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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Duane Greg who wrote (50734)	11/17/1999 5:24:00 PM
From: freeus	Respond to of 152472

rewhat's a safe margin for short, mid and long term buys? Hmmm that takes a lot of thought but imo: For short term: e.g. if you were buying today in the 320's and 330's any margin is ok...even up to the max which usually is 50%...but just remember you are getting out the same day. For mid term: e.g. if you were buying today for the split: I would think 40% margin, 60% equity is ok. For longer term (like "forever") try to keep the margin at times like this, when the market is high anyway, to 75% equity, 25% margin. During major corrections I think its ok to go higher margin, even to 35% margin 65% equity because you are buying at lows and expecting the stock to go up fairly quickly. A radio announcer once said, and it makes a lot of sense, though the time frames may slightly differ from year to year: get into margin in Oct, out in Feb, in in the spring correction, maybe May, and out again in July. That's a pretty reliable rule of thumb. Good luck: a lot depends on what % your broker has on your stocks too...Fidelity for example had raised AOL to 60% equity when I left, Brown's was 40%, that's a big difference if you have AOL (Brown has since raised AOL to 50%). Fidelity had 80% equity requirement on CMGI, Brown had 50%...so you have to know that too, for your own broker. I have found Brown quite wonderful on margin requirements, and that was the reason I switched my margin account. Freeus