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Technology Stocks : Cymer (CYMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: manohar kanuri who wrote (23763)	12/9/1999 11:15:00 PM
From: Jerome	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

Are you sure you don't mean naked writing? It doesn't make any difference. Today when Cymer was trading at 45 the Dec. 45 were trading at 1. 300 contracts were purchased. The Dec 40's closed at 2 5/16 but traded as high as 5 1/4. 20 contracts traded. So 320 contracts total traded today representing 32,000 shares that are now short. As far as I know there is no way to determine that these contracts were straight call buys anticipating a price rise in Cymer between today and next Friday or if these were covered calls. But the short interest for Cymer increased by 32,000 shares today at just these two strike prices. Short interest was a better indicator five years back, but with the advent of on line trading and the dramatic increase of covered call writing it is less significant than it used to be. Volatile stocks carry a lot of short interest because the premium is high for covered call writing. Other opinions welcome. Jerome