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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Curtis who wrote (13958)	8/24/1999 11:13:00 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27311

John, I am happy I could provide a bunch of chuckles, at least one positive comes out of all of this. As for the floorless thread, only recently it has turned as a hunting grounds for short candidates, mostly because in the past, most of the floorless were trading under $5/share and thus not shortable by "mere humans". I have not hid from this thread that I turned negative on VLNC as soon as the stock was unable to react positively to the CC, as a matter of fact I sold the very next day. I mentioned it on the floorless since last months (or was it six weeks ago?), a number of "above $5" floorless were presented by various posters and my opinion was solicited as to their potential, the four stocks were PPRT, UOLP, BDE and AND, all with recent floorless debentures, all of which had the hallmarks of "accidents waiting to happen", and thus to those inclined to short (which I am not, as I have stated numerous time), I suggested these could indeed be easy short (we call these there shooting fish in a barrel, as you have noted). Most of these have achieved a target of 50% of their original price at the time of those postings, and Spark asked for a "refill", I had none but VLNC, a floorless that has just broken down, and thus theoretically has a target (IMHO) of about the low $3'. I believe that if you read that post, I also warned of the mercurial character of VLNC and if those PO's somehow materialize, they'd better have close stops to protect themselves (something that professional shorts, I presume, always do). The problem with this thread is excessive "loyalty" to this stock, look at what it leads to, "averaging down" into the weakest stock into ones portofolio. You need not be a genius in calculus to see that averaging down into your weakest stocks (and you must admit that right now VLNC should be categorized as "weakest stock") concentrates assets into the weakest stock until the folio is composed only the least performing stocks. I am not apologetic about my trading in VLNC, when the time will come to be a long term investor, the stock will give all of us ample warnings, and even if I jump in when the stock breaches back $6.125 (the current major resistance), or in few weeks when that resistance is lowered to $5.375, there will still be ample profits to be made. In the meanwhile, the shorts can have their day in the sun (they have for quite sometime seeing how the short position has increased month after month). As for my comment about the shorts having to eventually cover (unless the only shorts are the floorless bandits, they do not cover, they cover with converts), go to RMBS and see how everyone is licking their chops at the vision of 7 MM shares or so that will need to be covered. Good luck, and indeed, where are these PO's. Zeev

To: John Curtis who wrote (13958)	8/25/1999 1:50:00 PM
From: MGV	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27311

It must be very tough watching VLNC go down and all of the good tech companies rocketing upwards.

To: John Curtis who wrote (13958)	8/25/1999 9:32:00 PM
From: Larry Brubaker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27311

<<Bottom Line? To my mind you've just confirmed a pet theory of mine regarding VLNC, C.C., and the currently wave of shorting I've observed during the trading day. This pet theory revolves around the idea that even if C.C. isn't necessarily directly responsible for submarining the bid on a daily basis, there resides in the marketplace a community of individuals who spend a goodly portion of their day researching for potential floor-less candidates(shortie variation of d.d.) and then, when the opportunity presents itself, marshalling and rallying themselves together to hit the most probable candidates. I believe your comments are "fish in a barrel". Nothing wrong with it, we've all got to make a living, but this tactic works best when it remains hidden, no? ;-)>> John, methinks you are reading too much into this. I have recently begun shorting some floorless "fish in the barrel." It is only within the last couple of months that I added a margin option to my account in order to be able to short in the first place. UOLP was my first whack at the short side, and it turned out to be my most profitable trade of the year. But if you think the small fry inhabiting the floorless thread are reasponsible for the recent weakness in VLNC, you are quite mistaken, IMO. There is consistent, continued pressure on the stock from one or more large players. I don't think the floorless thread inhabitants could put anywhere near the kind of pressure on VLNC that we have seen ever since late July (which, coincidentally, was when the variable conversion kicked in). I'm glad you got a chuckle at Zeev's post because I am rolling on the floor reading yours :-)