BTW, from what I've read, and it's not definitive, the freeze in the plan was several months.....the few days you referenced refer only to making ongoing contributions.....not to switching assets withinin the plan....It was, I believe a several month hiatus...but, the truth will come out......I'll admit, my supposition is based mainly on the smell test..it doesn't smell right that Enron would decide to reconfigure the plan at just that time.....Occam's razor, ya know......
Enron would decide to reconfigure the plan at just that time
well, this kind of stuff is easy to verify, and they have enough problems without fibbing about stuff like this, so there's no compelling reason for enron to lie about it in their 401k press release, which says, in part -
In February of 2001, in order to improve its 401K plan, Enron requested proposals from third-party benefits firms to take over administration of its plan.
After selecting a new 401K administrator, Enron notified all affected employees in a mailing to their homes on October 4, stating that a transition period would begin on October 29. Between the first notification and the first day of the transition period, the company sent several reminders to employees over the internal e-mail system.
The transition period during which employees were unable to change investments in their 401K accounts lasted just 10 total trading days, beginning on October 29 and ending on November 12, 2001. The transition applied to all plan participants, including senior executives.
From October 29, the first day of the temporary shutdown, through November 13, the first day participants could transfer funds, the Enron share price went from $13.81 to $9.98, a drop of $3.83. On five of those trading days, Enron’s share price closed below $9.98.
Outside of the brief transition period, Enron employees have always been able to transfer their own contributions in the 401K, at any time. They have 20 investment options to choose from, Enron stock being one of them.
the statements are clear (unlike their 10k) that the inability to sell enron shares or any other investment held in the plan was brief and preceeded by multiple notices, and that the brief period did not pertain only to contributions with some longer period applicable to selling existing holdings
it is also clear they didn't come up with the idea in the middle of the meltdown, and perhaps they will get the outfit that took over the admin (or any of the many other firms contacted) to verify the feb 2001 request for proposals
the factor might be 20x the number of shares you suggest
i could be off by a factor of more than 20 and the specialist would have absorbed it easily (enron has almost 700 mill shares out, peak value was about 67 billion), but that isn't really the point
we both know how people react to losses, and these employees were demonstrated dig-in-their-heels-and-hold-it-to-the-bitter-end-because-it'll-come-back practitioners of self-deception who had already demonstrated their willingness to lose 80+% by holding it from 90 to 15 during the previous 12 months
if anything, they were probably mad that they couldn't buy more because of the freeze, as 10 bucks probably looked "cheap" to them at the time, and one can imagine the rally-'round-the-corporate-flag mentality that probably prevailed
the entire idea that there was of some sort of conspiracy to avoid employee selling (that wouldn't have happened anyway) is pretty obviously false, if anything, lay and the rest of the execs are probably kicking themselves for fiddling with the admin, it makes them look conspiratorial when they were just legitimately trying to save a buck
anything to puff up those earnings......