Yep, while the extraordinary slobs who cultivated the bubble are counting their booty. From today's Wall Street Journal:
"You're kicking yourself for not bailing out of tech stocks long ago. You sat by as the price of that once-lofty dot-com just kept sliding, while your retirement kitty shrank with each downward lurch of the market. But you suspect somebody was smart enough to make a mint from the great Nasdaq bubble.
"You're right. Meet the $100 million club, an elite group of at least 50 insiders at Nasdaq companies who collected immense fortunes. They each sold more than $100 million of stock in their companies from October 1999 through the end of last year, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal and Thomson Financial/First Call.
"In many cases, these insiders sold near the high points of stocks that have fallen 80%, 90%, or even 99% from their peaks. Some companies had more than one insider who sold $100 million of stock. At one company, Scient Corp. in San Francisco, a single insider collected more money from selling shares during the period than the whole company is worth now.
"It amounts to a huge transfer of wealth from ordinary investors to those on the inside, says William Braman, chief investment officer at John Hancock Funds in Boston. 'The little old lady in Dubuque, Iowa, with the mutual fund in tech stocks is financing the Internet entrepreneur's mansion on the Pacific Palisades,' he said."
Once again, the magic of the marketplace!
Carl _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com