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Strategies & Market Trends : Shorting stocks: Broken stocks - Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: xcr600 who wrote (2237)	4/23/1999 9:12:00 PM
From: RockyBalboa	Respond to of 2506

Market for CHARD looks crazy. Bid 10.75 Ask 19.5, earlier: 7/23 8/20. Aren't there maximum spread rules? IS

To: xcr600 who wrote (2237)	4/23/1999 10:43:00 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2506

CHARRED on the outside, nothing on the inside! LOL! Traded a whole 700 shares today. How can you short on that kind of volume? The year chart is a thing of beauty though, nearly straight down. One million shares? 19 million market cap? It's a crap shoot, but should be headed down until they drill that thing and determine whether it's a boom or bust. Where can you find reliable info? Karakuduk Munay, J.V. (''KKM'') began drilling the Karakuduk No. 101 well on February 14, 1999. The well is located in the Karakuduk Field in the Republic of Kazakhstan, about 20 kilometers from the Caspian Sea. The target depth of well No. 101 will be approximately 10,660 feet (3250 meters) into the sands of the Lower Jurassic formation. The Karakuduk No. 101 well is expected to require four to six weeks to drill. It's almost ten weeks later and this is what they say: The Company also announced that it was informed by Karakuduk Munai Inc. (''KKM''), the joint venture entity through which the Company indirectly owns its interest in the Karakuduk Field, that the owner of the drilling rig currently working in the Karakuduk Field has terminated its contract with Challenger Oil Services PLC (''Challenger''). Consequently, on April 20, 1999, KKM notified Challenger that KKM was terminating the drilling contract between KKM and Challenger. It is the Company's understanding that KKM is actively pursuing alternative contractual arrangements to continue drilling operations in the Karakuduk Field. So nobody's working the field right now, and they haven't said they found any oil with the Feb. 14 well, but if they did not and it has not been commercially drilled, then how is this possible: The Company is also pleased to announce the first sale of oil from the Karakuduk Field in Kazakhstan. The first sale was approximately 95,000 barrels and was consummated on April 8, 1999 through the international market. So as I asked before, where can one find reliable info? This is confusing. The 10K don't look so good either: sec.yahoo.com

To: xcr600 who wrote (2237)	4/24/1999 11:02:00 PM
From: Q.	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 2506

CHARD is a fine specimen in every way, except the spread. The reverse split is the immediately compelling thing about shorting the stock. Stocks drop so rapidly after a reverse split that if the stock is shortable and trading costs are reasonable, you will have a very high probability of making a good scalping over a few days. If you are interested in shorting it longer term, I do see a few factors of real interest: they got a going concern from the auditor in the latest 10k, and their operations are primarily in Kazakhstan. Kathryn Staley's book mentions that one of the profile for possible scam stocks is when the operations are all far away from where shareholders can see them. You can hardly beat Kazakhstan on that count. Who knows what exactly CHARD owns, or how certain it is that they really own it, or how certain any information about it can be. Another nasdaq 'oil' stock that fits this profile is AIPN, which has an active thread on SI, with true believers battling shorts and nay-sayers. AIPN is also primarily in Kazakhstan, and otherwise has little to be said about it except a really badly broken stock price and a bad balance sheet, like CHARD's. In fact, you can bet AIPN will reverse split in the future because they have been trading below a buck for a while. The warrants, BTW, are not much of an issue, because they amount to only a few percent dilution and most of them are way out of the money. BTW, I love the symbol CHARD. They couldn't have come up with something more apt if they had tried.