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

To: Bald Man from Mars who wrote (7864)	4/26/1998 1:29:00 AM
From: James F. Hopkins	Respond to of 18691

Roger they pulled the shares out of margin when they saw enough shorts and the stock was very closely held, and the ones that had first shorted had to produce the stock..as it ran up..more shorts wanted to come in, almost all the trasdes were new shorts selling what they didn't own to the early shorts who were being cooked alive..it came that some small off the wall brokers let people short "if they would say they had the stock and would send it in" ...meanwhile the owners sold off shares but keep in mind they only had total 900K to sell..the thing was trading in the millions every day..and the short position at one time exceeded the float about 10 to 1..so you had 1 chance in 10 of getting out, and you can bet the ones that did payed dearly..the market makers can arrange with the company to short stock..and they take up the top position..every one else gets gut and gilled. There was an also artical in Forbes about a year ago of how this is pulled off. I'll see if I can find it..think I saved it to disk somewhere..most brokers hold short positions also..and they front run ahead of the short orders coming in..almost always, so you don't see it but most often there is a hidden spread when you go short on any stock. The market makers and brokers always short at the top to the people being squeezed..and they are looking at the short orders coming in all the time. It's aginst the rules to front run on the Floor..but that's because the brokers don't want compitition there, yet it happens all the time..it's to hard to catch but from time to time they nail one or two however your friendly broker is front running in his war room you can bet on that. Jim