BURTBECK

Sirius XM On the Rise - Does Microsoft Want a Piece?

sl62---I have enjoyed our dialog today.
In your cogitations re market price manipulation, do not forget that for every single share bought, there is one sold--- and I am not aware of any "fails to deliver" with SIRI clearings. The two parties are at cross purposes to one another--true manipulation requires them to be in cahoots.

Sirius XM On the Rise - Does Microsoft Want a Piece?

Correction---in my 5:14 PM post in first paragraph I said "tens of billion shares out". Wrong. I meant to say "hundreds of millions of shares out".

sl62--You ask whether I think MANIPULATION has occured. There probably are very isolated instances, but in my long investment career I learned it is extremely difficult to influence the price of a stock whose average daily volume for 3 months is nearly 64 million shares and where there are several dozen NASDAQ market makers. Hanky -panky is much easier the lower the number in these two categories.

Sirius XM On the Rise - Does Microsoft Want a Piece?

sl62 and other posters who have mildly been bashing me today--

I never thought the merger would help, and over the 1 1/2 years I posted many times that thought. My basic thought all along is that with the tens of billions of shares out (from 1.2B shares for SIRI in 2004 to about 3.2B shares SIRI/XMSR combined today) the market cap has ranged from $10+B down to over $2.5B today.
These astronomical numbers have been (un)supported by $BILLIONS of bottom line losses, same numbers for negative cash flows, rapidly decreasing growth rates in net sub adds enhanced by nearly spiking increases in churn, increasingly negative figures for working capital and stockholder equity, total dependence on the cooperarion of increasingly tough lenders in even tougher credit markets, no new programming enhancements, consumers looking for ways to cut their own overhead, a cooking of the books --see acct payable increases-- so that 4Q06 and 4Q07 positive cash flow could be bragged on, AND I COULD GO ON.

Would Warren Buffet pay the $BILLIONS that the market has said and still says this piece of s--- is worth?? No he wouldn't, and neither would I.

Sirius XM On the Rise - Does Microsoft Want a Piece?

sl62--- You say-I paraphrase-I make flippant statements without any hard numbers.
Over the 4 years I've probably posted re SIRI about 100 times on Yahoo and these blogsites. At least 90% of these have rendered lengthy bearish analyses with more numbers than anyone wanted to read. I would spend lots of time and arithmetic putting these things together and two hours later the only maybe three responsive comments would be along the lines--"FU BURTBECK YOU GD BASHER".
This can be confirmed by Tyler Slattery, who someone told me, used to post as Doberman007 on Yahoo and with whom several years ago I did have a very occasional debate. Also of note is the quality of ignorant commentary on Yahoo gave me further incentive to increase my short position because those bidding up the price did not have a clue. And, to have the last word, I have all along been right.

Sirius XM On the Rise - Does Microsoft Want a Piece?

sl62--I have participated here and on Yahoo pretty rarely---recently maybe more than my average.
Every one of my postings has been intended to give hard reasons why SIRI has been overpriced every day-- I am trying to save the 'Strong Buys' from foolishly wasting their money, as they have indeed done long term (I hope maybe some profits on short term trades).
And my posting today @ $0.78 pps is intended to save exactly that amount---as I said, I feel better than 50-50 chance $0.00 is on the horizon.

Sirius XM On the Rise - Does Microsoft Want a Piece?

cos1000---

You say "SIRI investors...are myopic...and fail to look at the bigger picture..."

I'm pretty sure that's what I've looked at every day since $9.43 pps nearly four years ago. My view has led me to a gigantic profit on my (now nearly covered) short position.

You, my friend, are commiting the cardinal sin: YOU ARE ARGUING WITH THE TAPE.

Sirius XM On the Rise - Does Microsoft Want a Piece?

Many investors think "OK, we'll just absorb a bunch of losses, cover them with more borrowings, but we'll keep growing and eventually we'll make money and the stock will achieve its PPS destiny.

IT TAKES CHECKING ACCOUNT CASH TO STAY ALIVE!

Such a situation places a company's fate totally in the hands of willing lenders. (New equity at current price is out of the (dilutive!) question.)
As I see it SIRI is in a life-or-death race to achieve sufficient cash flow to make a good case to lenders and there is a less than 50-50 chance that lenders in current and 2009 credit markets will want to keep the enterprise afloat. The current financial statement metrics are HORRIBLE. A Ch.11 reorganization would do wonders--the subscribers would be taken care of but the shareholders would NOT.

Goldman's Sirius Call: Solid Thesis, Poor Timing

To ripped--Get with it! I have not, nor would ever, short a $2 stock. I shorted at average $5.51 and therefore have around $3.50 per share paper profit right now. I agree it's too late to do it now--the law of diminishing returns plus much poorer risk/reward etc etc. But I am prepared to milk the thing for STILL MORE profit because I believe even with a merger SATRAD will ultimately be a total failure.
IF I am wrong, and the price gets up to the $4's, for example, my profit cushion will enable me to cover with, albeit smaller, gain.

Different subject---Martin's conditional approval of the merger was announced two weeks ago and it is a very good assumption that the merger will go thru probably exactly as he stated. All the SIRI longs have long awaited such a thing as the virtual second coming and the stock did zoom for a few trades the first trading morning.
BUT that was short-lived, and PPS has been significantly lower for well over a week. How come?? Do a few negative comments from GS negate the 17 months of merger hoopla?? I would be interested in opinions of SIRI PPS one week and one month after merger is official. I'll start it off by saying $2.40 then $1.90.

Goldman's Sirius Call: Solid Thesis, Poor Timing

I couldn't have said it better myself.
I attempted to on 6/25 when I made a comment on a Tyler Slavery blog at 9:19AM---interested SIRI/XM players might like to read it. It puts up a lot of numbers to reinforce the premise here.
Just for the record I established a core 5-figure share short position in SIRI 2004-2006 @ average $5.51 and will cover , I'm confident, below 50 cents sometime next two years. Also have had maybe 20 very short-term trades on SIRI short side and have zero losses on same.