That Crazy old Stock Market

[billyjoe]

We've all held stocks that were hit hard by an earnings miss. A penny under estimates can cost millions in market cap. Today something happened that defies explanation at least any way I can figure. EMC corporation spun off VMW in a highly successful IPO. As of 3 pm.est, the IPO is approximately $23 dollars above issue price of $29. EMC still holds 87% or about 300 million shares of VMW. This would seem to indicate a value of approx. 15 billion dollars well above the 650 million EMC paid for VMware several years ago. The amount above the issue price alone represents a 6.65 billion dollar premium. Quite a boost for EMC, the parent company it would appear, but no! EMC as of this writing is down nearly 2%. If anyone can explain this to me, I'll consider you a genius.

--------------billyjoe

[mrmarket]

We've all held stocks that were hit hard by an earnings miss. A penny under estimates can cost millions in market cap. Today something happened that defies explanation at least any way I can figure. EMC corporation spun off VMW in a highly successful IPO. As of 3 pm.est, the IPO is approximately $23 dollars above issue price of $29. EMC still holds 87% or about 300 million shares of VMW. This would seem to indicate a value of approx. 15 billion dollars well above the 650 million EMC paid for VMware several years ago. The amount above the issue price alone represents a 6.65 billion dollar premium. Quite a boost for EMC, the parent company it would appear, but no! EMC as of this writing is down nearly 2%. If anyone can explain this to me, I'll consider you a genius.

--------------billyjoe

Sounds like a cheap way to get your hands on VMW. Buy EMC and short VMW.

[billyjoe]

Finally am showing a slight gain with EMC. Although the last month or so was somewhat disastrous with my account being down nearly 10% from its yearly high, I've got little or no exposure to housing or banking, got rid of the deadwood stocks and am down less than 1 1/2% YTD. I can live with that.

-------------billyjoe