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To: steve susko who wrote (13575)	5/4/1998 4:03:00 PM
From: Andrew Vance	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 17305

AV--you have to go back a few posts to see highlights on what brought us to this point and decision. I take credit for some guts and some research on the fly but there are others that provided valuable pieces to this puzzle. It all really boiled down to herd mentality on the heels of the Viagra craze and other "wunder shots" that occurred in the bio-tech field. My batting average and success in Bio-tech has been well documented and it is not one exactly to be boastful and proud of. Basically it has been a push to slight winner but this ENMD puts me well into the noticeable "good winner" category for months or years to come. This one struck GOLD after many minor profits to dismal attempts with a good deal of sideways action in between. It was a gutsy move but you have no idea of how close I must have come to striking out. I had a 2.5 point upside stop on this transaction just in case it ran from the open. It looks as if 1.875 was the actual upside prior to the drop. It was a $25,000 risk in each account thank came within 5/8 of being stopped out of. After that, it was just trying to ride it to the bottom, which I missed by 4 or more points. Everything looked real good for a major league hype play. 1. An unrelated NYT/CNN announcement that was not directly out of ENMD but with an entity ENMD had rights to. 2. DH Blair comment made by Patrick months ago that came to mind when we saw the SEC 13G filing. 3. DH Blair affiliation with ENMD and a weird pledge of additional shares by a co-founder that looked to account to close to 2 million shares. 4. A host of disgruntled IPO investors that never really made any profits on this stoock since its IPO date early last year. 5. Herd mentality and discussions on the ENMD thread. Bottom line, it was a huge success but was within 0.625 of a point from a $50K combined failure. The profits NOW justified the risk. I was toying with lower numbers until we saw the pre-open huge move on the bid/ask. We both agreed that this was stupidity at its worst and that if the herd was going to do this, we were going to accommodate them on the other side of the fence for when the bubble burst. If you go back to the original stop price for this short, you will see that it was appropriately placed given the price range at this moment in time. That in itself was a great prediction of a number we felt comfortable with. After that, when it continued to go lower, the stop out for covering was systematically lowered to lock in profits. Admittedly, the last move proved fatal since it caused me to cover and go to the side. Had I kept the original stop out price, I would have been stopped out at the higher target since it did make it back up to that point momentarily. Therefore, moving this target lower actually netted me close to $10 more on this trade. The guts were not really in making this trade but rather in risking a personal $25K should the open on the stock be following by an even larger move up. That was where the real guts were. True guts wouldn't have placed a stop out limit, kept lowering the stop out price and would have targeted a price of $30 or below to cover. I feel very fortunate that this turned out to the positive side of the transaction for me. I feel as if I rolled the dice on a high percentage play which was still very speculative and beat the odds. If anything I have learned, it is that this will NOT make me more apt to take bigger chances down the road by getting sloppy. The team that helped bring this to fruition will undoubtedly rise to the task again in the future. If any lesson is to be learned it is that all inputs by all members of this thread need to be evaluated real time and to also be stored away for future use. Had I not remembered Patrick's comment about DH Blair when we were talking about "Boiler Rooms", "Pump and Dump" and some unfavorable experiences with brokerages, I might not have moved forward on this trade. there would not have been enough information to proceed. Finding DH Blair in the SEC 13G filing prompted a look at the S-1 which also prompted turning up the "pledge" of additional shares to J Morton Davis (sole shareholder of DH blair) by one of the company's co-founders. All the pieces came together for a successful play. The real deal looks as if $50-53 is the comfortable trading zone for now and when all this hoopla dies down, I think we may see some people licking their wounds as this stock slowly regains its rightful price in the teens or 20s. For the sake of the 10 million shares that traded hands today, of which $50 may now be the new average selling price, I hope that I am wrong. Only time will tell, along with lawsuits and SEC probes<GGG>. Andrew BTW-how do we measure this gain since no money was invested. Can I claim to have made an infinite profit or close to it<GGG>??? Maybe the gain divided by the 1.5 hours worth of short margin interest I have to pay for the transaction plus the $2400 commision for the denominator. I wish the $300K+ was for my pocket but I have a sneaky feeling the US Gov't and the State will want a piece of this action within the next year<GGGG>. All I can hope for is that these transaction is fully depleted from my portfolio to pay for the profits made on the rest of 1998's transactions<GGGG>.