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

To: Lone Star who wrote (33776)	1/14/2000 11:05:00 AM
From: Big Bucks	Respond to of 70976

Lone Star, I guess that I fall into the category of an "entrail reader" too. The entire semi industry works on charts and graphs to model things like system performance, chip yields, costs, dep rates, etch rates, etc. It allows one to visualize how current performance is relative to past performance and observe if the information collected is within normal operating parameters. Predictability is a mainstay of good semiconductor processing. IMHO it also gives an investor the edge in the stock market, if interpreted correctly. After many, many years of using charts and graphs successfully I wouldn't want to invest without consulting the "bones". FWIW iqc.com Great day eh!!! Just my opinion, BB

To: Lone Star who wrote (33776)	1/14/2000 11:46:00 AM
From: Guy Gordon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 70976

Lone Star: Your ire is misplaced. There is nothing incompatible between Fundamental and Technical Analysis. For example, take the chart I posted. white-crane.com You can see from the buy arrows that I am long AMAT. This is because both the fundamentals of Applied Materials, and the action of the stock tell me I need to own this in my portfolio. Once I've decided that, I use the chart to time my buy. Even a blind man can see that AMAT (and many other stocks) go up and down within trading channels. The slope of the channel is determined by the fundamentals of the company. But the market always over-reacts and bids the price too high, and then again too low. Why should I buy at the high end of the range? The chart shows me when to get in. Once I'm in a great stock like AMAT I can either hold for the long term or channel trade it. My long-term hold will end when AMAT breaks out the bottom of the channel and turns down. For channel trading, you can see from the chart that I sold AMAT at 123 on 12/27/99. (I missed the top by $4.) Then I bought back at 111 on 1/7/00. (For once I got the best price of the day.) None of this invalidates or insults the Fundamental Analysis presented by some of the posters here. You have to think in terms of time-frames. Fundamentals do not tell you what the stock will do today, or this week, or even this month. But it's great for next quarter and next year. When I see AMAT hitting the top of the channel, that means it's over-valued short term. I expect it to correct for the next week or two. That says nothing about the long-term prospects for the company and the stock. As I said, you would be far better off thinking of FA as telling you what to buy, and TA as telling you when.