lies, damn lies, and statistics ...
<Same problems exist, small float, plenty of shorts...>
Marketguide says that Amazon has 6 mil. shares in float, and the
world goes with that. A few weeks ago, Barron's uses this number
to make their point on why the stock is rallying like crazy.
Even today, Briefing.com, uses that 6 mil. figure and tries to
show that Amazon has more short interest than float, and even
makes up a reason why. Did they check the company reports?
Did they check a second source (by, say, calling up Schwab
and asking them to check the value on the Bloomberg box)? Nope,
they click on the Yahoo! profile page, take the number on face
value (in spite of the fact it doesn't make sense), and keep
on trucking.
The float on AMZN is likely between 15 and 17 million
shares. That's more than YHOO, XCIT, LCOS, SEEK, and CMGI. It's
also twice the last figures on short interest (before the move
to 150, which I have to believe caused some shorts to liquidate).
Now maybe AMZN in reality has a smaller float because some big
institutions own it and are tying up the stock. But no 5% owners
have shown up on the SEC reports, and the average trade size
on AMZN's daily trades indicates that maybe the institutions
aren't big into AMZN yet.
On Datek having stock to short, and others not, I think that may
be just a difference in brokerage policy. Keep in mind that its
the broker who is on the hook to make good on your losses if
the shorted stock moves against you, you get a margin call,
but you don't pay up on it. Also, even the discounters have
a fiduciary duty to make sure that you shoot yourself in the
foot only one 22 calibre bullet at a time, rather than letting
you play Russian roullette with an AK-47.
On this, I agree:
Those who continue to control the float, control Amzn's stock price. |
