Short AHMH

I am not part of the fairly large group of bears that believe the OC amounts are going to decline to the point that mortgage originators are going to face their own Americredit moment (let's hope not - MBIA won't be big enough to rescue them), but this remains a controversial issuer long after the easy money on the short side has been made. It's earnings are heavily driven by gain on sale margins that, frankly, look suspicious to people and look unsustainable to people who aren't suspicious (and I'm more in the second category). People, correctly or incorrectly, believe that the refi boom is finally finished. Their refi mix isn't radically different from other people's refi mix, but many are of the opinion, including the large Lending Tree short contingent, that the margin growth at AHMH is disproportionately refi based. Fair or not, Strauss is generally perceived as a promoter. Some people think a growth-through-acquisition strategy is being misleadingly touted as a growth through new marketing channels strategy. Just the hangover from when this common stock was really over-priced (2xB for a mortgage orginator?) will keep some people away from it. Insiders selling 25% of their shares in the secondary is virtually unheard of in this business. Growth in assets from $28MM to $1B leave many questioning whether this is a bicycle without a kickstand. The OTS' request that it withdraw its thrift charter application and re-apply with a different business plan has a lot of people curious (particuarly since the Columbia acquistion was so much larger), but in truth, the biggest thing is the simplest: the company get its liquidity almost exclusively from people like Paine Webber and RFC: and doesn't disclose its warehousing rates. Non-depository financial institutions are, for obvious reasons, not particularly popular at the moment.