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Technology Stocks : Winstar Comm. (WCII) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wrm1 who wrote (9355)	11/18/1998 1:26:00 PM
From: Steven Bowen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12468

"I am still confused regarding the direction of this play" The trade that was discussed, the sale of 500 call contracts and the purchase of 500 put contracts, is essentially a short of 50,000 shares at 29 3/8. Although you don't know whether the trader had a position in the stock he was hedging against, there is no way to interpret the trade as bullish. Whoever did the trade is at least expecting weakness in the short term. If they expected the stock to go up at all, they would have waited to put the trade on. Even if they are attempting a synthetic short against the box, they are locking in what they must think is a near term high. Also, whoever did the trades has to have an account in at least the million dollar size (for this position alone). In addition, my sources showed an additional 500 identical put contracts trade at the same time and price. The buying of 500 more put contracts is another bet the stock is going down and cost somebody $300,000 cash.