Unfortunately, I have acquired some notoriety among my acquaintances by touting JDSU, BRCM, and GBLX to a few people back in late 1998. I went to a party last night and several people brought up the stock market without any prompting from me:
1) a self-employed woman, 30 years old, who recently started a SEP-IRA and is looking for some "really aggressive picks". I told her that cash looked really good right now. She seemed undeterred, however. After all, she plans to retire at age 45.
2) a good friend of mine, a high-earning VP of sales in his mid-30s, who recently bought even more AOL on margin because "it's so cheap right now".
3) a power-plant worker who trusted the acumen of person #2 and bought AOL on margin at 87, who is now underwater on the order of tens of thousands of dollars. The money he put in to the market was a capital gain from real estate he sold, and he will barely be able to cover the taxes from the sale now.
4) another self-employed person who told me how he is making a killing on stocks like RACE and XING... he does this by watching CNBC and following the Yahoo! message boards. He plans to retire within 4 more years.
5) A young engineer at Raytheon who has seen his 401(k) fall by 50% in the last few months. He seemed to embrace the New Economy a bit less tahn the others.
I left the party less sanguine about the market than I have ever been. This is suburban Indianapolis, Indiana after all - not a tavern in midtown Manhattan. Yep, everybody is in the pool.
P.S. I did not exaggerate or fabricate here in the slightest. |
