Microsoft's Bach Sold even more Stock before Xbox360 1.5B Repair News Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Microsoft's Bach Sold even more Stock before Xbox360 1.5B Repair News Posted by XanTium | August 13 23:28 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From marketwatch.com: [QUOTE] Microsoft Corp. executive Robbie Bach sold $3 million more in company stock during the period leading up to an announcement about a costly flaw in its Xbox video game console than previously reported, according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. MarketWatch reported in July that following an eight-month period when he sold no shares, Bach sold $6.2 million worth of Microsoft stock between May 2 and a July 5 announcement that the company would take a $1.5 billion charge related to Xbox repairs. But according to the filing Monday, Bach had sold just over $3 million worth of company stock on May 1. Microsoft spokesman Eric Hollreiser said the additional $3 million in sales were not registered in a timely manner with the SEC "as the result of an administrative error." [/QUOTE] Full Story: marketwatch.com

[mlapaglia]

yes of coure... someone "overlooked" it lol

[nishu]

He can go to jail for this...insider trading.

[TheIrishLad]

He pulled a Martha Stewart.

[Elemino]

I really don't understand this whole trading thing. You do it to make money, and then the moment you sell to avoid losing money you're in trouble? It just doesn't make sense. Is the general rule you can't invest in the company you work for because you know exactly what's going on there?

[JBmtk]

its not like M$ stock is gonna go down considerably anyways anytime soon.....

[Hack_kid]

zzzzno the problem starts when someone doesnt trade or do anything for a considerable time then sells a whole bunch and then some statement or something from a company comes out that is a huge finacial blow to the company. Basically what they have a prob with is this he could have been told from someone that on july 5 they are making a public announcment about spending 1.5billion on repairs, now since stocks are publicly traded and he owns shares as well as joe blow down the street so it wouldn't be fair if he knew about this statement that could affect the stock price and sold accordingly before the general public knew, now if he waited til july 5 or hadnt just mysteriously started selling a whole bunch of stock it wouldnt have been a big deal but it looks pretty fishy to me.


ps. I loved that "He pulled a Martha Stewart" lol

[ConteZero76]

I really don't understand this whole trading thing. You do it to make money, and then the moment you sell to avoid losing money you're in trouble? It just doesn't make sense. Is the general rule you can't invest in the company you work for because you know exactly what's going on there?

Have you ever heard of something called Enron ?

[vanxman]

I really don't understand this whole trading thing. You do it to make money, and then the moment you sell to avoid losing money you're in trouble? It just doesn't make sense. Is the general rule you can't invest in the company you work for because you know exactly what's going on there?

The general rule is "disclosure". You may own stock in a company you are working for, but your trading in that company should be monitored and/or pre-approved. Black-out periods apply (for example right before/after announcements and financial results). Trading based on knowledge aquired while working for the company would be considered insider trading. Bad...

its not like M$ stock is gonna go down considerably anyways anytime soon.....

It's like murder vs. attempted murder. Just because it didn't work out (the murder bit), it doesn't mean you're innocent. It's not the fact that the share price didn't take a dip, it's the fact that he sold based on insider information. Which is illegal irrespective of whether you ended up making a profit or avoided a loss.

[ConteZero76]

In detail (sorry for my english) market rely on projections and other -public- informations while a top manager always have reserved informations about how the company is going.
If a manager get something interesting about his society he could buy/sell stocks for his personal (ie not company) gain.
Knowing that something bad may come (and having that information as "confidential") a manager could sell his stock converting them to liquid money (at a favorable rate) while the market is flooded with stocks that are going to drop really soon.
This comes down to abuse your position (and the info you've access to) to gain money hurting the market.

[xboxgamer999]

ok, so this guy was doing inside trading, that being illegal, you won't be hearing from MS that that was what he was doing to begin with, anytime soon if ever. They've got a host of problems which may or may not be taken care of by now.

[ConteZero76]

ok, so this guy was doing inside trading, that being illegal, you won't be hearing from MS that that was what he was doing to begin with, anytime soon if ever. They've got a host of problems which may or may not be taken care of by now.

It isn't something that Microsoft can deny or acknowledge.
SEC (the US of A government) is in charge for this kind of things.
Insider trading can be done from a top executive to gain shares about a company they are going to contact for some business, so the executive gain money selling back stocks when the contract is made public.
This is something that the market cannot self-regulate, some of the few fields where law enforced control is mandatory...
Insider trading isn't meant to avoid that an executive can fraud his company, insider trading is something that can destroy stock market limiting chances of financial gains for third parties.

This post has been edited by ConteZero76: Aug 14 2007, 04:42 PM

[Elemino]

The general rule is "disclosure". You may own stock in a company you are working for, but your trading in that company should be monitored and/or pre-approved. Black-out periods apply (for example right before/after announcements and financial results). Trading based on knowledge aquired while working for the company would be considered insider trading. Bad...

Your comment made more sense than all the others I've read combined.

As far as Enron goes... it was waaaay more than insider trading. They were messing with the books, and making it seem as though they were making money they weren't. On top of that, they kept all of their employees from selling their stocks while the executives decided to sell theirs. It was a combination of many bad practices that brought down enron. Not just insider trading.

Back to Vanxman. If an employee owns stock in his company through some other means than the company itself, is it still illegal to sell your stocks? How could they stop you in that case?

[SphtKr76]

The execs at large companies generally have scheduled dates when they can sell stock that are planned sometimes years in advance. If they sell at other times they can face legal actions for insider trading.

[ConteZero76]

Your comment made more sense than all the others I've read combined.

As far as Enron goes... it was waaaay more than insider trading. They were messing with the books, and making it seem as though they were making money they weren't. On top of that, they kept all of their employees from selling their stocks while the executives decided to sell theirs. It was a combination of many bad practices that brought down enron. Not just insider trading.

Back to Vanxman. If an employee owns stock in his company through some other means than the company itself, is it still illegal to sell your stocks? How could they stop you in that case?

Agreed, Enron was like the root of all evil, a good example of what a society must avoid at all costs, everything from faking energy drops to raise price to play with prev funds.
Anyway managers went for insider trading to save their assets, draining other shareholders and low level employes in a bottomless hole.
I was just trying to say that Microsoft as a company have no rule in this "affair", it's something between Bach and SEC.