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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bearshark who wrote (36278)	12/30/1999 2:22:00 PM
From: KM	Respond to of 99985

From a value manager. This is clipped from a Cramer column in theStreet.com. Very interesting: But far worse than the doubters are those who turn a systematic blind eye to what is going on in the markets. Which is why I want to quote at length from one of the confessions I just received: "Reading the cathartic purging of the value manager in your recent columns is the catalyst for my own introspection. ... Having begun my career with a fund that marketed its analysis on the short side as its core competency, I took pleasure in the 'intellectual rigor' that 'our circle' of comrades [his words] took in applying stringent analysis to financial statements and bullish arguments. It is now eight years later and ... I can tell you that the remaining 'circle,' at least those who have not been wiped out, maintain their entrenched, static and dogmatic view [my italics]. What is interesting about this view is that there appears to be an unspoken fear in reconsidering some of these fundamentally bearish tenets. Imagine how frightening it would be to turn at an inflection point in the market and miss that cataclysmic move down. Trust me when I say that they feel truly trapped. Furthermore, the pain of being wrong is assuaged by the self-praise that comes from maintaining a dogmatic view despite the outcome. It seems that a contrarian view has become a paradigm for intellectual masturbation. ... People become easily entrenched in their views and the idea that something that was held on to as truth can be so quickly discarded smacks of flakiness and an inability to be vigilant. While I walk away from my experience on the short side of the market, I take away the value of learning how to analyze a company and be rigorous in my work. Unfortunately, that methodology must be dynamic given the speed and magnitude at which valuation metrics and parameters are changing. ...intellectual flexibility is the ultimate in humility and critical in the understanding of anything" [again, my italics].