>But old shorts never die, they just run around shouting that the sky >is about to
>fall.
You know, every once in a while I'll read through some of the threads on the Yahoo message boards. The Amazon longs there tend to be less restrained, and literally every other message some long posts a string of messages saying "FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING SHORTS! YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE EVERY PENNY, THIS IS THE LAND OF FREE MONEY AND YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO JUMP ON BOARD."
When presented with these arguments, sometimes it is tempting to lose my cool and respond, but since I know the inevitable outcome of this mania I instead end up pitying them. Most of these investors (unlike William) will not be able to find a chair when the music stops. Many of them will be ruined, as margin purchasing seems the perfectly reasonable thing to do when your average net stock is going up 20% daily.
As with the newbies who absolutely refused to believe me when I said Amazon will not split on Dec 18, the longs cannot be reasoned with. You can't reason with the insane by definition. The madness of crowds has removed rational judgement from people who should really know better.
I'd say there is less than 1-2 weeks left before this whole fiasco explodes, and I will honestly be sad to see it happen. I believe the internet will be an integral part of the average human life in the reasonably near future, and I understand more than the average fellow that it will indeed be a revolution in our society.
However, the average joe has been lead to believe that any company that can get pushed out of an underwriters door into the Nasdaq is automatically going to conquer the earth. Many of them, being newbies, have literally no experience in the equity markets or with the internet. They have no idea how low the barriers to entry are, or how cut-throat the competition is going to be. All they know, and I repeat ALL they know, is that every IPO is heading straight to 300 bucks a share and a market cap of 10 billion dollars.
No research is being done whatsoever. The closest thing to research is listening to analysts with pie-in-the-sky price targets or perhaps tuning into CNBC to listen to the latest sell-sider sing the praises of anything .com.
It's all going to end badly, and that pains me because I really dont look forward to the stigma that will be attached to all things internet in the very near future. Right now to say you work for an internet company is considered cool- but within a month at the latest, it's going to garner about the same status as saying you're a used car salesman.
No amount of debate will convince these people, and since the holidays are upon us I believe I'll just finish adding to my put portfolio and spend the remainder of the year with my family. Since the only thing that will EVER snap these people back into reality is to lose all their money, the only thing I can do is sit back and watch the train wreck from a distance.
Happy holidays to all!
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