Jeff, I think these are the times when people start viewing their investments as companies, and not stocks. And Lord knows, you've got to LOVE your company to put up with this market!
A few days ago, I heard that this was the steepest correction on the Nasdaq since 1976. I was playing spin the bottle back then <g> so I can't recall if that is true. Let's hope it is, cause, DERN this *is* painful for the old fashion types like me who do the BUY AND HOLD thing. Yeowch.
On the cc notes: management sounded the most confident and bullish that I've ever heard them. For them to go out on a limb and make a statement that Gross Margins will continue to increase every quarter for several YEARS, is just totally amazing! This is a HUGE statment to make and tells me that the next generation telecom infrastructure is going to require very sophisticated next generation analog components. And lucky for us longs/almost longs(<-that's you Jeff), barriers to entry in this analog market are high , analog engineers are a scarcity, and these new designs are going to be proprietary. (read: high margin).
I think we are definitely on the right train here. Now we only need Greenspan to behave.I think the market explodes the day Greenspan implies that the economy has cooled. On a related note, today I spoke to a veteran mortgage broker who stated that for the past 30 days business is absolutely DEAD. According to him, nobody wants to borrow money. He confirms that the sentiment for borrowing and spending money has changed dramatically. This has got to be a signal that this is the end of interest rate increases.
In the long run, I personally don't see how interest rates could possibly continue going up. Because of the Internet, most companies (except those doing proprietary products like you know who) are going to find themselves with NO pricing power. I think this will apply to both goods and services as consumers and businesses now have ubiquitous access to prices, which historically have not been available. So, I really don't see how rates can continue going higher. Besides, GOLD , the historical indicator of inflation, is still slumbering in it's bear market.If we are in an inflationary period, somebody forget to tell the Gold markets to react.
Anyways, have a great weekend and thanks for your post!
leeza |
