The Geeks Blog

Unless you have been hibernating in a cave for the summer(or longer), you have heard those words, likely nearly as often as I have, and you have also seen the effects on a companies stock value when those words are repeated, publicized, and criticized to death. The mention of that has always been a bad thing, but as of late they have become too common. I am not sure how the SEC, which claims to be a very cash strapped department, can afford all these investigations(at my count there are dozens ongoing by now). I have no problem when I see CxO's getting hauled away in hand cuffs, being given the rightful perp walk, and I fully expect to see Martha following in their footsteps, but the words in the title of this piece guarantee a dramatic stock price decline for any company admitting them, and the stock price will rarely go back up, even if the investigation finds absolutely nothing. I wonder why any CEO or other officer of a company would even consider admitting that, no matter if it is true or not.

Well, after my rant last night over the term Under Investigation, I take note that today Sam Waksal, formerly of Imclone, has been indicted for insider trading and obstruction of justice. According to my count this will be nearly 20 indictments or charges against corporate criminals since Enron collapsed, and almost 250 days, while there is still not one charge against someone from Enron for the crimes there. Makes you wonder, still, how much Kenny boy is being protected by his good friend Dubya. Sickening, really.

After several very high profile companies, like Kmart, Enron, and WorldCom filing for bankruptcy, it is eerily relieving to see a company filing simply because it cannot keep up operations. Sad as that sounds, it is true. The bankruptcy of US Airways was not one caused by misleading financials, funky math or corrupt executives, at least I haven't heard anything about that kind of stuff, but instead this is the long predicted death of the airlines due to increased security, and the shutting down of air travel for so long after 09.11. They attribute a lot of facts to their demise, ranging from the loss of air traffic to DC after 09.11, to already hard times for the company.

I don't know if this is good news or great news, but it is certainly nice to see the word bankruptcy not followed by investigation, accounting, or Andersen. For much too long those words have al been in the same article, if not the same sentence, and has led the stock market's to crash hard. Maybe this legitimate business closure will lift the market's when they open in the morning. you know the market and economy is bad when it takes a bankruptcy filing to improve the market's. Sheesh!

I wasn't sure what of the categories to toss this one into, as it belongs in tech and business news, but it ism ore business of a tech company, so it'll go in both. The story is that after a number of years, and infinite jokes by authors that they can help Amazon lose money on each sale, the ground breaking online retailer is finally making money. Ok, they were always making money, just now they are making more than they are spending. Yes, folks, that means they are in the black. They don't need a nasty = sign next to their numbers, or put them in parenthesis. Now, this may only be due to a decent christmas, which would mean that a lot of people are actually moving online for their shopping as brick and mortar retailers are all losing money. Congrats Jeff Bezo's, you seem to have done it.

They say good things, and bad things alike, come in three's. Matrix Reloaded. Lunar Eclipse Now this. Yeah, this could go under any of a dozen categories from Tech News to Internet, but business it will be because it impacts on a lot of those in business or looking to get into business online. Those like :jim:, :matt:, Andrew(blog down it seems), and several others could quite easily put this to use. What's this? Chris Pirillo's Brain Trust. The service is a mail list that gives you access to the biggest minds in internet entrepreneurship and their knowledge and contacts. You will also get the kind of knowledge that have made people like Chris and Pud from Fucked Company be able to work on this stuff full time, for only $97. I will be joining post Gnomedex, as I plan to become the perfect person for this site.

Two days ago The Register reported that Dell, the unmatched leader in the small computing market, announced it's sales had grown by 29 percent during the first quarter of it's fiscal calender, which ended May 2nd. "Dell said the strongest growth in worldwide shipments came outside the US, with 29 percent growth in the EMEA region, and 40 percent in Asia-Pacific and Japan. The company, which started off life as a PC maker but has since diversified into products including servers, storage, handheld computers and printers, continued to attribute its strength to its low-cost, direct sales model, which it says industry peers have not replicated. Dell said it gained more than a full point of worldwide market share in the quarter, reaching 17.2 per cent."

On the same day that a rumor of a Martha Stewart indictment began floating, IBM was revealed to be under investigation for SEC violations. "IBM yesterday admitting that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating how the company accounted for a proportion of its revenue in 2000 and 2001. In a statement, IBM said that it "believes that the investigation arises from a separate investigation by the SEC of a customer of IBM's Retail Store Solutions unit", which markets and sells point-of-sale products." Wired also reported "IBM shares fell almost 3 percent on electronic trading network Instinet after the announcement, which raised the specter of the accounting scandals of Enron, WorldCom and others that have undermined investor confidence."

I reported yesterday that there was rumour that Martha Stewart was going to be indicted due to her selling off of stocks in Imclone. Well, today this has come to conclusion in the fact that she was finally indicted over a year after she committed the crime and tried to cover them up by doctoring information that could be used against her. Stewart also resigned as chairman and chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., just after she pled not guilty to the grand jury indictments against her. Her lawyers claims that she is being attacked being a successful woman, and those willing to believe that she did this know it is because she is guilty of the crime.