Lee--
I beleive the market makers (MM's) have been seriously short on this stock since even BEFORE the runup began on 1/14/99. We watched for weeks in late 1998 as buying outweighed selling by a ten to one ratio, and the stock price did not move.
Where the MM's are now on the stock, I can't discern from today's 11:24 log. NITE was the only one selling at 2.96 then, but we are back to 2 3/4 on the ask now, so something changed.
But tell me, Lee, why would a certificate call not do any good? Say (and this is not going to happen, so hypothetically) that 1.8 million shares are called for...the float is 2.4m, and 500,000 of those are already in cert form due to various reasons. Only 100,000 shares would be left to the real float...would this not cause discomfit to the shorting MM's? Don't they have to borrow those short shares from somewhere?
Or are the shorting MM's simply creating shares out of thin air, saying that after the dust settles, everything will be worked out? If so, how can that be legal? Do we have any recourse?
Last month, we watched as FAHN sold over 200,000 shares of HTSF at 1 7/16. No matter how much buying occurred, she would not move the ask. How does an MM do this, if they don't really have the shares to sell?
I guess this question has been nagging me for a while.
Cheers!
Rick |
