Teresa,
I just stumbled across this thread and found it
very interesting. One thing that has been perplexing
me is, how much damage the retail client has really
suffered. I am responding to the following comment
that you made:
"...it's amazing how the average actually masks all this
damage to the average retail client. They are getting
killed out there."
I definitely believe that the retail client is getting
clocked, but I'm amazed that I haven't heard about any
lawsuits against the analysts or brokerage firms ... after
all, we are a society of victims <g>. Your recent posting
of the most active stock charts, prompted me to put
together a quick table on most of these stocks, showing the
average return over the last few years. Amazingly, it
really is pretty good! The only investors that are
definitely getting decimated, are the ones that bought at
the all time highs. See the table below:
% Gain if bought at various dates
All-Time
1/1/97 1/1/98 1/1/99 1/1/00 1/1/01 High
JNPR 409% - - 146% -18% -66%
NTAP 1173% 850% 238% 89% -26% -75%
JDSU 1278% 747% 395% 45% 9% -72%
BRCM 500% - 143% 57% 1% -72%
MSFT 179% 80% -16% 51% 36% -51%
AMCC 2925% 2635% 900% 134% -30% -59%
ARBA 10% - - 26% -41% -87%
SDLI 2424% 4155% 1519% 149% 16% -65%
BRCD 1211% - - 170% - 2% -45%
AMAT 355% 175% 92% 67% 8% -63%
SCMR - 64% - - 22% -27% -89%
DELL 573% 119% -37% 46% 34% -61%
SEBL 1816% 1038% 613% 138% 9% -51%
EMLX 3837% 4251% 1616% 122% 22% -31%
CIEN 332% 160% 1016% 287% 21% -47%
WCOM 6% -5% -59% 37% 19% -71%
BEAS 3285% 1087% 1601% 152% 0% -41%
CHKP 2322% 1178% 1099% 237% 17% -27%
PMCS 1362% 643% 260% 73% -15% -77%
YHOO 1724% 237% -55% 12% -1% -89%
AVG: 1283% 1157% 583% 103% 2% -62%
For stocks that weren't trading in 1997, I used the closing
price on the day of the IPO.
Of course, these are the hottest stocks and don't take into
consideration all of the dot-com complete implosions. I
guess I can imagine how the average retail investor is
somewhat complacent, if their returns are even remotely
close to those above. Assuming they weren't the proud
owners of the all-time high top ticks, they are just
probably ignoring the current action, because after all,
they always come-back ... right?!
Regards,
Dave |
