Last week I watched in fascination as a seller of the MSFT Jan '07, 27.50 (sym: VMFAS) calls sold tens and tens of thousands of calls. Each individual call covers 100 shares of MSFT. The week before the same thing happened.
Rightly or wrongly, the voice in my head said, "That's gotta be Ballmer".
Now just reading CNET, (and an article on how Google could very easily supplant Microsoft), I'm beginning to put 2 and 2 together. Forbes also has a new article on MSFT sinking, relative to Google. In Forbes, Ballmer's new strategy is "Defying Gravity." Interesting. Microsoft didn't have to acknowledge any "gravity" in years past.
I think a call seller that big can only be long the stock. I've watched the daily actives for years and haven't seen anything like it. It was always clear the seller was lurking there for more size, and he was.
In the absence of owning the stock, even billionaires would feel a solid kick to the crotch for selling that many calls, if MSFT were to skyrocket. Never mind the high margin needed to sell the calls naked.
I think it's possible that MSFT is presenting it's best face to the public, while the alarm bells are going off inside the company.
Hopefully knowledgeable tech people can weigh in here, and describe what Google could do to make Microsoft vulnerable. If it's possible you can almost bet the smarty pants at Google have considered it. Is MSFT vulnerable in some way, going forward?
Rightly or wrongly, the voice in my head said, "That's gotta be Ballmer".
Now just reading CNET, (and an article on how Google could very easily supplant Microsoft), I'm beginning to put 2 and 2 together. Forbes also has a new article on MSFT sinking, relative to Google. In Forbes, Ballmer's new strategy is "Defying Gravity." Interesting. Microsoft didn't have to acknowledge any "gravity" in years past.
I think a call seller that big can only be long the stock. I've watched the daily actives for years and haven't seen anything like it. It was always clear the seller was lurking there for more size, and he was.
In the absence of owning the stock, even billionaires would feel a solid kick to the crotch for selling that many calls, if MSFT were to skyrocket. Never mind the high margin needed to sell the calls naked.
I think it's possible that MSFT is presenting it's best face to the public, while the alarm bells are going off inside the company.
Hopefully knowledgeable tech people can weigh in here, and describe what Google could do to make Microsoft vulnerable. If it's possible you can almost bet the smarty pants at Google have considered it. Is MSFT vulnerable in some way, going forward?
