Oh, Ralph, why do you remind me?
I missed the opportunity to take a quick profit, I think that was about 5 minutes Tuesday morning, so it looks like I am stuck with them. But, I don't need the money anytime soon, so I will just forget about them.
Oh, well, looking on the bright side, I guess there are worse things to own than Dell, Lucent and Cisco. There is a really interesting article by Jeremy Siegel in this month's AAII Journal, on "Valuing Growth Stocks: Revisiting the Nifty Fifty," about the 1973-1974 bear market. He examines the performance of the Nifty Fifty, from their peak in December, 1972, through August 31, 1998 (probably his publication deadline) and concludes that the after tax yield of a portfolio of the Nifty Fifty purchased at the peak underperformed the S&P 500 only slightly, and would have surpassed the after tax yield of the S&P 500 for a taxpayer in the 28% bracket. Further, a portfolio of Nifty Fifty stocks purchased at the bottom would have substantially outperformed the S&P 500 during the same time period. So.
Maybe I should learn about puts and calls. However, one of my best friends, a very smart man, really got hurt investing in puts and calls, and I don't think I am as smart about investments as he is, so I will probably just watch and try to control my impulses.
Man, the news on CNN just gets worse and worse. Seems like the whole world is going to hell all at once.
Yours,
CobaltBlue |
