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Strategies & Market Trends : Options -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Poet who wrote (6324)	4/12/2000 8:34:00 AM
From: Poet	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 8096

This post is OT to this thread: I'm posting this here instead of on Voltaire's Porch, so as not to inflame an already tense situation, but I feel I must speak out about what's gone on over there in the past 24 hours. I posted a pointed disagreement with a thread member on the Porch with regard to his statements about options trading, as well as about some of his recent TA calls, which are widely followed on that thread. His response to me was filled with invective and was reported to the SI Administration before I even read it. The SI Administration gave him a three-day suspension. This happened early yesterday morning. Since then, there has been a great deal of namecalling and innuendo on the Porch, directed at me and another poster who also has taken issue with the TA. The volume and nature of the invective has astounded me and I'd like to make this point before I leave the subject alone: I've seen, and been part of, situations like this on SI. They tend to occur when the Nasdaq is correcting and when many people are feeling a great deal of financial pain. There is a tendency to focus and personalize the disappointment and anger close to home, which I believe I did in my post on the Porch. I apologize to Jim Willie for this, however I was, in no way, criticizing his own trading history. This is how I feel, stated more clearly: I think that difficult markets, people's fear and confusion rises and they tend to look to experts for advice on what to do. Unfortunately, the experts are people too, experiencing their own fear and confusion. It's a situation ripe for calls to be made more on the basis of wishful thinking than on pure technicals. It's a situation ripe for people to lose their money faster and faster. It's a situation for disaster. I hope this doesn't happen. I accept the anger directed at me for pointing it out that it might. And I apologize to Jim Willie for making him feel I was criticizing his own trading. I won't post publicly on this issue again. Thanks to this thread for the space taken up by another thread's business.

To: Poet who wrote (6324)	4/12/2000 10:24:00 AM
From: PAL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8096

I know a bunch of people who were surprised by the size of their tax bills for '99 and who are scrambling to get the funds together by tax day. I'm wondering if this isn't a factor in the protracted nature of the Nasdaq fall. You are quite right. Last year was an incredible year and many peole experienced windfall of the bull market. April 17 is the day of reckoning. Not only people have to pay huge tax bill, but also have to send in quarterly payments matching last year's tax. In California, for every dollar the combined max marginal rate is 48.9%. In addition, April is the month you also have to pay property tax. The tax money that should be set aside is parked in the stock market instead of money market. While Robin Williams sang "Blame Canada" on Oscar Night, you can now say "Blame California". The bleeding will end April 17, hopefully people survive through that day. Positive thinking of the day: Of one can get up and be vertical today, thank the Good Lord. Paul