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.

Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (9940)	7/10/1998 2:07:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Bob, On Cnbc this morning they said the Amzn float was 6mil shares. I have posted time and time again that this float was controlled by Vinik,MSDW, MerrilL,etc. I believe and time will tell that the float controllers started to leave last tues. Remember what the Fat cat Cramer said 'Don't touch this stock until the sellers show up'. What pisses me off is that the little guy hasn't been able to get any substantial shares to short, yet. I can't wait to hear what the SEC will say after the datek investigation becomes public information. How much do you think the float manipulators have sucked out of the shorts/puts. Everyone that bought July puts have been busted. Thank God I went out to Oct/Jan.

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (9940)	7/10/1998 4:47:00 PM
From: umbro	Respond to of 164684

Bob, thanks for the clarification on the 5 mil. share offering. I agree that I was mistaken. I interpreted the word "may" as "might" (ie, when a company says "it may from time to time ...", it means its possible, but not mandatory), and since it didn't say "may only ...", I thought the option of the company itself registering these shares for sale and then using the cash for acquisition was still a possibility. After all, eventually the 5 mil. shares will be dillutive even if companies being acquired are required to wait a year before they can sell the stock. Anyway, you're right this won't affect the float in the near term. On the issue of how to count the float ... I was just using the procedure that Marketguide uses for all the other companies that it follows: to use the shares that are not owned by insiders, or registered 5% owners. The people at Marketguide indicate that the new number for the float that will appear in their report will be 19.3M, this reflects 61% of the outstanding (sans the psosbile 5M used for acquisition). The number that Marketguide listed previously, and that was picked up by the media was 6.0M, which makes for quite a difference. It is possible that the float is still tightly held, and a lot less than 19 mil. I don't know if funds for example take delivery of shares to keep them from being borrowed by short-sellers. As to why it is so difficult to find shares to short, it is just possible that a lot more than the June figure of 8 mil. shares are now held short. (I checked with Dreyfus today. They said that they could've gotten ahold of both AMZN and INKT today to short ... I was asking about 1K shares. They said the situation is changing day-to-day though.)