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Strategies & Market Trends : Roger's 1998 Short Picks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (4199)	3/5/1998 6:29:00 PM
From: Rajiv	Respond to of 18691

After the bell DB 17:53 [MOT] MOTOROLA CITES WEAKNESS IN ASIAN CURRENCIES. DB 17:52 [MOT] MOTOROLA SAYS SEMICONDUCTOR BUSINESS IS MAIN DRAG ON RESULTS. DJ 17:52 [MOT] MOTOROLA SAYS REMAINS FULLY COMMITTED TO LONG TERM IN ASIA DJ 17:50 [MOT] MOTOROLA SEES 1Q NET 'WELL BELOW' EXPECTATIONS DJ 17:50 [MOT] MOTOROLA CITES WEAKENED ASIAN CURRENCIES DB 17:50 [MOT] MOTOROLA WARNS Q1 EARNINGS WILL BE 'WELL BELOW' EXPECTATIONS. DJ 17:50 [MOT] MOTOROLA SEES 1Q SALES FLAT

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (4199)	3/5/1998 6:41:00 PM
From: Pancho Villa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18691

>>My guess is that (just like the sentiment on this thread) a lot of short sellers are disenchanted and tired and probably had loads of preset buy-to-cover orders before the open, hoping to get out clean before the buy-on-the-dip crowd rushed in yet again. << This is why I never place open limit orders of any type. Using this foolish approach a trade can be forced on you. Suppose you have a bunch of buy to cover orders for ZITL at around 15 totalling let's say around 100,000 shares. It does take a rocket scientist make the stock climb its way up to that price level and then screw the innocent crowd. Pancho PS: the bulk of my orders are day limit orders usually not far from where the stock is trading, most frequently at the bid when buying and the ask when selling. May go away from the bid/ask when I don't really care about whether I buy/sell the position.

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (4199)	3/5/1998 7:37:00 PM
From: Bill Wexler	Respond to of 18691

KRY - just when you thought it couldn't possibly get worse... asensio.com asensio.com asensio.com

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (4199)	3/5/1998 9:22:00 PM
From: Kam Naik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18691

Bill I like your theory, and even think it is possible ,but then that may simply be cause of wishful thinking

To: Bill Wexler who wrote (4199)	3/6/1998 12:45:00 PM
From: Marconi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18691

Hello Mr. Wexler: I've been feeling the squeeze lately too. My optimistic view on Zitel is that there is no substance to the machinations that appear to be underway. Certainly Cayman's would prefer a spell of higher stock prices before they clear their conversion privileges at a discount and dilute the stock substantially. Looking at the trading on the 3 month Yahoo chart for Zitel, it looks like Zitel has not sustained more than two strong up days in a row, without a pullback. This being Friday, it would take caution thrown to the wind to buy long to hold over a weekend for trading next week. A lot can change in those 3 days. I expect weakness to set in in the last half hour of trading today. It is very unfortunate to see Zitel move up strongly at the time of the misleading and irresponsible article placed in the WSJ recently. And the rumor of a merger, buyout--is temptingly criminal. Let's ASSUME, let me repeat this folks--ASSUME, that Zitel has the silver bullet (and neglect any MDaffects) and they are going to justify a market cap of $200M. At typically a 10% margin they need to realize $2 billions in sales say in the next 10 months to realize the market cap, as a once only. That's a pace of $200M per month. With 23 working days on average in a month and assume a typical contract is for $2M each, then that is about 21 contracts per week. With this framework, it is easy to factor the numbers differently by 1, 2, or even 5-fold. Even stretch it to 10-fold for the grandest optimists, or the other way for the most cutting pessimism. With the handful, at best, of staff Zitel has that have the power to sign contracts, this amounts to each of them signing a minimum of several multimillion dollar contracts a day without fail for the rest of the year, something like a few hours each on average to negotiate, sign, and follow through to completion. Definitely no travel involved here! (Filing the paperwork alone will take those several hours practically speaking.) Such a contract pace is at least an order of magnitude more performance in terms of licensing throughput than I have ever seen in the corporate world, even with cut and dried, long standing, commonly understood, technological licenses, which had been used as standard practice for more than a decade in the (HPI) industry. Whereas, every company's IS department has its own software, hardware, and interface issues, which spell at least some customization of terms. In other words, at this point, Zitel does not have any reasonable prospect of performing even with the most automatic and perfect of tools. Take heart, Bill. Let's manage to weather the storms from unethical, probably illegal conduct that convey the illusion of value and promise where there really is none. Fundamentals and business common sense will remain inviolate in the long run. Best regards, mdr