Greg, I feel your pain "-) Actually, I do, all of us have been battered around lately. I accumulated some AOL today at 85 and change, never thought I would see that level again, but there it was. I was actually planning to accumulate at 90, and for a while never thought it would get there. You called it, though, it was you who was calling for a 90 bottom. The real bottom is/was around 85 IMO. The 70 or whatever it got to was a blowoff panic bottom manipulated by the WSJ, CNBC, and others where all the weak hands got out and the big boys accumulated.
As far as getting back into AOL and ignoring the rest of the nets, I could not agree with you more. As Pittman said, AOL is doing what the other nets say they want to do. Large e-commerce deals, 9 times more paying eyeballs than Microsoft, so many other eyeballs on free or cheaper services that they can not even be counted accurately, DSL coming down the line. As I have always said, if AOL does not make it, forget the internet as a commercial vehicle and give it back to the gummint and the universities.
As far as buying IBM, MSFT, GE, etc, I don't think big is back in yet. Myself, I am diversified into mid-caps with a mutual fund, into value with another fund, and into money market with the rest. But those will not allow me to retire early. AOL and the other high-flyers that I have, QCOM, PCS, and others, are the ones that might do that. But I gotta admit, they do make me take some TUMS now and then. That is when I decide to just go sailing and forget it.
Good luck, buddy! |
