Volume Spike Investor

It seems no one is alone in their strong quest for breaking down news and moves in the stock of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI), or the Sirius-XM Radio (NASDAQ; SIRI) it has become.  Shortly after the close at our parent site, we covered how Mel Karmazin had purchased 2,000,000 shares in the open market today with our own take on it.

But one thing that wasn’t known was that Karmazin was coming on FOX BUSINESS NEWS to explain his purchases and some opinions on Sirius and the industry.  If you take Karmazin at face value in the FOX interview, it sounds like you have the reasons as to why the stock has recovered so much.

Below are some quotes from the Mel Karmazin FOX BUSINESS NEWS interview around 6PM this evening.

On personally buying stock in the company:

• “You should assume in the very near future that I will be in the market buying stock.”
• “I’ve always been a believer in having skin in the game.”
• “As soon as the lawyers give me permission, you should assume I’m buying stock.”

On the process of getting the merger approved:

• “At the end of the day we got the merger approved, and good things are worth waiting for.”
• “I never thought it would take that long.”

On if it’s feasible to argue that under a Democratic administration the merger wouldn’t have happened:

• “It’s feasible in that I wouldn’t know who the three Democrats would be in a Democratic administration, but all I can tell is that this deal although painful got done because of the three Republicans saw the benefits of the merger even with some voluntary conditions we agreed to.”

On the goal of the merger from his perspective:

• “Our goal is about getting more subscribers.”

For whatever it is worth, Karmazin must have had a much better game face on than the last interview he was on.  Shares had put in a new 52-week low close today but they are back up to where shares are up about 7% in after-hours to $1.49.  That may still be a small victory, but it’s better than where it was before.  Sirius didn’t double its volume after the close, but shares did spike twice on two variations of the same news.

Jon C. Ogg
August 4, 2008