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Non-Tech : Ashton Technology (ASTN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (795)	5/7/1999 8:54:00 AM
From: wily	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4443

Don't forget the NITE rumor.

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (795)	5/7/1999 9:43:00 AM
From: Wesley0428	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4443

Zeev, with all due respect (and I really do mean that) I think you may be missing the forest for the trees here. As an aside, have you not noticed in this market that those too naive to even know that the trees exist are making all the money. You may be smarter than the average retail investor, but is that making you outperform the average retail investor in this market? I'm slowly learning to "dumb down" my analyses. Anyway, back to ATG. A sea change is occurring in the trading of financial instruments and ATG is in the middle of that change. All the attention has thus far gone to the "retail" side of that change (ECN's, NITE, online brokers, etc.) Meanwhile ATG quietly focuses on the institutional side, where all the parties eschew publicity. This is the equivalent in the internet fervor to a firm focusing on "business-to-business" e-commerce while everybody else is talking about retail-to-consumer e-commerce. One of the realities of the institutional side of the financial markets is that technology alone won't make you successful. There are a lot of players in the "system" that must be involved. ATG is doing that right now, behind the scenes and it is the reason ATG can succeed where Optimark has foundered. These non-technology pieces of the puzzle, as they become known, will make the magnitude of ATG's potential widely recognized. Meanwhile, the game being what it is, plenty of players in the system will no doubt be getting in first, thus supporting the stock for no visible reason. Regarding cash, I don't see a lot of dillution likely and if there is some it does not worry me, because the operational cash flow is not that far off and ATG is setting the table so it will be substantial very early on. Were you aware that the Gomez PP was suposed to be $3M, but ended up at $5.5M due to extraordinary demand, including one person who wanted the whole $3M. The Gomez IPO will occur, most likely in Sep., and in and of itself will set a floor on ASTN of $6 - $12. IMHO it is unlikely that the warrants will be called. As for being short for the short-term, I think that is a risky position. There are several relationships being negotiated that could become "news" at any time. Research coverage could be initiated at any time. An unsolicited buy-out offer could emerge at any time. Meanwhile the stock is shifting from daytrader's hands to institutional hands, reducing the effective float. This stock could have a 5 -10 point pop in one day, but nothing is going to drop it that much that fast, so I don't see the wisdom in being short this stock at this time.