On Sat, 2 Dec 1995, PeterWiltshire wrote:
Gidday all
I emailed Jim Clark day before yesterday about his comments re key escrow.
Uhhm, what is his email address?? I'd love to ask him one or two questions, not just about key escrow, but about Netscape's future prospects and its current stock valuation. (Netscape now has a market capitalization larger than Apple Computer.)
He responded. As it's not good form to post private email, might I suggest that one of the 'elders' here put to Jim a list of questions on the proviso that his answers can be posted to the list. You never know, a lot of speculation might be confirmed or denied.
I've got some questions ... Mathew Ingram, reported in the Investment Reporter that Jim has stock holdings currently worth more than $1 Billion in Netscape, and yet Jim was quoted as saying at a recent technology conference "you could argue there's something of an Internet bubble developing." The article also quoted him as saying that if Netscape made a profit in the next year or two it would only be "because we miscalculated." Miscalculated?? I'll say. If he thinks that GAK will go down with great support, when they want to split their stock, then they're really not quite aware of the mind of the organization that they'll be up against. I wonder what people will have to say about Netscape, then. Right now, brokerage firm Hambrecht & Quist is estimating that in five years the Internet will be a $23 Billion market -- equal to the size of the _entire_ software industry today. And a money manager at Franklin Resources Inc. said, "some people are suggesting the big tech company in the next century could be Netscape." Personally, I don't think so. But then who am I?? Goldman Sachs just put Netscape on its "recommended" list. And some analyst called Michael Parekh was quoted as saying that Netscape could hit $200 in the next two years. That it was going to be the Microsoft of the Internet -- dominating the software side of the World Wide Web. I wonder if Parekh's valuation is a pre or post stock split evaluation. Shoot, if Parekh is talking about $200 post-split ... then Netscape could well become a really big league play in this game far sooner than most people think. I'd love to hear how this fits with Jim's words of a "bubble". The market seems to "think" that it's a better present judge of what Netscape has than he does. It's almost as though the "market" has developed a "mind" of its own. It's own particular neural network. It doesn't seem like the market is paying attention to any of Jim's warnings or words. His "opinion" -- like all corporate officers opinions are strongly discounted and very lightly weighted. It's almost as though there is automated software at work. Some people might think about going short against the box on this one. Although the article talked about a short "squeeze" which would generally mean that this stock is going to go nowhere but up as the short sellers try to cover, personally, I might start to take some money off the table and not add anything to my position. But all this depends on the depth of someone's pockets, I guess. And on some serious trading analysis. Then again, there is that old adage about never fighting the tape. It's compared frequently to whizzing into the wind, I think. Probabilities and such. (Disclaimer: This is not intended as and should not be considerred as investment advice ... or for that matter as whizzing advice, either.) I'd love to hear Jim talk some more about this. For me, all of this Netscape stuff is getting way too surreal. It seems really strange. Some people are arguing that things are getting out of hand, and yet it seems like this one is completely out of Jim's control. No one is listening to ANYTHING from Netscape at all. The market is simply listening to its own internal dialogue. And that certainly is a surprise to this writer. It's a surprise to me, and it's probably a surprise to Netscape. Finance 501 is more complex than Finance 101. Maybe they should read up about the privatization of BP and the involvement of the KIO. Or learn a bit about Li Ka-Shing, or something which adds to their knowledge base. That might give some idea about what is actually going on here. (Not that the Kuwaiti Investment Office or Li-Ka Shing has an interest in this one.) Alice de 'nonymous ... ...just another one of those... P.S. This post is in the public domain. C. S. U. M. O. C. L. U. N. E.