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

To: GST who wrote (100529)	4/14/2000 1:57:00 AM
From: Randy Ellingson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

What is the market cap of all net stocks at the top? Now? Lets say its $500 billion at the top and $250 billion now. If it drops to, day, $50 billion or less, would you call that normal fluctuation? No, and I think I see your point. But I don't see why it matters. There has certainly been a great deal of speculation in the market over the past five years (perhaps an increasing amount). It's unfortunate that people willingly put their money at risk in a speculative manner, just as it is that some spend too much on the lottery and in casinos. But the other side of the story is that one can remove market risk (aka, systematic risk) by investing only that money which you can commit "long term". TMF says five years, and ten is better. And of course, if one decides the company's either not what they thought it was, or the specific business (as opposed to the stock market and/or economy) takes a turn for the worse, or the industry changes, then it probably would be prudent to sell. And any investor is obviously better off if they can buy shares at some time-averaged price if they can't buy "at the bottom". Anyone long YHOO at 225 knows they bought at an unfortunate time, but there are still some very successful investors who did just that and may very well still be holding comfortably. But back towards the original point, if one researches an investment and decides it's a go based on the company, the business, the industry, and they buy it and watch the price fall by 50% (or 75%), that alone doesn't mean they should sell, right? As Eric says, it's the opportunity for return from "the present to the future" that should matter (and not the past). Geez, these replies are too long! Sorry... Randy