To: Starlight who wrote (9115 ) 2/8/2000 12:32:00 AM From: Don Hess Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 60323
Betty (OT)- Your question reminds me of one of my own: how long has the term "fully invested" been in our lexicon? Anyone who reads anything regarding the market quickly comes across the concept of being "fully invested", usually in the context that if you're young enough and can tolerate risk, you really ought to remain FI no matter what. As we all know, the stock market is not a zero-sum game. Monies pouring in combined with corporate profits inflate the pie, as has been the case for the past ten years, Alan Greenspan be damned. So this brings us to your comment that the 15-bagger winners who have cashed out of this stock or that will want to again be "fully invested" and will have to find some spot to chuck the dough. It seems unlikely that many of them would choose T-bills or bonds --their recent, highly-rewarding experiences in equities would prompt them to try another swing of the bat. So, they wait for SNDK to split, and buy 10,000 shares. I don't think that their doing so is at all stupid. While all of the money geniuses of the past said, correctly, that no one can time the market, they also all tried, to a person, to do just that. They told us to diversify so we could lessen the blows of a downswing, they told us about muni bonds and value investing, and they pretty much invented the mutual fund market, later to become the index fund market when their diversity turned out to be a really dumb bet. So now we have money working hard, returning something in excess of 50% per annum, all of it earmarked to be re-invested, its owners wanting to be fully invested so as not to miss the party. So what happens? Alan sweats big glass bullets, market "corrections" come, but are un-corrected within a week, and all that money keeps getting dumped into sweet equities and we dance with the one that brung us. It would take an enormous, world-wide psychological change of heart to kill the FI fever. No such change seems likely. Of all of the money pipelines -- online investing, retirement portfolios, funds, venture capital -- none seem poised to flatten, indeed all are on the rise. There is still room for appreciation in equities that show signs of dynamic growth (and maybe even in those that don't). Even if the mania of the time were not present, SNDK would be in a great spot. With the FI syndrome at hand, its position is even better. At least that's my opinion. - Don