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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Kearney who wrote (79462)	10/4/1999 2:31:00 AM
From: Eric Wells	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>>I've been holding MSFT since Jan 95, and >>nobody ever thought it was a sure thing, Tom - I think the key here is volatility. I held Microsoft from '91 up to this year. Never in that time did I see the price of MSFT get cut in half - nor did I recall ever having seen it get cut by a third. Yet we saw YHOO, AOL and AMZN all get cut in half at one point this year - and none of them have fully recovered. I invested in AOL at 160 with the intent to hold it long term. When it dropped by 25% within a few weeks of my having bought it, I realized that it was too volatile to be considered a good candidate for long term hold - at least at these price levels. I sold, and am very glad I did. I had a similar experience with YHOO. You make the classic argument that internet bulls thrive on - that i-net companies have not yet proven themselves and that high profitability lies in the future. How long will you be making this argument? When does the future get here - and profitability become important? The problem is that the popular analysts don't stress the extreme risks of these stocks - instead they focus on their price targets. Such statements fool buy-and-hold investors into thinking that i-net stocks are buy-and-hold candidates. They aren't. Their vehicles for traders. Ganesh makes the comment that he would never trust a sell-side analyst. Most investors don't make the distinction - they assume the i-bank analysts are stating truths - when they are not. I've made a lot more money this year shorting internet stocks than holding long positions. Thanks, -Eric