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Technology Stocks : Alphabet Inc. (Google) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BoRare who wrote (761)	2/5/2005 7:16:54 PM
From: olivier asser	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15857

That's right: GOOG tanks 6.7% on a lock-up expiration of only 39 million shares. On Valentine's Day, that'll be more than 4.5 times that many. I think there are some more factors here that will accelerate GOOG's slide. The last time around, GOOG was still trading well above its pre-earnings highs of 150. Here, however, we had a major earnings surprise and GOOG has made three successive lower highs, totally failed to take out the initial 219 high, and on day three closed below the pre-earnings highs on multiple blocks going off all day, starting with the first trade of the day, 68,400 shares. Then AOL TIme Warner announces an 8% stake in GOOG, 5 million shares, and in its annual report filed with SEC Friday, stated that this "is not a strategic investment" (reads: going to be sold near-term). So we have a major partner of GOOG's, AOL, showing a lack of confidence in GOOG's business model by preparing to unload 8% of the company, technicals that point to no follow through like in October, and a massive unlocking of shares which erases the low-float, scant-supply advantages GOOG had before, and will be accompanied by SEC filings of employee sales if they sell en masse - and I think they will, considering that insiders like GOOG's founders and directors have already been permitted to unload shares but it seems most employees have not. One director sold $1 billion worth of his holdings. What confidence does that show? Finally, GOOG spoke of talent acquisition during the CC, but one thing it did not discuss is the temptation for 1,000 new GOOG millionaires to either retire or go off in groups to start their own companies. IMHO, this spells look out below in the near-term, which is why this is the first equity trade I've placed in nearly five years: put options.