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To: Ahmad Sinno who wrote (4857)	3/17/1999 6:00:00 PM
From: John Bissell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5300

Ahmad: Like most things in life, a number of things usually come into play. I agree with your statement that the primary mover of a stock's price is the company itself. Missed commitments and losses are a sure way to make the stock price fall. But I don't agree with your statement that the shorts only take advantage of this. They can and do make stock prices fall. If the stock has a low float, then shorts can coordinate a short attack (just go to the Anthony@Pacific thread, or check out the BlackArt thread on how they do this) on a stock. If enough people sell short and the float is small, that activity alone is enough to drop the stock price. It can also be done in a way to drop the price by walking the stock down on low volume. In addition, and this is what I really object to, they coordinate a FUD attack on BBS like this. (Note that not all shorts do this, just the unethical ones. For the purposes of this post, when I use the word short I am only referring to the latter. I actually enjoy legitmate shorters because they provide an apposing point of view that creates good dialog) Anyway, these unethecial shorts will drudge up anything they can to shake the confidence in long investors. Typically there is a shred of truth to their posts, so they can claim that they are serving investors' interests by exposing the hypsters. But they exaggerate the negatives, ignore evidence that disproves them, and generally twist things around as much as they can. And if they can't do that, they just get plain abusive and insulting. In truth, they are just as bad as the hypsters by trying to manipulate the stock price in the direction they want through the emotions of fear and greed. Unfortunately, these tactics are effective on new investors. Hence, both the shorts and the hypsters are financially encourage to perform this type of activity. Of course, they won't pick a stock that has sound fundamentals. They are very careful to pick a stock that would fall of its own accord. But rest assured they have a marked effect on the speed and magnitude of a drop in stock price....