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Rumour and Ratio


jaapv

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Why would you take a pre-order for a non-existent product - with or without money? The paper work involved (work with no payback), not to mention the hit to dealer reputation doesn't make much sense unless it's a way to do a hidden marketing survey to sample the potential market.

 

The paperwork could be as simple as a spreadsheet with the customers name and contact details. Not very complicated. When (if) the cameras becomes available the dealer works his way down the spreadsheet. The payback for the dealer is that if the camera's released he already has potential customers in a nice priority sequence.

 

I can well understand people being interested in the camera given the level of interest already generated here.

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Anyway, 5500 Euros or whatever the price will be is a lot of money for me, but if it's an M9 which isn't bigger than the M8 with a full-frame sensor, better high-ISO behaviour, and maybe a couple of "lesser" improvements, I'll seriously consider buying it!

 

HI There Jeanette - and welcome to the forum (in as much as I'm enabled to extend a welcome!).

 

I would imagine that your feeling - just like my feeling, is that if there is a FF M9 at €5500 then I want some of it!

 

As for the friend's story - well, as you put it, those who think it's coming will add that snippet to the circumstantial evidence - those who don't think it's coming will simply discount it!

 

My dealer was certainly more than confident, although someone else who has spoken to 'all the UK dealers' claims that it isn't coming yet.

 

Whatever, the speculation is such good fun, and if we get a much wanted prize at the end of it - so much the better

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If that´s a common thing amongst camera dealers to offer potential customers the option of a pre-order for a not yet officially announced camera, how often has that happened to anybody here who is also into other camera brands? What I mean is if that has happened to you with a Canon/Nikon/Olympus whatever dealer then why shouldn´t it happen with a Leica dealer? And if something like that happened to you, did it even occur once that the dealer later on corrected himself and told you "sorry I can´t sell you the camera from the pre-order list, it turned out to be just a rumour" ? To me, that sounds very unlikely. But I have only been once on a pre-order list (for the M8).

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No offense to John, but I just can't figure out where this idea comes from. I've written about publicly-traded companies (and SEC regulations) for more than a dozen years. And I have never seen an issue like this come up.

It's not unusual for a company to make a big announcement (new initiatives, products, layoffs, etc) immediately after announcing quarterly or annual financial results. The primary purpose of an earnings report is to tell investors what happened, not what's going to happen.

Of course they'll toss in some cautious forecasting and guidance for the future. But I don't know of any securities laws that would essentially force a company to reveal a new product before it's ready to go. At least not in the U.S.

If I'm missing something here, I'd love to know what it is just for my own education.

I never said they were compelled to make an announcement. What I said was they were forecasting continued losses and if they knew they were about to start selling M9s it hardly seems likely that they would have forecast continued losses in light of the likely demand for the M9 and likely sales of same. Such a product would have a material effect on the company's balance sheet and they would have at least alluded to the fact that they were bringing a new product to market that they expected would improve the company's sales for the FY. They did allude to a mid range camera made by a partner without much in the way of implication on sales impact.

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Well....

If you have ever been involved in the preparation of an annual report with a public company and certified public accountants you know that every word has to be scrutinized carefully for possible impact. It doesn't matter if 98% of the stock is privately owned. The law is designed to protect the minority shareholder from the majority shareholder(s). Something like an M9 release within 30 days of releasing their financial report without any disclosure and a negative accountant's report would be seen as giving insiders an unfair advantage because it is a material event that would positively impact the share price.
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Well...<quote from Steve>....

There may be key owners/personnel who are in an insider position, if they know a product will be released. That is OK, as long as they do not trade. There are always periods where key people are in an insider position, that us unavoidable. The point is that they are not allowed to exploit this information to trade in situations where all shareholders are not equally informed. As long as they don't, it's OK, and normal.

 

It would be totally impossible for listed companies if they would have to announce products in their Annual Reports, I have never heard of such a case.

 

In this case it would even be a disadvantage to insiders to trade now, since the Report is gloomy, but the launch of the M9 will create a lot of enthusiasm and save the company ;-)

Edited by erlingmm
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Since some rumours on imminent release and pricing first appeared on the Rangefinder Forum and were attributed to a particular Australian dealer known to me, I asked my local dealer for an official response from the national Leica distributor here. I have left out the dealer name but the rest is a direct quote from the response to my local dealer.

".......... could only possibly know 'rumoured' pricing/availability on this said product as found at leicarumors.com and various other sites suggesting that they know all...

 

You can be assured that if and when I have news on a new product - ALL dealers will be advised."

 

Jaap, leaving aside all of the rumours, and of course we all have our favourites, there simply was no indication visible at Solms in mid-June of any production activity that would be necessary for actual distribution of stock to be available for sale from September. That does not disprove any possible imminent announcement of course, (which may or may not be an M9) but unless there were thousands of completed M9's stacked in the lunch room they simply are not being assembled at Solms right now.

Having said all of that, I am flying 4000km in a week to personally interrogate the Australian dealer alleged to be quoting prices here. No question at all that I will end up with one if and when they come to market. Meanwhile my upgraded M8 seems to continue working just fine and I have my best lenses back from a free holiday in Solms. My view is that anyone holding off purchasing the superb M8 in expectation of a new camera to buy in just a few weeks is doing themselves a big dis-service.

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Well, all of this M9 talk has me very excited and as the days pass, it seems there will be a new camera by next month. I really hope Leica has done their homework this time on this camera. I own an M8 and regard it as one of the finest cameras I have ever used (I am a pro) based on the photographs I am getting.

 

If they have solved the full frame problem, and if there is much better ISO, combined with optics that every other lens is measured up against, they will make BIG news in all the publications in the world of photography. I live in the USA, and every year I go to the Photo Expo Plus in New York City. Being a die hard Leica fan, it gets depressing seeing the crowds of people at Nikon and Canon displays with only a few at Leica. Their proud history and contributions to the history of photography deserve more attention. It may be that this time, we will see crowds of professionals, including photojournalists reconsidering the M for what it always was, small, stealthy, and of the highest quality. Perhaps they are really tired of lugging around giant DSLR's and hunger for what Leica was and may be again. Only in the days ahead will we see what transpires. I am really rooting for the little camera company in Solms (Leica has 1000 employees) and hope they have a winner!

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