Understated comment of the day from Briefing....
"Zitel Corp. (ZITL) 3 7/16 -2 13/16: Some stocks are just prone to be manipulated by momentum players. In many instances, the run is fast and furious and volume tends to be heavy. But, just as quickly as these stocks attract attention, they tend to leave many Johnny-come-latelies in their wake, as the stocks tend to reverse course and return to where they came from. This has yet to occur to this company which specializes in systems optimization, correlation and search technology, but with today's price retreat of 45% on heavy volume, it is starting to exhibit signs of a retreat. Considering that this stock was recently trading at $1, those traders that are still ahead of the game may consider taking profits now because once the initial hot money exits, the stock should experience a quick fall. The issue took off on Friday after Datametrics Systems, a unit of Zitel, reported that it had added support for the Linux and Sun Solaris platforms to its VisualRoute product. Given the interest by investors in anything Linux related, this was enough to cause the stock to surge by 456%. While the stock is still 223% ahead of last Thursday's closing price even after today's price retreat, anyone that showed up late for the game is underwater as there is little doubt that this issue ran up on hype more than substance. This is nothing new for this stock as at one time, when the millennium bug was still in its infancy and its ramifications were still hard to measure, Zitel was expected to be the solution to the problem. Such anticipation prompted the stock to trade as high as 61 1/4 in late 1996. Unfortunately, the "silver bullet" turned into a blank and the stock has been on a steady downward trend since. It has been almost a year since the stock traded above the $6 level, but like last year, the stock is beginning to lose ground and is reverting to its prior trading range. More selling pressure is likely to emerge as day the progresses as the Linux hype peaks. - RN""
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