RIG has already run up so much with alot of following. I would stick with NOV.
NOV is unbreakable. Now IBD is starting to cover it more and more = higher
volume I believe = higher price.

No matter where oil goes in the short term, RIG's income stream is based on
contracts already in place, so it should hold up OK in a general downturn I
suggest.

Go with the RIG long term.

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the previous math was based on the wrong ratios.

However, you do not know what the stock will trade at the next day.

@131 x .3 = $39 and the dividend is $33. So if the stock trades at $91.7 you
would loose $9. However if it trades above 100.7 you would make money. You
also have to figure in GSF. Nobody knows what it will trade at the next day.
So there is no way to know if you should sell now or wait.

No one is going to lose $15 a share on the merger. New Rig will open at a
DIFFERENT price than the old RIG. The $ amount the day after the merger you
have in your account will be very close to the same as the day before. The
price of the NEW shares will be determined by what the market determines the
value of the merged companies will be. At this point you will probably have a
little more money the day after given GSF higher pe.

kirbycream, here is a random link about the merger that has the details:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/41919-transocean-and-globalsantafe-announce-merg
er

Re-reading it, my numbers were off a bit. I stated you would get .6 shares of
the new company, the correct number is .6996. That extra .0996 makes a large
difference in the calculation. You would only end up losing $3 or so on the
share reduction. Additionally, it is not clear how this special dividend is
going to taxed.

I just want to make sure people know that after the merger, they will have less
shares of RIG than they did before, as Cramer has not gone into much detail
about this on his show. I currently have no position in RIG but will purchase
after the merger.

I own both. I have RIG in my Roth IRA so I don't have to pay taxes on the
dividend and any gains.

so you are saying that you only get 60 percent of the share price. where did you
find this out?

I personally will be buying RIG AFTER the dividend.

Please remember that each current RIG share will only be .6 of a share the new
company after the merger.

That means you are losing .4 of each RIG share you own.

Given the current market price of around $121, if everything was fair you would
be compensated about $48 for that .4 of a share that you lose ( 121 x .4 = 48).
However the special dividend is only $33 dollars. You lose about $15.

Couple that with the fact that oil will probably decrease in price over the
short term, is why I am waiting until after the merger to jump into the new RIG
(which I believe will be a great company).

Jim, why do you pick RIG over GSF? Both get the big dividend right? GSF's is
just smaller proportional to it's stock price.