Elite Pharmaceuticals Inc (ELTP)

[WeeZuhl]

Why would an MM support the bid?

I would guess that the run up to .97 caused a "reset" of the break-even point among the MM's. Back when it hovered around .07 and then .12, they had a different break-even point. They did all their selling, naked shorting, covering, and reloading during the run-up and retreat, and now their current buy-in level is low .20's. Letting it go too far below the buy-in level would not be good for them. For a short period it would allow them to reload the boat for next move upward, but after a while they would have a full boat and would not want to price to fall below the average PPS of their current boatload of shares.

The MMs do not hold that long they unload the same day or the next.

According to J-La, the MM's are supporting the bid, but they are not doing it in an effort to protect themselves. And it is outside of their own self-interests, since they can make more money by letting the price fall below current levels.

So, again the question, why would the MM's support the bid? We all know they are not going to act against their own self-interests, ever, never, not even a little bit. The only other reason I can possibly think of is this: the MM's only appear to be supporting the bid but actually they are doing exactly what the MM's are supposed to be doing- they are buying shares per the instructions they have been given. Some entity (please feel free to rampantly speculate starting now), some entity has instructed them as such: "I want to own every share under .225 but I do not want the share price to fall below .215."

It is probably not an ELTP insider, unless they are doing it with an agent and skirting SEC reporting regulations. And it's not somebody who wants to accumulate shares as cheaply as possible, or else we'd be seeing the frequent bear raids we saw down in the single digits. A competitor engaging in unfriendly takeover maneuvers would just want cheap shares. This suggests it is somebody who already has a substantial holding of ELTP that they do not want to diminish in value, such as a hedge fund that has to report to shareholders.

If you believe there is MM bid support, and if you believe that MM's always act in their own self-interest, then probably somebody who already holds a lot of shares is quietly buying a lot more shares, and that somebody is probably a micro-cap hedge fund. They want their shares cheap but not too cheap. The MM's, as always, are acting rationally and just following instructions-- keeping the price range in the sweet spot that the hedge fund has requested.