Cheryl, although it's not on everyone's mind right now, I'm pretty sure that next year we will begin to be bombarded with Y2K stories. I remember reading somewhere that most people have most of their money in stocks, and so I do believe that people will take precautions and get out of the market. I'm on the flip side...worrying about my CDs because that's where 80% of my money is. I have stock in Harley Davidson, Compaq, Scientific Atlanta, LSI Logic, WES, and two long shots (ARIS and VOXL). I don't believe that they are at risk in going out of business, so I'll just hold the shares. All my panic and concern will be with my CDs. I'm a buy and hold type investor, and my horizon is 10 - 15 years. Like I said, I'm drooling over this possible stampede out of the market. I don't think that Coca Cola, Clorox, Colgate-Palmolive, and similar consumer monopolies are going to go out of business, and sooner or later the Y2K problem will be fixed, and I'm assuming that they will be fixed long before I'm ready to cash out of the market. This stampede, if it does materialize, will be 100% fear induced, and will completely ignore the underlying value of the companies. Once the Y2K problem has been satisfactorily fixed (yes, I do believe that some companies will go out of business), people will again enter the market. I'll hold off buying until late into 1999. Assuming that it won't be the end of the world, and that eventually the problem gets fixed (which of course it will, IMHO), can you imagine the wealth that people buying shares of Coke at 20$ a share will eventually accumulate?
E.H.F. |
