jj -- just to throw my 2 cents into the QLGC puts question. . .
you write <<QLGC sells its products to IBM.>>
Well, IBM isn't one of their big customers, actually. Nor, for that matter, is EMC, though QLGC sells to both. IBM supposedly makes up 25% of EMLX sales, though I haven't broken out the numbers myself to prove it. But the % is nowhere near as high for QLGC. Do a little digging on the QLGC site and find their biggest customers. . . and then break that down into which PART of QLGC's biz it is (iSCSI, HBAs, switches, etc.). IBM should hurt them much in specific (though it clearly points to an industry that ain't rocking).
On the flip side. . . QLGC actually doesn't report earnings til May, so they're in a "rumors move the stock" phase, and any warning in the storage area would probably hurt them. Then again, decent earnings in that space could do for them what MERQ did for software stocks. Also, the odds of QLGC warning are pretty slim as, historically, their management is extremely conservative and doesn't put itself in position where it has to warn.
There's no question QLGC could fall a ton -- it hit 17 in September of last year. That said. . . unless you think the market is totally tanking here, then May 30 puts seem like a rather large risk (akin to betting on the Red Sox to win the World Series <g>)
the freep |
