was keeping the stock. Wasn't long after that phone call that Steve Balmer stepped down, a new CEO was put in place and the stock started to respond. It turned out to be a fantastic investment after that.
Don't know the inside baseball of Microsoft under Balmer, I know that the stock languished and languished, in fact it was a part of my anti-index of disappointments that I purchased at "bargain" prices during the 2000's. I called them The Four Horsemen of Underperformance: AIG,GE, Microsoft, and Pfizer; fallen angels from the 1990's. I also knew that there was a lot of criticism of Ballmer in the financial press. Despite my mild defense of Ballmer above, I was relieved when he stepped down. It was clear to lots of people he wasn't the right person for the job.
I didn't have any foreknowledge that Microsoft was going to turn around, it was a Value play at the time, it generated lots and lots of cash, had great franchises like Windows and Office; I just figured at some point the company would turn around. It also goes to show that if you are going to be a Value oriented investor, sometimes you have to be very patient.
Statistics: Posted by edgeagg — Sun Mar 03, 2024 5:40 pm — Replies 245 — Views 16307