I'm confused. Which Monday is dooms day. Last Monday, the one before or next Monday? I think someone is blowing smoke about the shorts being in trouble. Every time they say that, the stock drops. Now that the character assination has started again, I feel it necessary to bring a civil post from AOL:
Subject: My Two Cents
Date: Thu, May 28, 1998 01:26 EDT
From: ChaoPene
Message-id:
For those of you about to invest in AENG, please consider this post as the product of somebody who has now waded through so much false and misleading information, and what I call "absent" information regarding AENG - that I think it should be shared.
First, let's talk about AENG's engine. Revolutionary? Perhaps. It has been demonstrated - according to AENG's website - before manufacturers such as Caterpillar, Kohler, and Evinrude. It has also been shown to NASA. Motorsports legend Carroll Shelby has inextricably linked his name with AENG through what amounts to a partnership agreement with AENG. This is all good news, except for a few things that have bothered me since I began looking into AENG.
These are, In no particular order:
1. No independent testing figures anywhere. A poster here and on the Sillicon Investor website, as well as a company press release, indicated that the University of Wisconsin would "test" the engine. That usually indicates a host of relentlessly precise laboratory work usually under the watchful eyes of tech-savvy people hired by the bigger investment houses. The reality was far less: UW just saw a "demonstration."
2. Kevin Travis of Patterson-Travis (the brokerage house handling AENG's offering) has assured me that there are patents - US patents - on the engine. I have yet to see a number for them. They may exist, but I can't find them.
3. AENG has not responded to a variety of questions I recently sent to them. A fellow named Greg Cummins and others usually post enthusiastically about response times and good news. I've gotten nothing.
4. On the SI board regarding AENG, I've been reading posts by a newcomer named "Auric Goldfinger." Anybody remeber BRE-X Minerals and the SI threads regarding that? Goldfinger was a prominent BRE-X promoter all the way until Judgement Day (the date of the release of the Strathcoma Report that showed BRE-X to be a fraud). The fact that this guy is attacking the stock usually indicates to me that his position - and his relationship with Fahnstock, an
East Coast brokerage house that has been shorting the hell out of AENG - is perhaps well-assured. Unfortunately for AENG and its investors, I have examined some of his statements regarding recent offerings handled by Patterson-Travis and his allegations that PT has made bundles off some worthless stocks has rang true. Though my research is not complete, research into AMPD, which IPO'd in early 1997, shows a price spike and a collapse very similar to
AENG's recent history. This does not indicate that PT handles nothing but dogs; Kevin Travis has explained in detail and with some corroboration what has happened to AENG's valuation recently. But it remains to be seen if those now holding AENG at $12/shr. who bought in in the $20's will have the stomach to not sell and give the shorts the shares that Travis says they need by Monday.
(I will spend some phone time today getting opinions of PT and AENG from some East Coast money. I'll post when I do.)
On the pro side of this stock, however, and despite the insanity building for the end of this week if Fahnstock can't present all the shares it has shorted, there are indicators that the OX2 engine may be for real. There have been successful demonstrations before big companies, the US Army, and a couple of news stories. A racing legend is involved. But there are things that need improvemnet, to say the least, if investor's are to establish themselves
as longs and displace the shorts and hot money. And to date, AENG hasn't done that well. In short, if this is the pinnacle of the internal combustion engine, why have its developers and primary financiers allowed it to be ravaged?
Take care,
Scott |
