Wrong! Dispatches from the Front

Cramer in a Compaq Firefight

 

(Editor's Note: This is really over the top. Cramer, already a bit edgy for my taste, looks like he has lost it. Or at least he's close. A few minutes ago I received a frantic phone call. Cramer, breathing heavy, just screamed, "It's a war zone out there. It's messy. Bears and bulls clawing, goring." I told him to quick write a piece. So hang on. Here we go.)

"We've got incoming, we've got incoming. Many men down, many men down. The Compaq LZ is hot, the LZ is hot."

It's me again. I'm on the walkie talkie to Jeff Berkowitz, my partner: We've been fooled by Merrill Lynch, off the CFO's bullish call that is going on. We thought we had the shorts surrounded, but the bears had us ambushed instead.

"Get me out of here," I yell to my trader. "Get me out of here. Where are the choppers? We are under severe pressure. Get me out of this #$%#^#%$Compaq."

Jeff is nodding in his always cool manner, he's telling me the call is going as expected. Rear echelon $%#^%#%$#$%. I tell him I'm taking half our troops out that we just inserted. But we're taking severe casualties. We're getting hit. The choppers can't get us out whole. We've got light machine guns and M-16s, but the bears have the high ground and have zeroed in with mortars, sub-$1,000 PCs and high channel inventory.

"I got to get us out of here," I scream to him through his glass enclosed office. He's still on the call, nodding his head, eyes closed.

"What's our basis?" he yells through the speaker.

"Sixty-three-and-three-quarters," I say.

"We have no edge here," he says. "No kidding," I scream, "we're taking fire from all sides."

Jeff again: "Cut our losses. Get the position down to tag ends. This is not a fair fight. We have peashooters in Tiananmen Square." So goes our foray into tech investing for today. Back to the Prozackian comfort of drugs and drillers.

As I write we have a small outpost in Compaq. We regret the incursion and are checking ourselves into Traders Anonymous.

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