I read about the fallout from that announcement sometime last year. By announcing that they were giving back money to their shareholders, they opened the door

I read about the fallout from that announcement sometime last year. By announcing that they were giving back money to their shareholders, they opened the door for savvy stock market gurus. These guys milked it for all it was worth by first loading up on the stock in order to get the cash from the dividends. Because all these people were buying the stock, its price became artificially inflated, so they proceeded to borrow against the stock at this point (in order to short-sell later). Then the dividends came, and they got the $3/share from Microsoft. Immediately after this, they proceeded to sell the stocks that got them the dividends, which led to the stock price falling sharply. Finally, to round it all out, they proceeded to make good on the short-sells once the stocks were low, leading to a nice profit all-around. I wish I remembered where I read about this scheme; it sounded pretty brilliant to me. I always wondered, though, if a bunch of people playing the stock market profited from this, who lost out? I guess the long-time shareholders and Microsoft, itself.