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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (99576)	4/8/2000 11:20:00 PM
From: Eric Wells	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

And Eric, confidence was also shaken last Sep-Oct. Do you remember that span of several weeks? I remember them well. However, I know I lot more people that are complaining about heavy losses this week - more people than I recall complaining of losses last fall. I have one acquaintance who was wiped out this week - most of his net worth disappeared when his margin positions resulted in forced selling on Tuesday - he now is vowing to never trade in the market again. I believe it is possible to have a major shift in investor confidence of the returns that can be obtained in the market - whether this week signaled the start of such a shift is open to debate. If you have enough investors lose enough money and experience enough pain, then investors will start to realize that the market doesn't necessarily provide easy money. I also believe that at some point truth prevails. And this market forces investors to accept one of two opposing truths: 1. The market has deviated greatly from it's original purpose of providing a means for public funding of business - the market now is a sort of national gambling system, or perhaps a national "ponzi" scheme might be a more appropriate description. <<or>> 2. The market has not deviated from it's original purpose - stock prices still should represent accurate and rational valuations of companies. If you accept this truth, then a strong argument could be made that by most accurate and rational measures of company valuations, many tech stocks are over-valued. I opt to accept truth number 2 - and as such, I believe that stock prices will eventually settle at a point where they represent accurate and rational valuations of the companies they represent. Accepting either of the truths above would also lead one to accept that our markets are currently "unstable". I would hate to think that we, the citizens of this country (the USA), would continue to allow our economy to be driven by what is essentially a nationwide Ponzi scheme for too much longer. We have too much history of hard work and stability to give it all up for greed. -Eric