Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Craig M. Newmark who wrote (95735)	1/11/2000 11:01:00 PM
From: Jean M. Gauthier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

To all... I bought, a while back, stupid me, 30 January 100 calls on Intel. I love the company, and have been a long-time shareholder... I had thought Intel would run much higher, since this is their strong season, but I made a mistake (?)... Now, options experts like Ibexx can help me here. What should I do ? Any ideas anyone ? I have $ 4500 on the line, my 1st (I think) option mistake so I would appreciate advice... Take care Jean

To: Craig M. Newmark who wrote (95735)	1/12/2000 3:35:00 AM
From: Ibexx	Respond to of 186894

Craig, I posted the URL by Schaeffer only to share info. In no way did I endorse his thesis completely or to refute it. Schaeffer has successfully used the the put/call ratios as a contrarian indicator (they are several articles to this effect) and I thought it would be a valuable reference point. The 20 day price moment is useful to traders, obviously and to investigators like myself who play options to hedge. I allow myself to be exposed to all kinds of viewpoints and theories, but the final filtering is done within. At any rate, my bet is on a great y2k performance for INTC. I have kept all my INTC common thus far. Greetings to all, Ibexx (logging on remotely)

To: Craig M. Newmark who wrote (95735)	1/12/2000 8:04:00 AM
From: GVTucker	Respond to of 186894

Crag, RE: The "put/call" ratios he reports for the last several years' worth of Intel pre-earnings periods are all greater than .60. Does this mean that the market has been uniformly pessimistic about Intel's earnings for the the past 4 years? How can that be? Further, how can that ratio be taken as a simple indicator of sentiment--even put on a percentile basis relative to other stocks--given the existence of hedging strategies and other complicated plays using options? I'm not sure if your questions are rhetorical or not. They bring up valid points. The put/call ratio by itself would be a very bad indicator of sentiment. It is just too vulnerable to exogenous events. Think about a large institution that decides to hedge its technology stocks for whatever reason. If that institution owned 10mm shares of INTC (and a lot of them do) then that would entail the purchase of 100,000 puts, which would skew the entire put/call ratio way up, even though it was dependent on the decision of just one investor. Hardly indicative of overall sentiment. If you want to use options for sentiment, probably the best number (but still not highly reliable) to use would be implied volatility of at the money options. The implied volatility of INTC Feb 90 puts (bid side) was 52.3 at the close yesterday, and the implied volatility of the calls was 52.2. Both numbers are well above historical norms in the 40's, which tells me that the expectation is that the stock will move a lot, but nobody knows in which direction it will move. Or, as JP Morgan said (I think) "The market will continue to fluctuate."