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

To: Sam Citron who wrote (101120)	4/16/2000 1:29:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 164684

A key metric for determining investor sentiment is mutual funds flows. AWG(?), a tracking agency, reported that mutual funds flow remained positive through Wednesday, increases $8.7 billion through the month. That compares to a very strong monthly rate of $20-30 billion net positive inflows during the earlier months of the year. The article stated that investors were recently seen switching money from tech sector funds into funds with less aggressive portfolios, as one might have guessed. The had no figures but, said that a sampling of funds showed a modest outflow on Friday. People like to compare this "crash" to events in '29 or '87. While the market has certainly come down a lot and chart patterns can be pointed to that present very striking similarities, there are many differences that point to a stronger underlying economy and more resilient attitude of investors. To start out, investors have much more history of the downs and ups of the market. Even non-savvy investors may reflect on 1987's Friday fiasco and "Bloody Monday" crash and ask themselves "what would I have liked to have done then?". Of course the markets went up from that point to recoup the loses an then some. Many of the more speculative stocks never recovered fully and some have disappeared since. I think what sets this "crash" apart from those previous events are: this is largely a crash of the huge divergence between hyper inflated sectors and the ignored, undervalued sectors. The crash in the nosebleed techs has certainly damaged the broader market but not to nearly the same degree. (I have a couple stocks that have moved up a little over the past three weeks.) A good argument can be made that institutions and investors will be less enthusiastic about sending the techs back to the edge of the cliff from which they fell. Another difference is that company earnings are growing at a rapid pace while Internet and international competition, and large gains in productivity continue to keep inflation at a modest pace, despite the recent gov report of a blip in prices. Overall, there are much better prospects for sustained growth in the economy and low inflation that is favorable to equities IMO. I will be investing fully in hard hit stocks fro a technical bounce. I may short do some shorting to take advantage of continued volatility but will be shifting toward long positions. My focus will include a heavy weighting in select tech stocks because they have the most ground to recover and tend to make exagerated eomtional swings. I like companies with earnings more than those betting on distant returns but will go with the flow. I will likely shift out of the high beta techs fairly soon and put the money into less glamorous growth sectors. I am doing more trading than straight buy and hold investing and often hold stocks from one to five days or as short as 30 seconds. Good luck, it's going to be very interesting early this week. Long or short, happy hunting!