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Technology Stocks : Hyperfeed Technologies, Inc. (HYPR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sonicburger who wrote (1509)	3/22/1999 4:17:00 PM
From: RADAR )))	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2231

sonicburger: Thank you for you kind words. I do get around the boards and appreciate that you chose to wander around with me. You question on float is really not that hard. A company authorizes, through their board of directors and their by-laws, so many shares of each class of stock. Lets say a company authorizes 10,000,000 shares, but holds 5,000,000 in the treasury and has put the other 5,000,000 out for sale. Of the 5,000,000 out for sale, officers, directors and others who have restrictions on the sale of the stock own 4,000,000. The total authorized shares is 10,000,000 but only 1,000,000 of that is available to the investing public (you and me) to purchase(5,000,000 minus 4,000,000). The 1,000,000 shares that can be sold unrestricted is the "float". The 10,000,000 is the authorized, the 5,000,000 is the outstanding and the $4,000,000 is the restricted. The smaller a float is, the less shares available for trading on the open market, the more volatile the share price will be. If the stock price is going up, it will go up very quickly because of supply and demand economics. When shorters sell their stock, a brokerage company must first borrow the stock to be sold from a street or house account. That effectively takes the stock off the market until the shorter finishes his trade and buys shares to "cover" his short sale. If a shorter gets caught with having sold shares, and then the price starts to go up, he will have to pay a higher price for the stock. If the stock has a small float and a lot of buyers, the price can run up quickly before a shorter can buy to cover his position. Hope I touched on some of the points you mentioned.. RADAR RADAR