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Strategies & Market Trends : The Art of Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wren who wrote (738)	6/29/1999 7:49:00 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 10654

Hi guys, I've been away for too long. I'm glad to see that everyone's contributing. I've been dead busy for the past 3 weeks trying to wrap up my current projects and get the clients to sign on them so that I can go on a vacation. I am happy to say that today I got the final signature that I needed and tomorrow I'll start my 5~7 week trip in the South Pacific (mostly Australia, but also HK and perhaps Korea and Thailand). Before I go, I'd like to leave you with these random thoughts: Oracle is a good company to buy. I bought a few thousand shares just before the earnings and was well rewarded for it. Though I expected an above estimates number, I usually do not trade when I am this busy and planning a vacation. The deciding factor was that when I went over my notes, I'd left myself a reminder that at the latest by the end of this year ORCL should be bought. So I did not mind it much if my "trade" was to become an "investment". I am out of ORCL for now because I made my money and I want to enjoy my vacation. But just the same, keep an eye on it. What makes Oracle special is that they have the guts to re-engineer themself when they must and they know how to do it. Currently they are in the midst of such a re-engineering and I believe it is going better than I expected it. I will talk about courage and its necesisty some more when I get the chance. The graphics card business is going through massive consolidation. This means that in about 3 years, there will be only 5 companies (excluding small niche players) compared to 50 companies only 3 years ago. If you were to invest in the top 3 or 5 graphics corps now, you will be very happy a few years from now, even if some of them fall apart. My favorite picks are ATYT, TDFX, and NVDA. The timing may be a bit off for NVDA. Do yourown DD. As well, read the 3dfx thread between now and the end of the week to get a good handle on the fundamentals of the company. I still have my NOVL. Thanks to an options strategy, my average cost is about $14. Still, I was debating if I should sell it. But yesterday it broke out of the trading range with heavy volume. Those of you who like TA may want to check it out. Bottom fishing is a very dangerous game. I actually spent nearly a year developing techniques for it. The problem is that there are just too many exceptions and you need to go more with your gut than your head. Still, if I were to suggest any rules for it, it is to bottom fish in companies that have droped at least by 70% and preferably by 85+% and who still have a market cap of over 400 mill (preferably over 800 mill). The market cap is more important than the magnitude of the drop; I'd rather buy a $4B company on a 50% drop than a $100M company on a 80% drop. Also, any time you are prepared to hold on to a stock for a long time, make sure that the company's fundamentals cannot get much worse than they already are over the next 3 years. Avoid the internuts as well as the new fad of jumping on the cyclicals. There is still plenty of deflation out there and the rumors of economic revival are highly exagerated. Trade based on the sentiment if you want, but I would not buy these stocks on the hope that 6 months from now they'll show good earnings. That's it for now. I'll let you know how things are down under when I get a chance. Sun Tzu