LG, there was a very big volume spike in MSFT at the close yesterday, i.e. at the day's high...i wonder who bought and sold there. there were some rumors going around that MSFT itself supported the stock during the day in the guise of the official buyback program, and while these rumors can't be independently confirmed, i wouldn't be surprised if they were true. apparently MSFT also engages in put selling as do several other big tech names (e.g.Dell, which reportedly manipulated it's stock price after the recent earnings warning by selling tons of puts), which would be a good reason for trying to keep the stock's price up. imo, the put sellers will one day be bitten by this practice, but that's besides the point.
i actually believe all of WS is busy trying to keep the stock from falling from grace. it's o.k. if it consolidates sideways for a while, but as the barrage of upgrades and buy re-iterations of varying degrees proved, WS will do whatever it takes to keep it from falling too far too fast, imo for fear that it might damage confidence in the whole tech sector. MSFT with it's big weighting in the indices is very important to the continuity of confidence...
make no mistake, the FoF is a very damning document, and if i have understood this correctly, findings of fact, if they are not totally spurious, do not get overturned on appeal. in other words, the potential for a very negative impact on MSFT is very real, in the form of penalties and especially civil suits by disgruntled (ex)competitors looking for redress. heck, even consumers rights groups may go after them. for WS analysts to have truly thought this thing through to arrive at their recommendations the very next morning is not only unlikely, it is plain impossible.
somebody is soon going to find out that he's a bag holder on this one i fear.
on a related note, J. Murphy remarked on CNBC today that unlike all other tech rallies this year (and i suspect the last 15 years) MSFT did not lead the latest one. i remember when i first posted on this thread, MSFT was just breaking out to a new high, which i took as a bullish leading indicator for the whole market. so now new NAZ highs are not confirmed by MSFT...it's too early to tell if this is really of importance, but it is something that's definitely noteworthy.
regards,
hb |
