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Non-Tech : Ashton Technology (ASTN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wily who wrote (2289)	8/6/1999 8:29:00 AM
From: Keith A Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4443

Does anyone know what happened to Dr. Suess and Auric Goldfinger? Have they been banned from SI? Have they assumed different identities? Other shorts seem to have gone into hiding as well. My guess is that yesterday's price movement represented a fair amount of short covering and we will see more over the next couple of trading days. Shorts being quiet is a good sign, IMHO.

To: wily who wrote (2289)	8/6/1999 9:49:00 AM
From: mst2000	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4443

1. I think you miss my point completely, which is that ATG's responsibility to its shareholders was not necessarily to issue explanatory press releases. Their duty is to launch successfully, generate revenue and keep their business to themselves, not to placate nervous and impatient stockholders. The knowledgeable longs are frustrated too, but can pick up the phone and call Philadelphia if they want an explanation of what the Company has been doing between March and August (since the SEC approval). They issued a press release 4 weeks ago stating that rollout is being phased in during August. What is the point of saying more? They have consistently been very close to the vest in their interactions with the financial media regarding their business operations. As a shareholder who is interested in long term value creation and not hype and pump, I personally prefer that they keep put a higher priority on successful business operations than the short term concerns of short term investors and speculators. 2. They could have issued a complex press release pointing out how difficult all this is, but what would the point be -- they should be focused on their customers and their critical path concerns, not issuing pointless press releases. The SEC filings, with all of their legal disclaimers, still provide a very clear picture of just how complicated the process of deploying VTS is. The July press release addressed some of these issues and indicated that there is substantial institutional interest in the system. Saying more than they have puts at risk guaranties of anonymity and could actually interfere successful launch. 3. The level of critical mass necessary to make a matching ATS viable will (and should) always be a source of concern. Look at Optimark, which launched with high hopes and tremendous capital support, but which has been a widely acknowledged disappointment. I think the more knowledgeable shareholders worry about the liquidity issues a lot more than they do whether and exactly when the system will become operational. It's a more esoteric issue, but in the long run, it is even more mission critical than the precise date within an 8 week reange that the system goes on-line. Tremendous institutional interest is great, but still may not generate the level of matching necessary to make this a long term success. That is reality. It took Instinet almost 30 years to get to where they are today (Fred Rittereiser should know - he was the Chief Operating Officer of Instinet before it was sold to Reuters); it has taken POSIT (ITG) 13 years to get where they are. Taking market share from the NYSE and NASDAQ is what this is all about. I think they have the potential to meet their volume projections goven to the type of system they have, and the fact that something like 8% of all trades on the NYSE and NASDAQ today are VWAP-based, that is, executed as VWAP trades in the imperfect manner which has previously been available. Sometimes a better widget completely diplaces the earlier, imperfect, version. That's what we are investing in. MST