I was going to answer Wayne who asked about facts on the stock market by suggesting he keeps an eye on what the insiders are doing and pointing him to http://quicken.excite.com/investments/insider , but then when I entered MSFT, then click on Bill Gates, I got a TOTALLY different past activity sheet than I got 2 weeks ago.

2 weeks ago, the data from August '97 to August '98, showed Bill Gates selling up to 1 million shares at a time, for a total over the year of around 9 billion. Right now, it shows 500,000 as the most shares sold (or "planned sale") on any one date, for a total of 248 million for the year??

Am I imagining this? did I do something wrong? Anyone else noticed a discrepency?

The service I used is from Excite, at http://quicken.excite.com/investments/insider/

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), October 26, 1998

Answers

The following link still shows Mr. Gates having sold a little over 13 million shares this year. I have seen no documentation (buts lots of speculation) as to why he is selling. Maybe some of the folks here more knowledgeable about the stock market/Microsoft/Bill Gates could comment. Note that his sale of 13 million shares represents less than 3% of his total holdings (532 million shares at the start 1998).

http://quicken.excite.com/investments/insider/?filer=91150 4202&symbol=MSFT

Arnie

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), October 26, 1998.

Ah, thanks Arnie. I found out what the problem is; Gates is listed under two different version of his name on this link. If you enter only "MSFT" to list all the inside trading, then you see "Bill Gates H." and "Bill Gates H. Iii" Clicking on each version of the name gives you 2 different data sheets.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), October 26, 1998.

Chris, thanks for the link,

ww

-- WAYNE WITCHER (WWITCHER@MVTEL.NET), October 26, 1998.