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Biotech / Medical : Agouron Pharmaceuticals (AGPH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sam who wrote (3008)	11/26/1997 10:49:00 AM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6136

sam - Talking of the large short position you say: <<IMHO a bullish sign>>. This is a frequent claim made on SI, and one with which I usually disagree. First, it is impossible to tell how much of the short position is actually a hedge against, e.g., an option position. Second, in general, shorts are generally more sophisticated and better informed than the "average" investor. Studies have shown that a high short position is usually a bad sign for a stock. (In the particular case of AGPH, I personally think the shorts are wrong at this price level, but that's what makes a market.) Third, it is never a good thing for a stock to have people publically and privately badmouthing the stock. For a striking example of this look at the ZONA thread, where a well-known short player (Asensio) actually put out a press release attacking the stock. Asensio is also short AGPH. It is true that now and then you do get a short squeeze. However, I think that's pretty unlikely here. Personally, I have a very small long position in AGPH (bought in the 80's pre-split), which I would increase on any further decline. I think the earnings are going to continue to beat estimates, but I fear the street will never give those earnings a substantial PE ratio, because of concerns (justified or not) about the longevity of Viracept. (This has been my consistent view of AGPH since I first posted on this thread many months ago). Peter

To: sam who wrote (3008)	11/26/1997 7:30:00 PM
From: Oliver & Co	Respond to of 6136

Thank you. JLL

To: sam who wrote (3008)	11/26/1997 10:50:00 PM
From: JOHN W.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6136

Sam; <In theory, when they buy the stock back the stock price should rally. 7 million is about 1/4 of the entire AGPH float, and getting larger. IMHO a bullish sign.> I agree; I am trying to figure out when the shorts will start buying the shares back. How much farther do they think it could go? If they had bought back during the 37-38 period this week, would they not have made a substantial profit? Trying to find out the avg price they sold the stock short, and what their "bottom" tgt might be. It looks like the stock has reached its base in the mid 30s, and if the stock starts to rally based on the returned support by the analyst and then some positive news, the shorts will, IMHO, take their profits. I am so far rather impressed that their was not more covering this week, however it could have been the reason for the support. If George Soros buys a few more shares, he could own 5%, and that fact alone could flush out the shorts. (does he have 1.2M shares or 622,000 shares?) I do not have confirmation on exactly how many shares he owns, sam could you clarofy Soro's position? Seperate point; I have been working on a project. Looking at the dow jones company publications (WSJ & Barrons), i looked at all the companies that have made the most "appearances/mentined" over the last year and stopped the list once AGPH came up (i.e AGPH was at the bottom). I further broke down the "list" by those with mkt caps less than 1.4B. The list shrank to 6 and guess what, AGPH was #1 by a large margin with 40% more appearances-all of AGPHs "appearances" were negative as the price has doubled and then recently given a large % of that back. I believe the program is working and will post the results after I am sure. Preliminary: Maybe this approach is skewed to my "conspiracy"/paranoid little mind, but as I suspected, their is something very suspicious going on with the amount of attention this little company gets, overvalued or not! But then again the story about the mob manipulating a small compani's price was pretty "conspiracy" minded suspicion unbelievable story also. If there is somebody else out their that is also obssessed with this suspicion and has a better investigative and analytic approach, I think you could probably do this in another way (better) in a few hours.