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Strategies & Market Trends : Roger's 1998 Short Picks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: chester lee who wrote (14345)10/4/1998 1:26:00 PM
From: Roger A. Babb  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 18691
 
Chester, The "defenders" of REFR on the SI thread are getting a bit testy, another sign of a good short. You are correct that "equity lines" do not death spiral as quickly as floorless convertibles because the "investors" don't have the same incentive to crash the stock. The end effect is often the same, but the equity line spiral takes longer and is better managed, the objective being to sell the additional stock at the highest possible price.

But anytime you have a stream of new shares entering the market for a company with negative earnings, the outcome is clear. Same effect as if a large stock holder is dumping shares.



To: chester lee who wrote (14345)10/4/1998 8:10:00 PM
From: N. Dixon  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 18691
 
Chester,

You might find this email I received of interest:

Just got this email from one of the attorneys whom I had look over the SEC filing. I had faxed him Mr. Babb's and Mr. Wexler's interpretation as well as some of the notes from people on the board.. I think you will find his response interesting.

"Death spiral? Who are these guys kidding? The agreement clearly states that ALL the options are in the hands of Research Frontiers and the only death spiral I can envision is for the short seller. You see Research Frontiers has already announced that they intend to buy back stock in the open market and retire the shares. With this agreement they can now easily pick up $15million dollars worth of shorted stock and sell it back to Ailorous for a profit. Ailorous is obligated to buy and Research Frontiers sets the price. I would imagine Robert Saxe would know best how to time this since he is priviledged as to what news items are coming and their potential impact. So a short seller would have all his stock bought up by the company providing a floor for the stock price until news is released and then be forced to buy it back for a loss after good news drives the price up. Then the company can just "put" the shares to Ailorous and make a tidy profit for shareholders without even diluting the float. I hope Saxe is smart enough to do it!"

So much for your "death spiral."

ND