# A Roller Coaster for DBS, Cable Stocks



## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Another financial scandal for the markets - this one involving WorldCom and its disclosure of almost $4 billion in accounting irregularities - sent satellite, cable and other telecommunications stocks on a roller coaster ride during trading Wednesday.

During the day, the Dow fell 200 points, but managed to gain a lot of what it lost before the market close. The NASDAQ went positive, ending up 5.34 points at 1,429.33, after approaching its post-Sept. 11 lows. The recovery was attributed to the Federal Reserve opting to keep rates unchanged.

EchoStar shares fell more than 9 percent during trading, ending at $16.99. Hughes fell a little more than 5 percent, to $9.70. Pegasus tumbled to 77 cents a share. On the cable side, Cablevision was the loser, with shares falling more than 26 percent to $9.50.

In addition to WorldCom, Adelphia finally filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The move was expected after the cable company lined up about $1.5 billion in debtor-in-possession funding last week.

As for a satellite angle to the WorldCom debacle, the telecommunications company became a giant in 1998 when it got MCI. Before that, MCI was the licensee for the 110-degree DBS orbital location, and was a partner with News Corp. to develop that slot for what was then known as American Sky Broadcasting. However, after a failing attempt to use the slot for its troubled PrimeStar partnership, News Corp. relinquished the orbital location to EchoStar to settle litigation with the satellite TV company.

From SkyReport (Used with Permission)


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## Rob (Apr 23, 2002)

GM shares fall amid rumors of accounting problems
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/020627/autos_gm_1.htmlhttp://biz.yahoo.com/rc/020627/autos_gm_1.html


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## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

Since Hughes, a subsidiary of GM, sells it's own stocks, and GM stocks were down only 2%, what does that article have to do with DBS except to spread FUD? Every stock, especially technology, was down yesterday, why not report them all?


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## Scott Greczkowski (Mar 21, 2002)

The stock price of GM has a lot to do with DBS, especially since the stocks are a big piece of this Echostar / GM Merger.

Do you understand that Charlie Eargen was valued in Forbes Magazine September 2001 of $7.1 billion, with todays stock price Chalie is only worth around $3.3 Billion?

Thats quite a drop.


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## DarrellP (Apr 24, 2002)

Tell me about it, my 401k has become a 1/2k.


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## John Walsh (Apr 22, 2002)

I am a stockbroker and my job is hell. You never know who is going to have accounting discrepancies or other immoral and illegal practices. I am making money but it is damn hard to find. Its probably safer to short the market than buy long these days


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

John... I was working for a brokerage firm (Paine Webber the summer right out of High School and White, Weld & Co. which was bot by Merrill Lynch through college and for a bit after) and became one of the "victims" of the 1973-4 collapse. I had wanted to be a broker since the age of about 13, but the experience of working in the industry for 6 years in various positions cured me.  I very much enjoyed working the trading desk when I had the chance, that is until it became nap time working there. By the way, back then the market would fall way behind if volume hit 10 Million shares TOTAL. I don't envy your current situation. How long have you been in the business?

Nice recovery on ISH and GMH today.


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