Hi E!
From O'Neil's book: short-interest ratio is the total amount of short selling on the NYSE , expressed as a percentage of total NYSE trading volume. It can reflect the degree of bearishness shown by speculators in the market. ... There is no positive rule governing how high the index should go...
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Something on DVD - ebt:
Disposable DVD confuses nascent market
Divx "has disrupted the momentum for DVD. Our hope is that the consumer will see
the benefits of the current DVD format." --Samsung's Knox
The introduction of a complex disposable digital video disc (DVD) system will confuse the
consumer and could stall the market for DVD before it even gets off the ground.
DVD has been struggling to get off the ground, first hampered by copyright
protection issues, and now this. The disposable disc technology, dubbed
Divx, was announced in August by Digital Video Express, a partnership
between retailer Circuit City and a law firm called Ziffren, Brittenha, Branca
& Fischer. Proposed as an alternative to DVD, the technology requires
adding a modem and a descrambler chip to a standard DVD player, to the
tune of about $100 in additional cost.
Initial players will be manufactured by Zenith, Matsushita and Thomson SA. But other
companies were non-committal about Divx. "We have no plans to make a Divx machine now,
but we are closely watching the market," says Mark Knox, senior national marketing manager
for the digital product group at Samsung Electronics America Inc., Ridgefield Park, NJ.
Consumer powerhouse Sony Corp., Tokyo, also has no plans to bring a Divx machine to
market.
How many shopping days left?
Samsung's Knox notes that retailers had already
placed, and were receiving, Christmas orders
before the announcement of the Divx alternative.
But he contends that the announcement could
make early adopters hold off on purchases until
both options are available, which in turn could
cause an inventory glut that would lead to price
erosion.
Knox argues that Divx "has disrupted the
momentum for DVD. Our hope is that the
consumer will see the benefits of the current DVD standard format versus the new format."
With Divx, consumers would "rent" a movie disc for $4, then play it on a specially equipped
disc player that uses additional encryption hardware and software to shut out subsequent
viewing. Once initially viewed, the movie can be watched any time over the next 48 hours on
the same machine. After that, the movie is locked out. A viewer then has the option of throwing
the disc away or purchasing it, by using the modem to dial into a hotline and charge the price of
the disc to a credit card.
Analysts predict that consumers will reject Divx. "Divx is an eleventh-hour attempt to impose
Orwellian control over home video in an effort to shift profits and power away from rental
stores and back to the movie suppliers. But without the support of Blockbuster--the number
one rental chain--Divx doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell," says Mark Gaare, director of
consumer products at Semico Research Corp. in Phoenix.
Stalling DVD
Introducing an alternative to DVD that costs more money on the hardware side and will not
play on traditional DVD players could stall the DVD market before it takes off. San Jose-based
market researcher Dataquest, which was initially optimistic about the takeoff of DVD, is now
skeptical of the market with Divx on the scene, says Van Baker, director of consumer research
at Dataquest. Other market researchers, however, don't see much impact. Disk/Trend, for
example, stands by its prediction that shipments of DVD players will grow to 52 million by
2000, says Robert Katzive, vice president of Disk/Trend Inc., Mountain View.
--Heidi Elliott |
