John, we don't disagree.
I may be wrong, of course, but I think that OEM samples have been going out for several months on the laptop batteries, that they have been well-received, and that we will soon see contracts - that's plural - for laptops.
I also have a suspicion that batteries from the line 2 cellphone have been sent out to OEMs, perhaps not from NI, since that line has only recently been installed in NI and presumably the first few weeks' production would remain in NI for testing. So I was trying to give FRB the benefit of the doubt in their statement regarding samples being not sent out until early 1999 - that could in fact be the case with cellphone batteries from NI.
On balance, though, I think FRB often seems to be a bit 'behind the curve' on information, however.
And finally, as I posted over on Yahoo, I think it is very presumptious to assume that Castle Creek has acted and is acting like a typical hedge fund and shorting substantial amounts of stock against their position to protect their coupon return with no net investment in the security. They could indeed perhaps do that in the future - we don't really know, since we haven't seen the details of the revised financing agreement and its "relaxed restrictions", let along the initial agreement signed in July.
If one wants a superior return, all he needs to do is buy the stock and write the June 1999 calls for $ 2.00 or so and he would receive roughly a 100% annualized return on his investment if called away.
This is almost as good as a buy/write of the March 5 calls transacted in August, which I mentioned months ago.
No, I think this stock will prove to have very strong legs in 1999. |
