By: TripleAction
Reply To: 2422 by arthurs1 Thursday, 23 Sep 1999 at 3:54 PM EDT
Post # of 2436
OT: I was thinking of getting on the soap box
But I'm afraid of what I'll say. Could get me censored again.
Seriously, I'm holding-till-the-cows-come-home (commonly known as HTTCCH ;)). Right now they're grazing and getting fat. Just the way I like it. My advice for the frustrated among us is ... chill out.
Regarding our current malaise, here's my take on what gives here. The market ? the market is what gives.
Let?s cut right to the chase: I view the current weakness in IATV, AND the sector in general, as a buying opportunity, not the beginning of a string of lower prices.
The current thinking is that the recent decline in technology and other growth stocks is based entirely on creeping inflation and the need to raise interest rates. Oddly, this theory seems to be held only in the stock market; bond market investors are snapping up long bonds in the belief that long rates are headed back to 5.5%.
What does that mean? Let me expound. The bond market often leads technology stocks both up and down. Technology stocks are sensitive to interest rate changes because much of the current value of a growth company comes from the discounted value of earnings projected far in the future. Therefore the best indicator of potential interest rate changes comes from the bond market itself, not television commentators who are purely reactive and innately slimy.
When professional bond investors are enthusiastically buying up bonds, as they are now, technology stocks tend to turn up.
The CPI which recently confused the market, is now being called a fluke by the pundits. Anything to spook the market and keep it from going up. But is it justified?
Look around and you?ll see companies still have little pricing power. I talk to many executives who say that wage pressure has subsided from 98 levels. I like the way Dave Kansas at TSC puts it ?Sure employment remains tight, but it?s been tight for some time. Why suddenly all the concern? ?
So, will we see an additional drop in IATV? If the doom and gloomers have it their way ? probably YES! But it will be a temporary drop and include all tech stocks, not just IATV. Do we know how severe? No. That?s impossible to know.
What I see is some of the best product cycles ever and the continuation of the Internet?s explosive growth. Until I see clearer evidence to the contrary, I?m staying fully invested and taking advantage of these dips to add great technology stocks like IATV to my holdings
Right now, the data we're being fed to crash the market is #@%$& weak. I've learned a long time ago never to fight weak data (or the reactions to it). It will come.
On an annual basis this economy has been positively roaring for three years running; but on a quarterly basis it has turned in gross domestic product increases as "small" as 3% (fourth quarter of 1997), 2.1% (third quarter of 1996) and 1.8% (second quarter 1998). As they have been doing for years now, the slowdown types will continue to jump on every weak piece of monthly and quarterly data that hits the tape and interpret it to mean that this time the slowdown is here. Really. This is it. This time it's really for real. Friggin Swear.
So I say you are warned. Focus on the facts. Not on the speculation. Not on the dogma. Not on the baseless blanket statements. Not on the same silly thinking that's produced silly forecasts in the past. On the facts. They will guide the way.
Having said that, here?s my quick-take on IATV's earnings.
There are very few surprises on Wall Street and more significantly, all information is not created equal, (so excuse me if I take some poster's ?Institutions-are-equal to-investor-theory? with a yawn). If earnings are going to be a surprise (one way or the other) you?ll see it 99% of the time before the announcement and on increased volume as the institutions on ?Page One? including the Wired Hedge Funds who got the ?early call? load up (or dump). Right now everything looks good.
If you did your DD, (and I have a strong feeling many of you did) I?m sure the facts of that process dictated your decision to BUY IATV. It did for me and I?m sticking to it. To me this economy will continue to roar and this sector is the place to be. Finally, Inflation seems as dead as ever. But hey! What do I know.
TA
(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)
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