Beware of Bill GatesRegarding Bill Gates' investment in AutoNation (symbol: AN), a person on AN's discussion board at Google Finance posted this comment:
chris.simmons...@gmail.com wrote:
> old news-- why do they keep replaying it?? Feels like a pump and
> dump. stocks up 85% with bad reports and 1.4 bil in write downs .
> Definite pump and dump... Wayyyy to many replays on old news.
Here's my additional input...
Bill Gates bought a large stake in Pacific Ethanol (symbol: PEIX) when the share price was high, and many normal shareholders got sucked in by the "Bill Gates" name.
Gates didn't even pay the market price when he bought his PEIX shares. From the Seeking Alpha article entitled "Bill Gates Invests In Ethanol Plants Via Pacific Ethanol (PEIX)" dated November 30, 2005:
"The price per share of the transaction was at about a 20% discount
versus the closing price on the 15th, when the deal was announced."
Then, (of course) PEIX's share price crashed.
Gates sold some shares at the bottom, presumably to make the normal shareholders feel better.
From a TradingMarkets.com article dated June 26, 2008:
"PACIFIC ETHANOL STOCK HITS ALL-TIME LOW..."
"Cascade Investments LLC, the personal investment vehicle of Microsoft
billionaire Bill Gates, has sold about 2 million shares of Pacific
Ethanol stock over the past three months, roughly half its initial $84
million investment in the company in 2005."
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Gates got rich by buying high / selling low.