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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerome who wrote (95905)	3/9/2002 5:00:55 PM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 97611

Jerome, from Barron's an option trader's opinion... subscribers' link online.wsj.com excerpt Despite the setback, the market seems to be leaning toward approval of the buyout. The arbitrage spread between the two companies' stock prices has been narrowing in recent weeks, indicating sentiment in favor of the deal going through, observes Todd Vukovich, who trades options for his own account in the H-P pit at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. The arbitrage spread is calculated by subtracting the price of 0.63 of an H-P share -- the merger price -- from the value of a Compaq share. Since the deal was announced in September, the spread has ranged as high as $3. In recent weeks, it has hovered at around $2, and at Thursday's close, it had narrowed to $1.45. Just about three weeks ago, Vukovich told us that "Carly had an uphill battle that will probably fail." Now the options trader isn't so sure. "If the spread goes under a dollar, I think this thing is going to happen," Vukovich says. But nothing will happen before the last mud is slung. The spread is a buck twenty now.