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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (73095)	1/8/2000 12:26:00 PM
From: re3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

mike the foreign content rule is still 20 % but yes, we can buy certain funds with foreign exposure...unfortunately we can't buy us funds...(that's free trade for you, its free for eveyone but real people !) having said that, i can't buy a fidelity sub index fund, like oil services. we do have some funds that concentrate in energy or resources up here but a much more limited selection, and the mer's are higher... but you are right, my stock selection was not bad for a month of holding but its not a practical trade. i was musing about br and unocal in a post to terry m, would you put new # into either here ? thanks ike

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (73095)	1/8/2000 5:25:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

To All: The High Tech Strategist review. Fred really has game this month. 1. November was the fastest and biggest one month rise in margin debt ever. Of course, my guess is December was worse. 2. Fred thinks the Fed will not remain reckless because they have a credibility problem. I disagree. This Fed has had zero credibility for a few years now, so why should they care if they lose a few more people with 3-digit IQs? After all, they rule with the double-digit types. 3. He mentions that in the 1969-1970 bear market, the ten largest computer stocks, including IBM, fell an average of 80%. Many again lost 80-95% in the 1973-1974 bear. In 1989-1991, the Fidelity Select Computer Fund saw its assets drop from $119 million to $16 million. Gee, last time I looked, that fund has a bigger drop this time if it goes back to $16 million in assets. <g> Anyone think they may have sold some stocks below cost at that time? 4. Nice comment on Oracle. In 1990, the pe peaked at 32 times while revenues grew 56%. Today the stock is selling at 125 eps with sales growth last quarter of 12%. Looks like rational behavior to me. <g> It reminds me of the story a manager told about Thailand at the peak of the emerging market mania. "It used to be I could find stocks with 20% eps growth selling at 5 times. Now, I find the same stocks with 5% eps growth selling at 20 times." If I remember correctly, the 20 times level didn't hang around long. <g> 5. The best comment of the issue, about the reported tech spending boom analysts see for 2000: "analysts are now predicting a rebound from the decline they never saw coming." 6. He found it funny that Gateway used Y2K as an excuse for missing their quarter as they do almost no business with large corporate buyers. It didn't surprise me. They lied. What else is new? <g> 7. Retail desktop unit sales were up only 11% in November, and December could be worse. Let's see, with unit sales growth in the mid 20% area earlier in the year, revenues were down 9.7%. That can't be good. <g> 8. Question of the day: In November, of the top 5 selling notebooks, how many were powered by Intel processors? If you are a good Catholic, then you know the answer is NUN. <g> 3 AMDs and 2 Apples. 9. Cell phones seem to be coming down from peak growth. 10. 1995, Sox at 300, sales of chips at $150 billion. 1999, Sox at 700, sales at $150 billion. And you can count the new pair of dimes in that huge sales growth figure. <g> Once again, I have no connection to Fred Hickey and actually pay for my own subscription. Those who know me realize that that is a rare compliment. <g> If you want a trial, contact Fred at PO Box 3133, Nashua, N.H. 03061-3133.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (73095)	1/9/2000 1:01:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 132070

To All, BArron's review. Not as good as last week, but interesting. 1. Abelson comments on Mary Meeker's totally silly and wrong estimate of Amazon.Com's revenues. Hey, she is the queen of the net. She doesn't have to know how to do her job. <g> And, besides, her comments on AMZN's revenues weren't nearly as dumb on the "E-Bay's site will never go down again," when the print wasn't dry before E-BAy went dark again. Paul Karisel, oft-quoted here, said that what Amazon is doing by selling overpriced stock to suckers while selling below cost products to customers is transferring wealth from investors to consumers. Hey, I/ve always believed that "Sovereignty of the consumer" is the name of the game in our economy and that the consumer should be the major league butt kicker. He also quotes some silliness about the Super Bowl Advertising indicator. And Chuck Allmon gives a list of cos. selling at idiotic multiples of price to sales. 2. A devastating expose of the ridiculous valuation of Internet Capital Group (ICGE-hey, if you see GE, why not act like them? <g>). 3. A nice bit on the safety of REIT dividends. 4. A fluff piece on Asia's recovery, which is mostly in the stock markets, not the economies. 5. Good Market Watch. Liquidity Trim Tabs note that corporate investors are very bearish. Richard Russell moans and groans about the absence of breadth in this rabies market. Peter Dag talks about the poor performance of stock markets during the second half of financial cycles. Investment Guide has the quote of the issue: stocks with no reported were up 52% on average for the year while those with reported earnings were up an average of 2%. Gotta love it. 6. Two of my long stocks, TIE and ASA, had insider buying. Another, RTI, was recommended by a fund manager who likes hated cos. 7. A great piece in the Current Yield column. "Bonds get no respect and no bids." <g> 8. The year end and quarterly mutual fund review. The worst performing of the Top 20 funds last year was up 213%. The S&P 500 was up 19%. Yes, the index beats funds most of the time, by 1 or 2%, but when it loses, it gets killed. Hopefully last year's results finally put the stake in the heart of the index idiots. Index funds do not make the Top Twenty in 1 year, 5 year, 10 year or 20 year performance. But, if you are of a weak constitution and mind and can't handle too much excitement, the index funds are for you. <g>