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Technology Stocks : International Rectifier (IRF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marvin litman who wrote (1009)	6/5/1998 3:06:00 AM
From: DanZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1712

Marvin, Somebody has been sitting on the asking price again this week. They were here a few weeks ago with their 30k to 50k asks and went away. Then they have been back the last few days. I don't understand what's going on, but a person can't expect to sell much stock if they offer 35,000 shares for sale at 10 1/16 with a bid size of only 2,500 at 10. I think that is suicidal because few people will take on that kind of size and it won't take many sellers at the bid to move the stock down. That's what has been happening the past few days. After the spread moved down to 9 15/16 x 10, the seller sat on the ask with 20,000 shares. And then when it moved down to 9 7/8 x 9 15/16, he moved his stock down to 9 15/16. It's almost like somebody is out there purposely trying to pressure the stock. I might be imagining all of this, but it just doesn't make sense to me. If I had 30,000 shares to sell, I sure wouldn't show my hand and offer it at the asking price if there wasn't any size on the bid. It's unlikely that I would sell much stock under those conditions and would probably just push the price lower...seems counter productive to me. The way to sell a big chunk of stock without moving the market is to offer it in smaller amounts or hit the bids with smaller amounts and wait for it to build back up. Somebody is popping huge asks out there (relative to the bid size) and it makes me wonder what their motive is. I'd like to know who is sitting on the asking price if you are able to contact the analyst and he/she knows. A few institutions have sizable positions in IRF and I don't understand why they would be willing to sell the stock when it is trading at less than 1 x sales. Although sales were down sequentially in 1997, it was my understanding that this was due primarily to declining prices and not declining volume. I understand that there was an inventory correction in 1997, but I thought volume was hanging in there. Sales and earnings were up 17% and 49% respectively in the first three quarters of 1998 as compared to 1997 and it looked like a recovery in margins was progressing and the inventory correction had worked it's way through IRF's distribution channel. Is the June quarter going to be bad enough to justify the stock where it is?? I'm sure we would all appreciate your posting any information that you can find. I want to buy more stock but I'm not willing to take on whoever is sitting on the asking price. Why buy his stock at 10 1/16 when he's going to push it lower and I can get it cheaper? Thanks, Dan