Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : CYTO -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rod who wrote (7130)	3/31/1998 6:52:00 PM
From: Dan Sorenson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8116

Rod, I was thinking that we were/are on the verge of a letter to shareholders where they would address ALT,PSMA,Targon 50%(I believe it happened, my OPINION),cost cuts, cheerleading for GDL, and the FIRST upward movement in stock price in AGES..... Later, Dan

To: Rod who wrote (7130)	3/31/1998 7:05:00 PM
From: John Mattessich	Respond to of 8116

Just a little more on the topic of Short Sales from the Fool (mainly for CYTO investors who are not pros on this topic but due to the huge increase in CYTO shorts need to know more) : 3. WHAT IS SHORT INTEREST? What is short interest? Does it have anything to do with short attention spans? Pardon? Short interest? Oh yes! Ahem, short interest is simply the total number of shares of a company that have been sold short. The Fool believes that the best shorts are those with low short interest. They present the maximum chance for price depreciation as few short sales have occurred, driving down the price. Also, low short interest stocks are less susceptible to short squeezes (see item ( ) right here for more on short squeezes). Short interest figures are available towards the end of each month in financial publications like Barrons and the Investor's Business Daily. The significance of short interest is relative. If a company has 100 million shares outstanding and trades 6 million shares a day, a short interest of 3 million shares is probably not significant (depending on how many shares are closely held). But a short interest of 3 million for a company with 10 million shares outstanding trading only 100,000 shares a day is quite high. I've heard the term 'days to cover' thrown around quite a bit. Does 'days to cover' have anything to do with short interest? Yes, it does! Days to cover is a function of how many shares of a particular company have been sold short. It is calculated by dividing the number of shares sold short by the average daily trading volume. Look at Ichabod's Noggins (Nasdaq:HEAD) (N) (S). One million shares of this issue have been sold short (we can find this number, called the short interest, in such publications as Barrons and the IBD). It has an average trading volume of 25,000. The days to cover is 1,000,000/25,000, or 40 days. When you short a stock, you want the days to cover to be low, say around 7 days or so. This will make the shares less subject to a short squeeze, the nightmare of shorters in which someone starts buying up the shares and driving up the share price. This induces shorters to buy back their shares, which also drives up the price! A short days to cover means the short interest can be eliminated quickly, preventing a short squeeze from working very well. Also, a lengthy days to cover means that many people have already sold short the stock, making a further decline less likely.