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To: Casaubon who wrote (12834)	5/28/2000 9:58:00 PM
From: Dan Duchardt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14162

Cas, There is no doubt that what you have observed is true. There are some subscription services that look for these volume surges to identify stocks that will probably make a substantial move. One of them is run by Larry McMillan, author of the well known "Options as a Strategic Investment". He lectured at the Trading Expo in New York in February on this topic, citing many examples that prove the point. Dan

To: Casaubon who wrote (12834)	5/29/2000 10:49:00 AM
From: James F. Hopkins	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 14162

RE > I don't think it is actually officers of the companies but rather fund managers or other big money with for-knowledge of an upcoming event which will influence the value of a company. I agree and "when" I see unusual volume on some strike I often will play the stock even if I know almost nothing about it, but I usually don't play the same strike the way they do. One I remember some time back; SDS in Nov of 99.. she was trading flat at 24 but the Jan2000 25s were being bought like crazy..I took the 15s and sold the 25s into the demand and got the $10 spread for 5-7/8. I had no idea of what SDS did or anything it was a nice profit ( 66% after commish) in 2-1/2 months. While SDS finally hit 38 knowing me I would not have held that long. At any rate 24 to 38 is still only 50% profit so the spread did better dollar for dollar. Getting a $10 spread that cheap with only 2-1/2 months of time left is rare, it was the big demand on the 25s that let me do it. Jim

To: Casaubon who wrote (12834)	5/29/2000 1:16:00 PM
From: Dan Duchardt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14162

Cas, I don't think it is actually officers of the companies but rather fund managers or other big money with for-knowledge of an upcoming event which will influence the value of a company. Jim's reply to this point jogged my memory of McMillan's lecture. Needless to say, this activity is a flag for investigators, and they have looked into many of these unusual volume spikes. In many cases, the trail has led to offshore accounts where confidentiality is protected, thus a dead end. The number of occurrences of this sort of thing is small enough that no roadblocks have been put up to prevent it. To do so would necessarily restrict a lot of "normal" activity from such accounts. An additional point is that not all of these instances portend a windfall. Anybody can scan for unusual volume and find it. The claimed value of the services taking advantage of these things is the filtering they do to eliminate cases that can be attributed to something other than advance knowledge of an event that will drive the price. Dan