Scott:
I think some of these guys are actually thinking of exactly that, getting some of these middle aged white guys to be somebuddy's bitch, when they envision sending corporate executives to do hard time in hard places. One of California's politicos (assist. atty general?) said as much, that he wanted Ken Lay to share a cell with a big, affectionate man.
Markets flat on low volume, VIX is still hanging out above the 30 range, can't quite make up its mind.
Every once in a while around the threads some 20-something will bring up Warren Buffet's name and "approach" (boiled down to an inane "buy a great company at a good price and hold forever"). I'm convinced that if Warren could, he would have already (maybe in 1998) done what he did in 1969 when he disbanded the original Buffet Partnership. I'm always tempted to straighten the jackass-in-question out (for example, yes, Warren bought the Wash Post and Coca Cola, but he also funded this stuff out of GEICO premiums and cash flow from See's Candies, something the rest of us might have a little difficulty doing, not to mention his arbitrage plays, commodities investments and white knight work in the 80s, and not to mention his first partnership which was basically a hedge fund where Warren got a 25% carried interest after a 6% hurdle rate), but almost always pass--it ain't worth the effort. The idea, though, that you can just read a little bit about Uncle Warren and then grow your $25K into $35 billion in 30 years by buying and holding a soft drink company and a couple of newspapers, is just ludicrous.
Good news is that we are probably 3.5 to 4.0 years into that shakeout process, which means we need to find a way to wait it out through the equivalent of 1973-74, bearish magazine covers and scalded investors before we find a market which will reward both fundamental and technical investors.
My guess is that market won't occur before 2nd quarter of 2003 but I could be wrong: it could be later.
Kb |
