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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (32828)	10/17/1999 2:24:00 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

re: my late 1998 call: You're right, MrGreenJeans, my call for a market fall in late 1998 was wrong. I would have made a lot more money if I hadn't decreased my long positions, and bought puts, then. Profits turned out much better than I thought they would, and stocks went up. Or, rather, a few stocks went up a lot, and pulled the averages up. If you look at the market internals (advances vs. declines, new highs vs. new lows), the market top was in April 1998. That's not a typo, I mean that the broad market began declining 18 months ago. The only people who haven't noticed this are the investors in big cap and tech stocks. Everyone else saw their portfolio top out over a year ago. I was early, but the reasons I was worried have only gotten bigger since then. Margins are under pressure, everywhere except tech-land. In 1987, the market PE increased for 9 months, after inflation bottomed and interest rates began rising sharply. If an investor had watched the surge in interest rates and inflation, and gotten bearish in, say, March 1987, he would have been wrong for a while. But then he would have been very right. The market can ignore fundamentals for a while, but the further out of line they get, the worse the eventual correction. re: "I hope some panic selling develops so I can pick up more equities at attractive prices." That's exactly what I intend to do, too. I currently have 12% of my portfolio in Nasdaq 100 puts, all bought in the last 4 weeks, when the index was at current or higher levels. When I sell those puts, I'll have cash to buy long positions. At least, that's the plan. re: gloating bear posts. I think, on this thread, the ratio of gloating bull posts to gloating bear posts is about 100 to 1. Think about how many posts I would have to make to match Brian's. This thread would benefit from some diversity of opinion. A long time ago, we used to be able to discuss whether the stock, sector, or market was going up or down.