...interesting post on ubs short from stockhouse by Tambry
Dear Kappa and Breeze, I was not suggesting that all the shares were sold long at $15.00 and shorted at $15.00 during the 5 trading days that the stock touched this level. The shorting in earnest was in the February run-up and continued through the tech rally well into March.
Secondly, and with all due respect and humility, are you naieve enough to think that by looking at the present number of the short position it in any way correllates to the strategy that I alluded to? The short disclosure is two weeks old at the best of time, and real trend changes can only be garnered by allowing your broker's loan post to access you shares, then you can get daily updates of short trends.
You cannot even look at the net change in short position for the previous two weeks because it is a transitory varient, it rarely starts at zero. Many warrant holders and others, shorted and covered the stock in the first meltdown. They have chrystallized a gain and it does not show up in your bi-weekly short summary. I will be pleased to show specifics of the trading patterns of Tech-Talk subscribers to show the validity of the strategy.
An easy way to distort the present short position and net change is this; opening short position xx/xx/2000..............1,545,000 positions opened during period...................950,000 positions closed during period...................875,000 closing short position xx/xx/2000..............1,620,000 net change in short position during period........75,000
By focussing in on the net change number during the two week period people are duped into thinking that only 75,000 shares were shorted, when actually the number could be significantly more. I have written to the OSC regarding this disclosure practise to ascertain whether or not the investment community should be forced to make full disclosure of all activity during the period rather than just report net change from a transitory variable.
For those readers who are astute enough to ask questions they do not understand in posts, rather than pressing the IGNORE button if someone posts anything other than RAH-RAH UBS, I congratulate you, because you are obviously interested in the subtle aspects of the equity markets.
Other than economic catastrophies, most stock values move on three things;
-FUNDAMENTALS,.....MANIPULATION,.........CONJECTURE
All three of these are important to understand, and interpretation of them does require a significant amount of basic knowledge and due diligence.
FUNDAMENTALS; The ability of a stock to achieve a value that is consistent with it's historic earnings, with premiums to this value attributed for such intangibles as future growth, goodwill, reputation, competitive advantage in their industry. The Tech-Talk I.V. (Importance Variable) is as follows; Primary Manufacturing................90% I.V. Blue Chip & Conglomerates.........70-75% I.V. Financial & Service Ind..............70% I.V. Pharma & Biotech.....................45% I.V. Emerging Hi-Tech.....................20% I.V.
MANIPULATION; The ability of a stock to withstand external influences beyond it's control effecting trading values. Of extreme importance when a stock is thinly traded or held, thereby allowing significant "walking-the-stock" in either direction. A mojor contributor to manipulation is expiration or lock-up periods where specific classes of shares of insiders, officers, directors are limited from trading until a specified date in the future, creating pent up selling pressure, or conversely, limiting access by the public to these shares not available in the public float. The Tech-Talk I.V. (Importance Variable) is as follows; Primary Manufacturing................10% I.V. Blue Chip & Conglomerates............15% I.V. Financial & Service Ind..............20% I.V. Pharma & Biotech.....................40% I.V. Emerging Hi-Tech.....................70% I.V.
CONJECTURE; The resultant movement in a stock based solely on unsubstantiated claims, rumours, suits or actions. This includes and is not limited to; chat room spam, rating of analysts, media reports, insider leaking of information. The Tech-Talk I.V. (Importance Variable) is as follows; Primary Manufacturing..................5% I.V. Blue Chip & Conglomerates.............10% I.V. Financial & Service Ind...............20% I.V. Pharma & Biotech......................50% I.V. Emerging Hi-Tech......................75% I.V.
You can no doubt see that most posts here on SH fall into the last category! I think my above post falls into the Manipulation category, because it details trading activity that causes movement in a stock price that is outwith the control of the corporation. Unfortunately, at this stage in the development of UBS, technical analysis based on FUNDAMENTALS is too premature, and has the least amount of impact on an emerging hi-tech company. For those of you hoping for good financial results to bolster the stock price by reducing the P/E ratio, think again. The stock has much more potential as an unknown quantity, developing cutting edge technology with solid quarter over quarter growth. If we begin assigning a value based on trailing earnings we will stiffle the performance of the stock. Don't forget, even JDU and NT trade off of their growth potential, otherwise the street would not tolerate the wild P/E ratios. PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO PAY A PREMIUM FOR GROWTH POTENTIAL.......PERIOD! |