Re:The Decline and Fall of IBM
by missserenity on Wednesday June 04, 2014 @05:51PM
(#7848622)
Each of these companies had huge scandals related to accounting fraud. Are you assuming the same is the case with IBM?
Whenever you see many people (not just this author) talk about a company's "financial engineering" you should be concerned they might cross that line; couple that with an explicit pledge to double earnings/share to $20 by 2015 and the danger should be apparent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal#Timeline_of_downf... ($90/share to bankrupt in about a year)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Stearns#Fed_bailout_and_sa... ($140/share to $2 in less than a year)
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/723527/00009317630300... ($90/share to bankrupt in 2 years)
These are just egregious cases. The stock market as an oracle is thoroughly overrated. BlackBerry, the late 90s market bubble, the mid-00s financial products bubble... stock price movement says less than you think it does.