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

To: GrillSgt who wrote (29855)	8/22/1999 3:44:00 PM
From: Vendit™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

GrillMajorette!!!! Back so soon?! >>ggg<< To: Vendit (28087 ) From: GrillSgt Wednesday, Aug 4 1999 9:10AM ET Reply # of 29858 Vendit, I can't believe I'm still responding to your ego, but for the rest of the readers here..this will be my last remark irt this thread.

To: GrillSgt who wrote (29855)	8/22/1999 5:56:00 PM
From: Bridge Player	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

< Chung BridgePlayer and Steve Just curious about something....your agenda >> Grill, can't speak for the others. For myself, at the moment I have no position in AOL or its options. I have never been long or short the stock. However, I have bought it for managed family accounts (some time ago) and my wife owns some right now. She does a lot of buy-writes and likes the option premiums. I have been in 4 AOL options trades over the last 6 months or so, 2 on the long side and 2 the short side. All profitable. Both spreads and simple long positions in both puts and calls. The most recent was a long call bought the day the stock bottomed which I closed much too soon for max gain. AOL is a great trading stock and the options are very liquid. My agenda? Fascinating that you, and apparently many others think that anyone with a strongly held opinion about whether a stock is a good investment, and who post here, have to have some kind of agenda. I am retired and have the time to pursue the things that interest me. One of those things is the psychology of SI posters and more specifically that of the AOL bulls. For many months all you could find here was bullish. In March (might have been April), when I first started posting here, I was about the only bear around. When I predicted at that time that AOL would trade below 70 again (it was maybe 140 or so, maybe 150 then) and that the internet stock bubble was over, AOL had already gone up no less than 8-fold in roughly around 6 months. It's market cap was around 170 billion dollars at the high. And I started reading things here like it would be the first trillion dollar company, 2 more splits this year, going to double again every 6 months, etc. It was enough to make one sick. Since then, a few bearish fundamental developments have brought some more sober assessment to the party and some more bearish posts here. Now, the more common theme here is, rather than the tremendous enthusiasm and predictions for tremendous future gains, you find more along the lines of rationalizing why every new low is just a dip, good buying point, etc., and why the changes going on in internet access and technology will never adversely affect AOL, why it has successfully met every challenge so far, therefore obviously will meet every future one, and besides the analysts have a target of 200, etc. and besides I can't sell now, I would have a loss etc. Give me a break. I guess the bottom line is I just enjoy pulling the chain on some of the superbulls here who refuse to admit that the proper investment decision was to have sold long ago. You make money in the market by averaging up, not by averaging down. Trends do not last forever. The uptrend in AOL, at least for the intermediate term, seems to me to be over. At some future time that may change. Some day, AOL may even exceed its all-time high. No one really knows. But at the moment, the trend in the stock seems to be down. And as long as that is the case, I think that lower prices are likely. To change my mind, AOL would have to break above the recent rally high (July?) around 129. I put the chances of that in the next 6-9 months at around 15%. Trading range between 77 and 129 for 6-9 months maybe 35%. And breaking the recent low maybe 50%. And all of this is in the context of a market at all-time highs in valuation measures, during a period of rising interest rates and a falling dollar. These are not bullish indicators for a continuation of the long bull market. The next bear, whenever it comes (and it is already way past due) will go a long way to changing the greed/fear ratio that I have mentioned here before. Those are my thoughts and my views. They are mine alone and not to be confused with investment advice. I hope to have satisfied your curiosity. BP And please excuse the long-winded post.