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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gial who wrote (44199)	5/21/1998 7:44:00 PM
From: Jerry Miller	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Wednesday May 20, 11:24 pm Eastern Time U.S. OPTIONS/Far-out-of-the-money Dell puts active CHICAGO, May 20 (Reuters) - Deep out-of-the-money puts on Dell Computer Corp. (DELL - news) drew huge trading volume on Wednesday as the stock slipped after the personal computer manufacturer posted better than expected earnings after the close on Tuesday. The stock, which had rallied ahead of the company's results, fell 2-27/32 to 91-3/4. Options trading was active across the board, but the November 55 puts were by far the most active, with volume of almost 35,000 contracts, which traded between 1-15/16 and 1-7/16. The November 55 puts were by far the most actively traded options on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Michael Schwartz, a managing director of CIBC Oppenheimer, said the sale of the puts, which represent 3.47 million shares of Dell, might have been executed on behalf of the company as part of its stock buy-back program. ''If the company is selling the November 55 puts, they're pretty optimistic,'' Schwartz said. ''There are only a handful of companies that do this, but it's a growing strategy,'' he added. Joe Sunderman, an options analyst with Schaeffer's Investment Research, added, ''Intel (INTC - news) was one of the first companies to use options to do stock buy-backs. If Dell is selling those puts, they're picking up a lot of premium, considering that they're about 40 points out of the money.'' A spokesman for Dell said the company has repurchased 160 million shares during the past 27 months as part of an ongoing stock repurchase program. He said Dell's policy was not to comment on its trading activity, and though the company still has up to 90 million shares to purchase under that stock buy-back program, it was ''unlikely'' to have been involved in the market today. Implied volatility on the November 55 options was steady at around 64 percent.