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Technology Stocks : THQ,Inc. (THQI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AreWeThereYet who wrote (11015)	6/12/1999 10:36:00 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14266

Andy, I don't mean to be callous to the $28 investors, but it is "too bad". I'm going to assume that they did some due diligence which should have included a realization of the volatility that was inherent with this stock as well as any other growth stock. This recognition forces the investors to take one of two routes: attempt to play the volatility or ignore it and look at the long term. If the volatility can't be tolerated (and that is quite understandable) go for an index fund or dogs of the DOW, etc. I've been investing for some time, but was still stunned by the "power" of shorts, position and momentum traders this last January especially after the stellar earnings report. Short term, i.e, less than 6 months, is absolutely controlled by traders, not institutions. Institutions by there nature have large positions, they can't move in and out on stocks like THQI and I don't think that there is anything in the world that Farrell or anyone else can do about short term traders. I agree with you that Farrell can promote the company to institutions, but again the liquidity is a problem. If an institution wants to invest a piddly $24MM (or 1 million shares) level II traders will see it and play the momentum. The institution can't take a significant position without being penalized by the momentum traders and then the damn shorts come in and all of the sudden..you know the rest. The liquidity is going to have to improve before institutional investors take a serious position. I understand the math of the 1000%/90% but not your point. THQI was actually up 2400% and dropped 25% from there for a total return of 1800% or losing 600% on a 25% drop(and it'll have to go up 33% to get back to the high!). I guess that tells us investors it's easier for a stock to go down than it is to go up. :0) But the point I was trying to make and perhaps did it poorly was that if you assess management it's fair to look at the long view. The investor who is interested in short term moves, really doesn't care how good or bad management is, they look for items like earnings sell-offs, rumors (remember THQI acquires JAKKS rumor) and TA. It would be my vote to reward or not reward management based on the long view, what have they done over the last five years and what are they expected to do in the next five. And I think that the numbers for THQI support the argument that they have done a good job. Re: Institutional manipulation and conspiracies...no comment. Some weeks I'd agree with you other weeks I'd say they can't pull it off. Recent case in point...a "rumor" hit the street that IBM was backing off of RAMBUS, RMBS plunged and there was some heavy institutional buying; IBM said the rumor wasn't true....share price back up. Who planted the rumor, an institution? a short? and the institutions took advantage of the drop. Just no way to know. I see two or three of these rumors a week and I'm sure there are far more than I ever see. Best Regards, Jim P.S. Disclosure: I currently don't hold a position in THQI, but I've held it several times both long and short (I thought management was doing a great job even when I took a short position) and been fortunate enough to have net gains in each of the trades. Though I probably would have made more money if I just held it from the first buy. P.P.S. I still expect THQI to be in the 50-60 range by the end of the year, but I couldn't begin to guess where it is going to be at the end of this week.