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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sunfish who wrote (41417)	3/6/2000 3:50:00 PM
From: Daniel Liberty	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

Does anyone know if we can get an accurate count of the number of shares of PALM have been sold short? Most of the sites I visit have data from last month which, of course, does not include PALM. I am wondering if the weakness in PALM is because of all the short selling for the arbitrage. Dan

To: sunfish who wrote (41417)	3/6/2000 3:51:00 PM
From: djpfive	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

Look at LU, they are going to divest their slower growing businesses and their stock shoots up. Same thing here, COMS, though perhaps a good company in its own right, is a millstone around the neck of PALM because COMS + PALM cannot achieve the same high rate of growth. If PALM isn't distributed, the interest in COMS (with PALM inside) will be much less than the interest in PALM alone. Hence PALM can command a much higher P/E as a standalone and the sum of the parts IS greater than the whole in this case. Are you saying that this is what you think makes sense, or that this is what the market thinks? The analogy to LU is a good one. In both cases, it's irrational pricing. It's not as if LU's slow-growing businesses were the ones that failed to meet demand, resulting in their earnings shortfall. Sure, PALM or LU without their slower counterparts should have higher P/E's. But the total E will be lower.