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Technology Stocks : Gemstar Intl (GMST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Bond who wrote (3546)	8/8/2000 10:17:28 AM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6516

Your post was an excellent outline of how to find a great investment, Jeff. You employ extensive due diligence with the application of rational metrics to identify the best of the best. But your candid admission about returns shows you've only solved half of the investing process. It would be fair to say that I am pretty good at finding good buy points, but my emotions have gotten in the way in the past from selling at the opportune time. Based on this fault (which I am addressing), and learning the painful lesson of being extended on margin, I have not particularly performed well overall. One avenue you might explore is to assume that there may be no rational/consistent solution to identifying short term peaks. This may lead you to consider that, since the companies you select have such strong fundamentals, they will predictably perform well over a longer holding period. If you try to buy low and sell high, you have to make two decisions, both of which would need be right. If you buy and hold, you need only make one decision, so your odds of being correct are greatly improved. That's why almost all of the great fortunes in the stock market have been made by investors rather than traders. uf