THE MOTLEY FOOL - "Institutions, they are finally discovering IOMG"
Today's title, a pun on the Kubrick movie title, takes its significance from Iomega's
current overall gain for us, now 2038.77%. IOMG stock really does, in some senses,
seem to have blasted off into outer space, having long ago slipped the surly bonds of
our mundane planet, our mundane earthly reality. Is this company going to take us into
space next? The Zip Shuttle, the one that finally enables us to fit 100 astronauts on
board, where previous versions were strained at 1.44 passengers. . . I can see it now.
It does seem at this point as if it's even actually possible.
OK. . . 16.9 million shares traded today. . . at the current market price, that is over
$900 million. In one day. Any suggestions that The Motley Fool is "moving Iomega" on
a daily basis are even more absurd than usual.
So who did buy? You know the answers already. The first was "Institutions, they are
finally discovering IOMG", and they want the stock. On the phone with a national
magazine reporter today, I mentioned something that continues to astound me the more
I think about it. Only one mainstream Wall Street firm (Hambrecht & Quist) has a
report out about Iomega! Iomega: the company that should do in excess of $1.5 billion
in sales this year, the company in the midst of transforming the computer hardware
industry into one focused on hip, marketable brands, and now one of the NASDAQ's
consistently most active---even, highest capitalized---stocks.
One Wall Street report.
What does that tell you? I'll leave that question rhetorical, dear Fool. . . but it suggests
to me many things, all of them revolutionary and important, all of them good news for
you and me.
I suspect the other buyers today were short sellers. We are witnessing one of the more
amazing short squeezes in recent memory. . . I'm guessing some hedge funds went
bankrupt this week.
For those of us who try not to get TOO caught up in the day-to-day (even when it
represents a one-day 11% plus gain on our portfolio), we shall just continue to watch
and learn. NOTE: Most people have to pay for entertainment like this; we GET paid.
That's the stock market. . . that, my friends, is high Foolishness.
---David Gardner, May 22, 1996 |
