Profit-Taking, Short-Selling Cited in Fall of Printronix Stock

Printronix Inc.’s stock fell almost 14% Thursday in what one analyst said appears to be a spate of profit-taking and short-selling.

The nation’s largest maker of line-matrix computer printers, Printronix saw its shares fall $2.75 to close at $17.75 on Nasdaq despite any negative news or analyst reports on the company.

“We are not certain why the price reduced so much,” said George Harwood, the Irvine-based company’s chief financial officer.

Richard Davis, an independent consultant in the Bay Area town of Union City, said he suspects that many investors who benefited over the past year, when the company’s stock price more than tripled, are now cashing out.

Also, Davis said, short-selling--in which an investor bets that a stock’s value will decline--may have temporarily depressed the price.

He said he still thinks that Printronix’s strategy of becoming an original equipment manufacturer for major computer makers like IBM, Digital Equipment Corp. and Unisys is sound, however, and that the stock price will rise this year.