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

To: TraderDad who wrote (12186)	7/31/1998 5:35:00 PM
From: umbro	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

I wondered when the brokerages would get around to taking AMZN off margin. Traderdad, wrote: Did anyone notice today that Datek made AMZN non-marginable! This is usually reserved for $5 dollar stocks. (anticipation?) This coupled with the unavailability of short shares certainly tells us where the brain trust at Datek believes this thing is headed. Does anyone know of short shares are available anywhere? It may be that Amazon.com was giving them too many headaches. Although the bears and short-sellers are complaining about lack of supply, and have had their heads taken off twice by short squeezes, consider the trader that went long at 140 in his margin account. :) By no longer being available for margin, they don't have to worry about answering the question: "do you have AMZN shares to short?". No margin, no possibility of shorting it. Consider the following conspiracy theory: the "big houses" on Wallstreet got tired of hearing that Datek was coming up with shares for its clients to short, because it makes it too difficult for them to artificially keep the price as high as it is. Their fix: complain to the SEC or NASDAQ, and have them lean on Datek. Datek's course of action: not to say "no", but simply to say "not marginable". I wonder if this applies only to Datek? Did NASDAQ recommend this restriction to all market makers and brokers? Does it only apply to initiating transactions, or were all margin shares swept into the cash account? Hopefully, not the latter: because it will cause both longs and shorts to liquidate.

To: TraderDad who wrote (12186)	7/31/1998 7:00:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 164684

Thanks - its good to get some confirming analysis. I'm hesitant to get too optimistic for the rate of decline for the "teflon dons" of the investment world. I certainly agree with the trend and the end results if not so bold about the time line.