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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David W. Tucker who wrote (5152)	3/20/1999 3:31:00 AM
From: Don Hess	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

David, you asked and re-asked a valid question, and I'm not sure why some chose to take a hostile or condescending tone in their response to you. I was as curious as you were, and spent some time casting about for an answer. I came up with quite little. It appears that all we shall ever know is that an individual or a consortium decided to dump about 100,000 shares at about 11:00 on Friday. Their reasons shall remain their own. It reminds me of my trips to Las Vegas (stay with me here, I'm not rambling). I can't count on both hands the number of times I've left a $5 blackjack table after 2 hours of play with $100 more than I walked in with. I always think, later: why didn't I sit at the $25 table? Using the same time frame, the same strategy, and the same cards, I'd have 5 times the profit I made playing small. Similarly, when I sold half my stake in SNDK this week, the market didn't shudder. I'm a $5 player. But what if someone with the same rationale as I, but far deeper pockets, made the same move? Could that not be what happened on Friday? No news, no downgrade, just someone or a group of someones deciding to limit their exposure. I love thinly-traded stocks, they are exciting when good news abounds and shareholders hold grudgingly to their positions. The market makers can't make a market, and the result is an exponential bounce. But rue the day when someone of substance decides to take profits. There are no buyers to take his business, and we see a white hole glowing in the firewall, sucking our air for no foreseeable reason. Whomever the big-time seller was, I'm mad at him, but can hardly quibble, as I did the same thing a few days earlier. But neither he nor I did what we did because we were in search of a lifeboat. The mother ship is sailing quite fine, thank you very much. And with the voluminous shares that were sold on Friday now in new hands, those buyers are probably in search of a profit. I'd rather have a solid foundation at 33 than a bunch of folks ready to bail at 37. I may be wrong, but when a large fluctuation like Friday's occurs, I like to look at the timing of the movement. If the pace is slow and steady throughout the day, chances are that there is a universal opinion forming. But, if like Friday's wallop, the action is contained to a brief trading flurry that is not replicated, I discount the event. Somebody made a call, others are not following suit, forget about it. Just my two cents. - Don - Don