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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bob s who wrote (49178)	2/27/1999 12:35:00 PM
From: Monty Lenard	Respond to of 132070

Didn't help DELL to announce a split. <g>

To: bob s who wrote (49178)	2/27/1999 1:15:00 PM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

I would like to play the downside of EBAY, but to judge from the premiums on puts, so do a lot of other people. I guess the word is out about what happened to AMZN and YHOO at their peaks. An October put at 195 costs 47. This presupposes a possible drop to as low as 148 on the stock in seven months to be sure of breaking even on the put, not counting commissions. It could easily happen--and more--but who wants to spend $4,700 on something that could expire worthless unless the stock drops by close to 45%. (I realize that there are many qualifications to these statements). Someone might well make a lot of money shorting it, if one had , say, about $20,000 (maybe more)to set aside to hold a short position on 100 shares of EBAY for as long as it took for the price to start to drop. The really fortunate person would be one with a long position who could short against the box. I think you could live off your mark-to-margins tax free until you closed the position--or am I wrong about this? What happens if you short a company that goes bankrupt, is delisted, and drops out of sight? Do you never have to pay taxes unless you close the short position?