To: John Arnopp who wrote (3219 ) 7/16/1999 11:03:00 PM From: michael r potter Read Replies (3) | Respond to
Hi John and all, -Way OT- Have been away to a different place and time. Back to roots, the farm country of far northeast South Dakota. Thanks for keeping the mania alive and well. New perspective. To live among people who's income goes down as a bushel of corn, and wheat go for the same price as a Starbucks coffee, and a bushel of oats, for half that. A pound of pork last year got down to less than the price of one pull of loose candy my kids beg for in a vending machine [$.25], and stories of mini-mansions, 25 year old internet billionaires, and such are as foreign as tales from Mars. A small town where a decent house just sold for $40K which was outrageous and a sure sigh the city slicker from the Twin Cities who bought it got took. [My grandparents two story house in need of TLC with good garage and app. 1/4 acre lot can be had for less than $20K on the right day]. A place where I never saw my cousin take her purse out of her unlocked car, even at night. Green, gorgeous country where little has changed in forty years, except there are far fewer people as commodity deflation has squeezed out the marginal players. Wonderful to go down a beautiful paved road with deep blue sky and see maybe one other car in three miles. Expenses grind upward, while per unit income drops. Deflation is the constant companion. People seem to be as ever, sane, and happy. Came back with a renewed perspective and no desire to trade blips. That will change as I gradually get caught up in the wall street game. Am also jaded by the mania of it all, but without a day job, can't let personal opinions stand in the way of making money. Safeguard, Tellabs, others chug merrily along making long term holders very happy. Tellabs through Coherent is now a 42X for Safeguard Coherent rights holders from "94, and probably on its way to being the first 100X since Novell. Makes up for a lot of DOCC and OAOT if held. Internet not likely to regain its former luster for a long time. Just burned to many current speculative players. A behavior altering experience [especially on margin as many were]. The value is in small and mid caps., no speculative mania there and one by one, they seem to be coming to life. If SFE offered a fund consisting of only its current NAV of publicly traded companies, I'd be a buyer. Many of those have few expectations built into the price and will likely surprise to the upside and show decent gains going forward. TLAB and SCAI have expectations built in, but probably justified long term. I always thought I'd sell everything when the mania gave Microsoft a 1 Trillion $ market cap. Half way there as of today. Seems absurd, but what do I know, I've thought it overpriced and missed it for 10 years. A classic case of letting an opinion get in the way of making money. Nothing profound to say, just checking in. Hope you all are having a good summer. Mike
