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Disputing Apple's 'Large' Short Position

Doug Kass

Dueling Over Apple
1/22/2007 10:15 AM EST

Jim "El Capitan" Cramer wrote about Apple (AAPL) this morning, and I'd like to respond.

One thing that I want to immediately dispute is his statement that Apple's short position is large. It is not!

The float at Apple is 850 million shares -- only 24.5 million shares are short (a lowly 2.9% of the float). Moreover, with average trading volume of 70 million shares, (over the last 10 days) and 32.3 million shares of average trading volume (over the last three months), the short ratio is also a lowly 0.90.

Game on, Jimmy!

No positions in stocks mentioned

Start of Citigroup Separation?
1/22/2007 9:30 AM EST

There is a lot of speculation about the implications and reasons for the management change made today at Citigroup (C).

As most know, Sallie Krawcheck is leaving her CFO post to become CEO and chairman of the Global Wealth Management Group. From my perch this might not be a promotion or a demotion for Krawcheck; rather it might be a precursor to a split-up of Citigroup. This is something we wrote about in December in our Surprise List for 2007:

2. Robert E. Rubin returns to his brokerage roots and becomes the CEO and chairman of Salomon Brothers/Smith Barney after Citigroup (C) decides to break up into three separate companies: a domestic money center bank (Citibank), investment banking/retail brokerage (Salomon Brothers/Smith Barney) and international consumer finance (Citiglobal).

No positions in stocks mentioned

Is the iPhone Just a Phone? Part IV
1/22/2007 8:50 AM EST

Last week I spent a lot of time discussing some reservations I had with several of the features of Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and I questioned the hype which contributed to a sharp rise in Apple's equity capitalization. (See Parts I, II and III).

I estimate that since Tuesday the market has given back about half the increase associated with the iPhone introduction ($99 in late Tuesday trading to $89 this morning), so thus far my analysis seems to have been respectable.

In my three-part series I also acknowledged my limited knowledge of technology so I used a number of professional sources as a source for my analysis, which I find to be more rigorous than unsupported blanket statements of opinion.

This morning I wanted to pass on a comprehensive and negative assessment of the iPhone product by Computerworld, "How Steve Jobs Blew His iPhone Keynote."

This are the six main points presented by Mike Elgan, Computerworld's technology writer.

1. Jobs raised buyer expectations too high.
2. Jobs raised Wall Street expectations too high.
3. Jobs gave competitors a head start.
4. Jobs undermined Apple TV hype.
5. Jobs put iPod sales at risk.
6. Jobs wrecked Cisco talks.

No positions in stock mentioned