As my username suggests, I may be able to clear up a couple of items here (make a nice change, usually it's you guys clearing up MY confusions!):
The current weakness in the easyJet share price is down to a combination of 1) concerns of the impact of George Dubya/Our Tone's double act over Iraq on SLF's willingness to fly; 2) concerns over easyJet management's ability to integrate the Go acquisition successfully (including resolving the pilot dispute) 3) concerns as to their ability to get Deutsche BA into a suitable shape to exercise their option to purchase later this year; 4) concerns as to the recent slippage in passenger yields that we've been seeing (yes, you expect prices to be low when you're expanding operations as fast as these guys, but the market's been a bit taken by surprise as to the recent falling off of rates; 5) the high oil price - easyJet are unusual in their policy of not hedging against fuel costs; 6) the apparent delay in getting out an EGM statement which will include a trading update - we're starting to get concerned that it my be weak and 7) market weakness - airlines are what we call "high beta", in other words, they have a high degree of correlation with market movements, sometimes moving far further than the market (eg market goes down 1%, EZJ shares down 2%).
So all the suggestions we've had so far are right!
The only one I think looks wrong is the idea of management getting a guarantee on their share price - are you maybe thinking about the exercise price on their share options? Which IS fixed, but that fixes a price for them to buy those shares at, not sell.
...hmmm .... maybe I haven't helped at all ....
