A longer lockup, especially by executives, is certainly a vote of confidence in the company that investors do pay attention to.

Three's Company was originally called Three Companies, about a trio of pharmaceutical companies. It was 10 times funnier.

They may be a big company but they have to stand up and pay attention now. They know they did something they shouldn't have done and hopefully it doesn't happen again.

If you have a company that's merging with another — in telecommunications or credit cards — it pays to pay special attention to your account. Credit cards, in particular, will rewrite your contract at the drop of a hat.

The company gave me confidence that they have next-generation products for markets that they currently participate in. Additionally, for the large markets where they are not players, the company is developing compounds.

When an industry recovers, it's not unusual to get companies that postponed their decisions to return to the market. I think the conventional wisdom is they will go ahead with this.