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

To: Jason Ellis who wrote (21183)	3/10/1998 6:48:00 AM
From: Sasha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

CPQ in London 25 3/4 at midday. Your calculations are completely wrong. CPQ and Dell both ended down 8%. You can not compare dollar to dollar.

To: Jason Ellis who wrote (21183)	3/10/1998 10:04:00 AM
From: James F. Hopkins	Respond to of 97611

Jason; In see were someone told you not to just compare Dollars , they want to look at percentages. But things are more complex than that. It's just a guess on my part , yet with out up to date , day by day , data on the short interest..My guess is most of the recent high volume you see trading on Compaq is "short" volume. "Ghost" volume comes into play when brokerage houses get some inside news and go short the stock..then as the news is released and other shorts rush in who are "outside the loop" they sell stock they don't own, well the brokerages buy that none existing stock from the new shorts, this covers the short position they took out earlyer. A sort of war takes place and it's not just between the Bulls and Bears..it's between the "shorts"..back to my guess..about 75% of the volume you see trading on Compaq is not real shares changing hands but borrowed shares. She had 7.5 Billion shares shorted when this started..likley more now. Well as these get passed back and forth it's a game of "who winds up with the short end of the match". Who shorts last gets burned..the brokerage house has the inside data and can stay on the top of that totem pole , as it sees how many orders are coming in for short sells when the orders get large enough it shorts, then buys from back keeping an "inhouse" spread. They will downgrade untill they are finnished covering..then an upgrade signals their friends. Things are son crooked on wall street it's hard to tell what ther real price of Compaq is at this time, a lot depends on how much the brokerage houses have in short positions..which have a temporay dilutive effect on the shares, which my guess is running about 8% right now. To make "real" comparisons with other stocks you would have to take into account the amount of shares shorted in thoes issues and how much of their volume is "ghost" volume. It goes beyond Dollars and even percentage , only some one with the day by day inside track on the amount shorted, and covered could do that. ------------------- The lack of disclousure for what ever excuse they give, should be enough to "bar" brokerage houses from being able to short, but that's not written into the law and would be objected to in a big way. And just because it's not against the law it's not considered criminal. But it is criminal in my eyes, and this is just the tip of the iceberg of what your up aginst in the stock market. Have a nice day, let the shorts fight it out, remember you don't win or lose money untill you sell, ( or cover your short ) What the brockerage houses do in the larger sense is, take advatage of the shorts, even though they are clients. The longer term effect does not hurt the long term investors, but shakes down a lot short term speculators. :-) Jim