Just an observation that may or may not apply here.
"....Oil companies, hotels, equipment suppliers, and cellular service, etc, that do business in unstable regions will often have a 60/40 relationship. It decreases risk for the American
Company and provides a financial interest for the Muslim community......"
I am getting the feeling that the 'unstable' countries are more stable than IDS. I don't get the feeling that IDS is a philanthropic company whose raison d'etre is to help out the less fortunates of this world. Of course, I could be wrong. I can only judge by how things have been conducted, and what I have seen myself from their websites. It's a kind of intuition.
As previously stated, I went in, then ducked out - at a very slight profit. Had I held on a bit longer, my profit would have been greater. I may finish up really kicking myself.
However, what will always stick in my mind is a guy who was one of our small group that used to attend the office of a discount broker back in 87, in Boca Raton. They provided a row of computers for us to monitor and make our trades with a group of brokers behind a screened counter who made instant trades for us.
We were there on on the Monday of the 'big dive'. Well this guy came in around lunch time with an ashen face (unusual to see in Florida).
He had heard the news, we had all heard, and also his broker had called him to tell him he had had to sell him out. I remember him telling me he had just called his son to tell him there would be nothing to expect when he passed on (he was well into retirement age)
He had built up a portfolio over two or three years amounting to $3-4 million. In half a day he was back to square one.
Moral? Well you all know it. It's not yours 'till its in your bank. You can be a millionaire, on paper, for a year or two, and its taken away from you in seconds.
Even if you are not on margin, you can still see your profit wiped out on the last minute. The only difference is - you still have the shares for what they are worth. But today, you can't even have the beautifully engraved certificates to paper your den wall, or to sell to the scripophily collectors. (Do many still exist?)
My only thought has been - is he planning to make this really work, and to keep faith for some ulterior motive that we haven't figured out yet. Any imaginative ideas?
