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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (25757)	6/3/2000 1:38:00 PM
From: mmbw	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

I have been reading all the posts on this thread for many months and was especially interested on the views of LTB&H. Since 90% of my portfolio was invested in G & K or wannabee's I watched my investments decline along with everyone else. Knowing that the fundamentals of the companies hadn't changed I accepted the price drops as a normal correction. About 5 weeks ago I became very uncomfortable with the market and wasn't sleeping well at night. So finally after a brief run up in the Nasdaq I sold all my positions. Since 85% of my money is in an IRA account the tax consequences were very small. Also the commissions were low since I trade on line and also use a discount broker. I reentered the market near the bottom and have been sleeping well ever since. What does all this mean? To me it taught me that timing the market is difficult and I was lucky to get back in when I did. "Getting back in" involved a great deal of my time watching the Nasdaq closely for many days. The trade off was that I retained profits and was able than to buy back more shares in the companies I believe in. Of the eight companies sold all except one were bought back 10 to 30 points lower. The exception was NTAP which I ended up buying back 3 points higher. One company I didn't buy back (GMST) and instead bought PMCS and RMBS. I thought that the wannabee's would drop the most during all this but the stock that made the greatest point drop was SEBL which I happily bought back 31 points lower. Keep in mind this was only a three to four week experiment. I am not sure I will go through all of that again. Instead I will sell some in each company when prices become too high but still maintain positions in each. During my non stock time, even though I slept OK I was uneasy not holding stocks I believed in. I am now fully invested. Martha @timingisdifficultandtimecomsuming.com

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (25757)	6/3/2000 6:59:00 PM
From: Dinesh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

<long rant> Mike Congratulations on your early retirement. I think the world lost the services of a very competent carpetologist. I think Alan Greenspan, although a very intelligent and powerful person, is pretty much at his wits ends here. 1. It is a widely accepted fact that rate changes take some time (3-6 months) to take full effect. Yet he has been expressing his frustrations that economy doesn't chill out immediately in response to his rate hikes. And, when his past rate hikes begin to show their impact now, he may find reason to withhold new ones (or even lower some to counterbalance the unwarranted hikes of recent months). 2. He has been trying to combat a consumer spending boom that is fueled by wealth using debt containment measures. This doesn't help. If stocks were the mania, he could well have used some other measures, such as margin requirements, to control trading. 3. He has been ignoring the inflationary pressures on the economy for so long. Not every one is an optionnaire but 65%+ own a house. And many surveys have shown that the rising home equity has more to do with consumer confidence than rising stock market (a couple from WSJ/NBC). Now, shelter is 40% of CPI. Guess if house prices go up 50% over 3 years, how much should CPI go up ? At least 5% pa by housing alone. But it would have been a political suicide to acknowledge that - Clinton would have seen to it. Too many things are indexed on CPI. Particularly COLA for social security. No wonder wages around here in bay area have been rising so fast. 4. CPI should go up on other counts too. Such as taxes which have been generally rising (the tax-freedom day keeps shifting Christmaswards). The hourly wages are measured on a pre-tax basis whereas consumer spending is out of post-tax dollars. The financial chaos are pretty much his to own. Governments are wont to ignore reality to pursue their own agendas, many a times to the detriment of the world, including their own countries. (To wit, USA with Saddam, Churchill with Hitler to name a couple.) It is unlikely that AG'll admit to the total insanity to his methods; but we might see a different read on him in the future. Even though I am not an economist, I reserve my right to be completely off my onion and be proud of it <g> Regards Dinesh