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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Richard Habib who wrote (24951)	7/16/1999 6:33:00 PM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

Rich, Think how well you would have done if you were able to successfully trade those stocks on their up and down turns. This is where the genetic differences come in. First, I did try some trading in the summer of 1998, which convinced me that I'm pretty bad at it (trading exactly the stocks I mentioned). But more importantly, I view the "scorecard" of the game differently than the traders. From my perspective, I've set an annual goal at which I want our complete net worth to grow. The numbers include everything (loans, cash, retirement plans, stocks, home equity, etc.) thus my returns will look significantly lower than that of the folks that just measure an individual account (BTW, I couldn't really tell you how each individual account has done -- I should probably add that to my model). I measure my success as performance against that goal, not just as an absolute number. And I focus on companies with fundamentals that I believe will lead to share price increases for the year that will be greater than the annual return I need. So, in my world, 3 1/2 years ago (just as I turned 40) I set a net worth goal that I wanted to reach in 20 years (for retirement). As of today, I'm almost exactly at the 10-year mark. If I can continue the growth rate that I've achieved in the last 3 1/2, I should be able to retire in another 3 1/2 years (keeping my fingers crossed on that one <g>). From a traders perspective, I have a sense the goal is much more immediate -- have I made my $5 per share?, what's my return for the last month on my IRA account? etc. with less of a "big picture" view. I could be very wrong about that, but that's the attitude I've tended to see. I don't think we're going to change each others views, nor would I want to, but we should at least understand the differences. Quite honestly, if I had just held those 4 stocks that I mentioned earlier for the entire year, I'd probably be another 2-3 years into the 20 year plan, and that would have been more than excellent, in my opinion. Luckily, Rambus helped a lot <G>. Dave

To: Richard Habib who wrote (24951)	7/18/1999 2:37:00 AM
From: Alan Hume	Respond to of 93625

Rich, "Think how well you would have done if you were able to successfully trade those stocks on their up and down turns." OTOT If you are interested in such strategies, you should check out VectorVest. They have a system which evaluates and classifies some 7500 stocks. They also monitor overall direction of the market. Their strongly recomended "Riding the Wave" strategy has you in 10 selected stocks each from a different industry sector. They go long on highly rated stocks during positive market cycles and short on low rated stinkers during the negative cycles. Annual return around 130% which I can vouch for. They have various on this theme, one of which is just for Gorillas (during the positive cycles). If you need more info send me a private mail Alan