Mr. Mo --
I'm not too good at reading short-term tea leaves, so I leave that to the more technically inclined among us (although I like such general indicators as moving averages, volume distributions and such).
I wouldn't suggest reading too much detail into the table I posted, only that, as I mentioned, it's heartening to see that one of the most respected names in high-tech underwriting has been one of the most active market-makers in CKFR over the past few months. It implies that they follow the company actively and have probably been promoting it to their institutional customers.
It's very hard (if not impossible) to infer what the volume numbers mean. For one, NASDAQ's standards are notoriously bad in terms of how it's market makers report volume (for instance, if you wish to buy 100 shares of stock "ABC," and the relevant market maker fulfills your order by going out to "the street" (because he's fresh out of ABC today), the MM's buy and subsequent sell to you could be counted twice (200 shares) in NASDAQ share volume for the day.
Furthermore, it's pretty unlikely that a significant portion of a MM's volume is held for it's own account. Rather, the purchases are generally delivered out to the the various customers that placed orders for the security.
Relating to the Gintel fund -- the table only shows activity, and not who the largest holders of any particular stock is. Also, a Fund would not normally be registered with the NASD as a market maker in a stock.
Regarding the various legends, MP stands for "Market Participant," which the chart lists as either "M" (Registered Market Maker" "N" (Non-Registered Market Maker) and "E" (for ECN - not sure about that one).
To sum up at this early hour, I guess this table is best utilized by comparing it to an alternative. If you dialed the table up and saw CF volume distributed among only two or three MM's with unrecognizable names (or worse, ones that are notorious for inflating bid/ask spreads or pumping and dumping thinly traded stocks), it would be cause for some concern. However, what you see on CF's table is what you might expect -- high volumes of activity spread among the more reputable names in the business.
--hope that helps. And by the way, investing is about common sense and patience, IMHO. Anyone who has the smarts to constructively participate in this thread is already ahead of 90% of the "smart money" out there chasing CNBC squawk boxes and the like...
Nothing, in my Very Humble Opinion, beats the logic of talking lobsters, tunas, gorillas, monkeys 2x4's, Rodney Dangerfields, Moe haircuts, running nekkid in the streets of NY and the like to make informed investing decisions <ggggg>
rk (always leaning to the more bizarre posts at 7:30 am) |
