| | John,
I have not said anything about selling MTSN at these levels although I currently own no shares. I did try to trade it quickly a few times in the portion of the decline from 18 to 10 and had some very limited success. (As you know, I sold a huge position in MTSN in the 40's for a 5-6 bagger profit.)
Lately, my posts have related to tech in general, and the chip sector in particular. I have not mentioned MTSN other than to WARN much, much earlier to this thread and the one on YAHOO that MTSN completed a massively bearish head and shoulders top formation last summer when it decisively broke 28. At that time, much to eternally optimistic Ian's chagrin, I mentioned that the next support was at 15 (at which level it bounced back to 24 in the summer rally, as I predicted it would), then more meaningful support at 10-12 and at the 7-8 level. Of course, there are no bounces anymore. For that very accurate prediction, Ian blamed the entire decline from 50 to 8 on me. Man, I sure wish I had that much impact!!
While MTSN now appears to be somewhat washed out and trying to put in a base in the 10 area, I think there is a possibility it could go lower before this is over. I don't have to remind you where MTSN went during the height of the Asian crisis. I am not saying it will go back there again but I am saying that it appears to me that the US and global economies are heading into a very ugly recession and tech is going to bear the brunt of it because that is where the excesses were. By 11 am tomorrow, NAZZ comp will be down well over 50 percent from its high of last March and that sure is saying something. If you don't want to listen to the story being told, it is at your own peril.
I am sure that if someone wants to look at MTSN at this level as a long term investment, then it not be a bad entry point. The problem is that, historically, chip gear stocks have been lousy investments but they have been great, great trading stocks. You can get rich trading them when everybody else hates them and then selling them when everybody loves them but you can go broke investing in them like many on this thread are foolishly trying to do. Even the leader of the pack, AMAT, has proved to be a much better trading vehicle than an investment vehicle.
John, you see, it's really simple, the market is always telling a story and most of the lemmings don't want to listen. The story that the market tells is what is going to happen in the future. That why charts, sentiment studies and other technical tools are so very valuable. As I have surfed these threads over the past 5 years, it is quite obvious that the number one mistake is looking at the fundamentals of the market and in individual stocks in the present and over the past and not listening to what the price action is telling about the future. I think the future will become very clear in the next week with the earnings warning season upon us. We got a preview tonight from Gateway and Altera. It's not pretty, in fact I think it is going to get quite ugly. All the best. Phil |
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