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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Teresa Lo who wrote (24145)	6/26/1999 7:29:00 PM
From: Vendit™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

You don't take PM's but I didn't want you to miss my post to Steve......... Message 10286555 Please read it 2 or 3 times before you come to any conclusions. Vendit

To: Teresa Lo who wrote (24145)	6/26/1999 8:39:00 PM
From: r.edwards	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

TA is ephemeral,and if enough people watch it it can be like the emperors new clothes.........,acts 19:19 curious arts come to mind, whats your trading ideas for monday?indexes,options etc.?

To: Teresa Lo who wrote (24145)	6/27/1999 12:07:00 PM
From: Steve Robinett	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

IntellSpec Re: the organic chemistry textbook that, though perhaps wrong, in fact explained observed facts. Didn't all those Medieval shells explain the observed geocentric universe? Maybe you could use an astrolab (whatever and astrolab is) to predict share prices. Actually, here's a story I've used a couple of times to suggest TA's place in the investing universe. In WWII, the Allies had an astrologer on Eisenhower's staff, not because Eisenhower believed in astrology but because Hitler did and the Allies needed to know as much as they could about what Hitler was thinking. I consider TA in the same way, something a lot of people act on and that I need to understand--true or not--because their decisions do move the stock in the short run, the self-fulfilling prophesy effect. I think we actually agree on that. TA sometimes works because a lot of people believe it works and make buy/sell decisions using it. That TA seldom calls tops or bottoms correctly--indeed gives the most bullish signals at tops and the most bearish at bottoms--that TA types always have an ex post facto explanation for a stock's movement (e.g., it broke through a support line then came back and revalidated that support line, etc.), that TA substitutes apparent simplicity--in fact, blind faith--for the hard work of understanding a company's business, its prospects, its potential return--none of this enters the pure technician's mind. With a stock like AOL (and other Internets), so disconnected from fundamental value that it could trade at $50/shr or $150/shr and either price would be equally plausible, TA becomes more important because more people rely in it to make decisions and value theories are more problematical. It seems obvious to me that AOL's prospects for the future are no less bright, probably even brighter, here at $103/shr than they were at $175/shr. At the moment, the price has less to do with the company than with the market. The real question with AOL is not where support or resistance lie, not inverted head and shoulders patterns or other short-term, astrological forecasts but how and whether AOL is going to earn the $6/shr it will take to justify today's stock price of $103/shr. Best, --Steve