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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Clarke who wrote (8515)	10/4/1999 7:42:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78523

Jim. I don't mean to jump on to MAT as a late comer or vulture investor profiting from others' misfortune. So I hope my post was not offending or discouraging. Sometimes I invest only what I can see. And it's just a lot easier for me to see MAT getting back to a valuation like last week's. Not meaning to knock MAT for Buffett holders or others with good time and business perspective. MAT stock should work out okay. Sorry to read that you are having a very tough year. Would like to be able to offer some advice or solace where I think I can be helpful. Too bad I'm not capable, competent or cognizant to do this. Not that my investing year is so great either. Paul

To: James Clarke who wrote (8515)	10/4/1999 8:47:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78523

Why is it we can seemingly invest better for our parents than we can for ourselves? If this is so, it might be important to know why -g-. 1. Invest other peoples money by playing to our strengths. If our strength is value stock picking, we will put value stocks in the portfolio. There's no pressure to add CISCO, YAHOO, LUCENT, etc. for people who don't possibly know such companies exist, let alone what their products/services are. And our parents know us real well. We don't smart-ass 'em by picking smart-ass stocks (Unless of course we have that personality. But then our parents wouldn't be trusting us with their money (I hope.) 2. We will try to accommodate objectives of parent based on our strengths, and subtly knowing we might have to answer for every investment that we make that goes bad and that could be seen as odd. Like buying internet stocks for parents who don't use a computer, or shorting stocks for people who don't know what shorting means. Or making abrupt portfolio changes - like suddenly selling 50% of the portfolio. 3. So that we don't look like total idiots, we will give investments time to work out. And when they go up in value, we won't sell be so quick to sell. Like closing a position @$11 on a stock bought at $10 two weeks ago and jumping right into another stock because it looks even better. 4. Since the old folks likely had to work for their money, we know we'll have to answer for high turnover (lots of commissions). So we won't be day trading. Also, since our folks trust us, they aren't going to be asking us (we hope) every day about each stock or maybe even about the total portfolio value. So we'll have a little breathing room. So we don't watch each stock each hour of each day and panic ourselves out of, or into, a position. If we're lucky, our parents aren't at a point where they're trying to get rich. (They aren't trying to make a decent retirement on $40,000 portfolio.) Whatever level they got to, that's it. We can think about managing the money as if we're business people - able to take some fluctuations and business risk-- not desperately trying to jack up performance or beat some index that our folks could care less about. We're like.... prudent. Without understanding exactly why or how, we will give the managed stock portfolio every chance to succeed. And avoid doing things that we like to do (take a flyer here and there, couple of shorts, a few options, gold anyone?, paired trades, etc.) but intuitively know just wouldn't be right for Mom and Dad's account. Paul Senior

To: James Clarke who wrote (8515)	10/4/1999 9:28:00 PM
From: Mike 2.0	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78523

Re:MAT (lots of "rhetorical hyperbole" follows) James & all, I am starting to wonder if "value" is a four letter word. I too have endured a good old-fashioned screwing at the hands of "value stock" MAT. Hindsight being 20/20 that it is, it is now clear that, IMHO, Jill Barad is a living example of the Peter Principle...thanks to some hard work but also a sh*tload of tireless and self-gratifying self-hype, she got herself promoted up to such a high level beyond her skill sets, she could not help but perform with profound incompetence. Who thinks MAT can hit newly reduced earnings estimates of $1.00 a share under Jill's "leadership"? Anyone? No? Me neither! Meanwhile I see SABRE soared today after announcing a merger with Preview Travel. Shane, did you jump on that party boat, or are you waving goodbye to it from the docks like me? :-( Hmmm maybe they have a spa vacation package special for Jill's bruised 800-pound ego after she gets the heave-ho....?