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To: Mr. Adrenaline who wrote (3125)	2/25/1999 2:37:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

WashPost. Stockholders Wait for Iridium to Achieve Orbit washingtonpost.com Thursday, February 25, 1999; Page E05 It's been a long, long fall and a harsh winter for stockholders of Iridium World Communications Ltd., the Washington-based company that has launched a network of satellites that can provide mobile phone service anywhere in the world. You can't make those calls unless you have an Iridium phone, however, and the company is suffering from a shortage of phones that has delayed the the recruitment of subscribers and exacerbated a drop in the stock that has cost investors more than $6 billion. In a little more than nine months, Iridium shares have fallen from more than $72 to $28.56 1/4 at the close of yesterday's trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Slipping steadily since the first of the year, the stock hit what investors hope is the bottom at $24 a share on Monday. It bounced back in the past couple of days as Wall Street analysts lined up to reassure investors that the company's setbacks are only temporary. The phone shortage is a particular embarrassment because most of them are being made by Motorola Inc., the nation's biggest portable phone maker. Motorola dreamed up the Iridium system and is one of its three big investors, along with Sprint Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda. Analysts say the shortage of phones means Iridium will not meet its goal of having 27,000 in use by the end of March and will fall short of its targeted 88,000 phones at the end of the first quarter and 173,000 by the end of the third. More than just benchmarks, the targets are written into the terms of loans the company got from a group of big banks. Fear that the banks would restructure the loans and raise the interest rate has helped knocked down the price of the stock recently, analysts said. Assuring investors that the banks are not putting on the pressure, Salomon Smith Barney analyst John B. Coates reiterated his "buy" rating on the stock Tuesday. "Iridium has simply not had enough time to attract subscribers," he said. "Delays in handset availability have stifled Iridium's ability to enlist subscribers, but do not, in our opinion, indicate that there's insufficient demand for the service." As analyst Tom Watts of Merrill Lynch & Co. said in a report issued Monday: "The one big question is, is there enough demand to meet projections over the longer term?" As big as a brick, with a stubby antenna, the phones cost around $3,400 and calls run $3 to $7 a minute. That's a general improvement over old-style satellite phones, which are the size of a laptop computer, have an antenna that has to be aimed precisely, and cost about $3,000. Journalists, explorers, globe-trotting business executives, disaster relief workers and government officials are obvious target markets. But are there the millions of customers who will be needed for Iridium to make money? Analysts insist there are. "At the first sign of incoming handset orders, we would view the price weakness as a buying opportunity," Coates said. Wall Street firms have plenty of reason to want investors to believe in Iridium, because they've earned millions of dollars by selling both stock and junk bonds for the company. Bonds issued by Iridium in January were trading for about 80 cents on the dollar yesterday, yielding more than 18 percent to investors willing to take the risk that the company will succeed. © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

To: Mr. Adrenaline who wrote (3125)	2/25/1999 2:55:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

WSJ. Short Interest in Nasdaq Stocks Fell by 3.02% in Latest Month [See middle] February 25, 1999 By DANIELLE SESSA Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NEW YORK -- Short interest fell 3.02% in the latest month on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The total, which includes Nasdaq small-capitalization and large-capitalization stocks, slipped to 1,809,202,517 shares on Feb. 15 from 1,865,489,495 shares in mid-January, according to Nasdaq. On the Nasdaq SmallCap Market, which is made up of the 1,081 smaller-cap stocks, short interest rose 3.83%. It fell 3.23% for the 3,855 larger-cap stocks on the Nasdaq National Market. Traders who sell securities "short" borrow shares and then sell them, betting they can profit by buying the stock back later at lower prices. Short interest is the number of shares that haven't been repurchased for return to lenders. As such, it is often taken as an indicator of the degree of negative sentiment among investors in the stocks. Investors may rely on short selling for other purposes, including as a hedging strategy related to corporate mergers and acquisitions, for convertible securities and options, and for tax purposes. The Nasdaq National Market's short-interest ratio fell to 1.82 from 2.06 days in the previous month. The short-interest ratio for the smaller stocks slipped to 0.65 from 0.94. The ratio is the number of trading days that would be required to close out the short positions through share purchases and is considered a measure of trading sentiment. The following companies had the largest decreases in short interest: Dell Computer Corp., down 9,260,024 shares to 23,798,750; Intel Corp., down 7,464,785 shares to 12,278,653; ATI Technologies Inc., down 6,405,015 shares to 3,804,076; Ascend Communications Inc., down 4,851,253 shares to 4,772,539 and Amazon.com Inc., down 3,808,580 shares to 12,541,013. The following companies had the largest increase in short interest: At Home Corp., up 5,064,723 shares to 9,280,718; NEC Corp. ADR, up 4,976,087 shares to 4,994,783; Aura Systems Inc., up 3,634,268 shares to 8,767,600; Globalstar Telecommunications Ltd., up 2,990,348 shares to 7,119,315 and Tele-Communications Inc. Lby up 2,888,174 shares to 16,534,063. Among companies with the largest short-interest positions: MCI WorldCom Inc. was down 2,794,381 shares to 32,287,910; Peoplesoft Inc. was up 1,624,459 shares to 18,654,648; Apple Computer Inc. was up 281,117 shares to 18,254,609; Cisco Systems Inc. was down 1,137,450 shares to 16,416,878 and Nextel Communications Inc. Class A was up 357,249 shares to 16,202,671. The next Nasdaq short-interest report will be published on March 25. Return to top of page \| Format for printing Copyright © 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To: Mr. Adrenaline who wrote (3125)	2/25/1999 2:59:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

Well, it explains why the SI and yahoo threads have been crawling with shorts lately... The following companies had the largest increase in short interest: At Home Corp., up 5,064,723 shares to 9,280,718; NEC Corp. ADR, up 4,976,087 shares to 4,994,783; Aura Systems Inc., up 3,634,268 shares to 8,767,600; Globalstar Telecommunications Ltd., up 2,990,348 shares to 7,119,315 and Tele-Communications Inc. Lby up 2,888,174 shares to 16,534,063.