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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Catalano who wrote (31447)	2/28/1998 5:23:00 AM
From: zalesky	Respond to of 176387

TO ALL: With a run of Apocalyptic proportions these past two weeks what are the chances of a downgrade on price for good old DELL come Monday or Tuesday??? We've got to be close to a short term top for this POWERHOUSE. If the big boys are tellin ya 150 top end maybe, just maybe, most of the big money is bailing in the upper 130s. If we see a downgrade I'll bet Dell gets a 5 to 6 point haircut and then climbs higher. The air is getting MIGHTY THIN UP HERE. GOOD LUCK AND MAY THE GREAT SHORT TERM PROFITS BE YOURS!!!!

To: Mark Catalano who wrote (31447)	2/28/1998 12:46:00 PM
From: David E. Taylor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Mark: Trading options is always trickier (and hairier) than trading the stock - at least with the stock (particularly DELL), if you make a mistake, you park the stock in your account and just wait for the evaporated profits to return (that happened to me back in December after the ORCL debacle). Your March 140 calls are currently 7.0 bid, and you paid 6.25 (they were at 3.0 on 2/26, what a difference a day makes!), but that's basically all time premium because at the 140 strike price, they're still out of the money. The closer you get to 3/21, the less the time premium becomes, until it's zero on 3/21. So if you wait until 3/21, DELL will have to be around 147 for your options to be worth the 7.0 they're worth today at a DELL price of about 140 (I'm sure you know all this). If you refer to my previous post, you'll see that IMO, DELL will peak at close to 150 pre-split, and won't do much more after that, though there's a chance we could have a run past 150 (maybe even 155-160) post-split. Again IMO, your call option profits will peak when DELL hits 150, and I'd offload them at that point, because it'll be downhill from there. Then use a portion of the profits to buy some DELL stock, or some May calls. Keep in mind that we're entering earnings pre-announcement season over the next three weeks, and while the accumulating negative news generally depresses DELL less than the market in general (I believe we'll be looking at a DOW close to 8000 by the end of March), there will still be a dampening effect on the stock price. So, FWIW, my advice is to bail out when Dell gets close to 150 this week, which should have your options around 16 - not bad. IMO it's pretty certain you'll make that pre-split, but it's much iffier after the split. To match that 16 option price on 3/21, DELL would have to be at about 156 (78 post split), which I consider highly unlikely. I think the rules I try to use in trading stocks are even more important in trading options - (1) have a game plan, (2) exercise discipline and stick to the game plan, (3) don't get greedy - there's always another trade! Good luck! David T.