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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS)
COMS 0.001700.0%Feb 6 9:30 AM EST
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To: Wayners who wrote (16908)6/5/1998 3:50:00 AM
From: Bruce L  Read Replies (2) of 45548
 
Wayne: I don't quarrel with your observation that COMS' stock price hit a wall when repeated small orders (1000 or less) were absorbed by a MM with a reported ask size of only 500 shares. (BTW, I assume it was just a single market maker, right?)

IMO what doesn't necessarily follow is your conclusion that (1) sellers were in control, (2) that this was distribution by the big whigs or that someone was making absolutely sure that the price did not go up.

As a long time fan of Barron's Alan Abelson, I have the belief that institutional fund managers are neither omniscient or wiser than you or I; that in fact they frequently are herd driven and take stupid actions based mostly on emotion. ( Case in point: the way so many of them dumped our coms on no hard facts but based - from what I can tell -from an oblique off-the-cuff remark by the CFO)

Isn't it just as likely that what you observed was a MM who was mindlessly executing a sell order from an insitutional client. Perhaps a limit order of say 300,00 shares at 26 1/2 that was entered 3 days before. I owe this insight to Lizard of "Lizard's Trading Swamp." An order like this can temporarily move a stock but once its executed the stock resumes its normal course. The broker/MM is not going to disclose his client's order and may endlessly renew his 500 share offer.

Or the stall may reflect no more than uncertainty on the part of unsettled shorts and still fearful longs.

I don't mean to pick on you. It's just that you provide more specifics to support your positions. I enjoy and find enlightening your posts.
n
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