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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bill meehan who wrote (61111)	5/30/1999 1:38:00 PM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 132070

I am wondering why there has been no discussion here of IIX, the Internet Index, which as best I can tell can be shorted just like anything else. Various quote systems seem not to have quite settled on how to designate it, sometimes calling it ^IIX or .IIX. At first I was looking at the options, but the premiums seem worse than just putting individual stocks, though I have't worked it out in detail. But I may well change at least some of my short position in XLK for a short of IIX. Even Internet enthusiasts agree that many companies will just disappear or lose a great deal of their value. One can find the components (all the usual suspects--YHOO, AOL, CSCO,etc plus others) on the amex site--amex.com. To me shorting IIX sounds like buying a barrel full of fish to shoot at. Of course you have to have plenty of cash to avoid margin calls in case of yet another manic run-up. It's now trading at about 300, down from a top of around 370. So if it went back up you could find yourself in the hole for $700 in margin calls per round lot.