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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (89237)	2/5/2001 9:55:38 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

T, The broker won't buy any DIA because that would involve putting his own capital at risk. One of the problem with short sales is always borrowing the shares. It is not hard for big institutional stocks because all of the fund cos. lend shares. But I doubt any fund co. owns DIA, which is kind of a hybrid index security and not a real stock. I have had similar problems with my forays into closed end funds. Back when Templeton Emerging Markets was selling at a 30% premium to its assets, I shorted it and bought Templeton Developing Markets for a load. Nearly every day I was threatened with having my borrowed shares disappear, and I really didn't have all that many of them. The story had a happy ending, I was able to stay in borrowed shares, EMF went to a discount and Developing even outperformed its clone on a return on the net assets basis. But it made me nervous and I didn't appreciate the pressure. I am a bit surprised at DIA as I understood that if more shares were needed, that they would be created by the trust. Maybe I have them confused with Webs.