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Strategies & Market Trends : The Thread Formerly Known as No Rest For The Wicked -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BoneYardDog who wrote (47100)	5/30/1999 10:21:00 AM
From: stan s.	Respond to of 90042

Hi Txdenis, Float...the number of shares that are actively tradable in the market, excluding shares that are held by officers and major stakeholders that have agreements not to sell until someone else is offered the stock. Outstanding shares Shares that are currently owned by investors. The advantage of a small float is if the stock becomes attractive for whatever reason...the price can move rapidly higher as the demand quickly exceeds supply....if ya have 5 apples and 10 people want 'em...you get your price... One thing you might look at in terms of the float is the short % interest as a % of. In that situation (if short interest is high) if there is good news on a heavily shorted stock with a small float...you have the possibility of a short squeeze...because at some point a short has to buy the stock he has sold...this can 'cause a panic to ensue. Beware however that threads are littered with BS about short squeezes, they are relatively rare. As far as float as a percentage of outstanding shares, that tells you what % is tightly tucked away as in the aforementioned definition. Here's a decent glossary, there are better ones I'm sure, many financial sites have 'em. biz.yahoo.com Institutional % importance is open to interpretation. There is implied stability in high ownership by institution because the perception is they "know" something. Often that's not the case as shown on this very thread and with Tim's picks. There was a time when it was thought that institutions would be less likely to sell in a panic...now they often lead the panic... Stan