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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PMG who wrote (32583)	8/24/2000 11:32:59 AM
From: Murrey Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

PMG...I'm a numismatist of sorts. The "old gold" offering by Investment Rarities is not a bargain IMO. Extremely Fine Condition is mediocre at best in terms of investment value. You should buy investment grade coins in uncirculated condition. Two independent entities who grade collectable coins are: PCS and PNG have reputations considered to be the standard in investment grade materials. When buying for investment purposes, one should NEVER buy anything lesser than a grade of MS-60. This description means: Mint State, and has a range of MS-60 to MS-70 (which is virtually unheard of). All reputable coin dealers buy and sell using the above grading schemes. This is not to say that Investment Rarities is not reputable, rather that they are selling merchandise that is generally considered less than investment grade by the majority of collectors.

To: PMG who wrote (32583)	8/26/2000 10:42:08 AM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Respond to of 50167

PMG, The gold market has been in a bear trend for ages... and any country that wants to raise quick cash dumps stores of their gold onto the open market any time the gold market rallies... gold could turn up at any time, but so far these brief rallies have been great shorting opportunities... charts3.barchart.com GZ

To: PMG who wrote (32583)	8/28/2000 11:44:59 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

PMG.. it was an interesting post.. tampering with interest rates for noble purpose of putting market levels at par with the earnings momentum in my opinion is 'intelligent tampering' of the market by the Fed. Whenever in last few years of this bull run we have seen market getting ahead of itself we see AG jawboning the market so as to keep it within realms of reasonable speculation. The overall US market capitalization to overall revenue growth if you throw in the tremendous non-inflationary growth rate of the economy is not out line and has never been. Market huge returns have not ignited ‘huge non-market asset inflation real estate e.g.’ that triggered the snowballing in Nikkei. People keep worrying about this tampering from Fed in my opinion the very reason we have not seen DOW breaking doomsday support levels is the fact that market cap to revenue growth ratio of the entire market has maintained semblance of order. I have been reiterating time and again here on this thread that 'productivity gains', 'strong economic growth' and 'death of commodity inflation' due to over reliance of corporate earnings on the 'knowledge economy has sustainable bias. Oil has moved up from the lows of 9$ to 34$. In percentage terms the impact on core inflation has been negligible, 6 months is long enough a period if the inflationary numbers had to appear. Like last 5 years bull run we did not see any, now we are at cross roads on one hand is the rate hikes and 'real high interest rate' even on historical terms the other is plus 5% non-inflationary GDP growth that has no historical precedence either. In my opinion we are seeing this six months of consolidation as cooling period of hyped up markets. The corporate earnings are catching up with that 750 to 1400 move in S&P during the course of last five years. Note one thing the very reason that market exists are to create excesses in some issues, we trade markets to capitalize on these issues otherwise markets with listless direction would have pronounced bearing on the economy. Now let me be very clear that I don't think that present day market excesses or lows can be defined by any P/E numbers or established valuation models. It has never been since 1995 rationale P/E’s behind market moves. Low P/E’s low growth stocks can be had for dime a dozen, the very nature of the market is speculative and it is all about projecting growth rates and finding that one winner amongst the crowd of 100’s. CSCO’s MSFT’s INTC’s JDSU’s and BRCM’s is not about how high these stocks are, it is about the hold of these companies and their potential to make future profits, once these stocks get in to area of ‘plateau –earnings’ we see them cut to size. A good market is a market that has a capacity to throw up new leaders when old leaders and momentum players are hit hard like MSFT cutting into half is one good example and semis huge sell off another, it was during the course of this kind of huge sell off that market was most prone to disaster selling. The very reason it sustained this huge selling tells us about the nature of the market that is prepared to bid the growth earners higher and leave them at first sign of trouble. Emulex is one such example on Friday did anything changed in those 3 hours where we saw 42 and 110 on that stock. Rumors are said to be the reason of the fall but warnings are going to come and lot of these present day winners will plateau, however as far as the total revenue growth and sales remains within reasonable ratio of the market capitalization this distribution and changing of guard where some old winners are discarded and new one takes their places will help the market move forward. Historically we have seen market cap as a percentage of GDP as one good indicator of the hype within a market, in case of US it is important for this market at 13 trillion $ cap to have economy running at higher than the average growth rate. One caveat is that not only it has to be higher but non-inflationary, like common stocks that have high PEG are dear to the market. Similarly countries that have good economic models and have decent GDP growths with high savings and less of tax spend mentality will do well going forward. This has not been achieved overnight the huge rise in pension 401 contributions have buttressed this whole market well from 500 billion $ those contribution have grown to 5 trillions $ in a decade. The present market level cannot overlook that huge supply of savings that I think is not even worthy of considered as part of the overall savings. The rise of speculative trading and derivatives clears out both side of the divide with canny accuracy. People like Sorros Julian Robertson, Warren Buffet who failed to understand these simple realists got hit hard, their very savings became the cannon fodder of excesses as the shorts were run or internet .coms were hit mercilessly. The most complex of models failed to take into account in case of LTCM the complexities of the markets and all their earnings plus capital was eaten up by the markets, the very reason that this market is so bloody strong lies in its in-stability and its simplicity. Anyone who tells you that it is more about reasoning and mathematical calculations, I assure you it is not, the overall lid that of size of economy to the overall size of market cap and quality of growth and hold of the corporations on the global demand would determine the future valuations, that road is littered with lot of gambling and lot speculation, some reason and some gambling will be on the only way to make money.. One good reason that all these selling did not hurt the S&P was the wide nature of the S&P index, broad market stability has helped the market. Overall 80% of the investors make on or near market returns , in this gambling prone environment to get into the leaders and getting behind the rat race to find the winners and leaving them at the right time is what investing all about in the present day and age. s it has been 'future sentiment' and momentum. I have been seeing all this and as a market novice keep myself abreast with these subtle realities. MSFT at 120$ was justified by me if technically it could have taken out that resistance P/E ratio would have hardly mattered, it did not break that resistance, we saw it at 65. What changed was the way it was perceived, economically it would be erroneous to depict fall in MSFT as change of business model or valuation technique. All this boils down to that gambling part of the market. However, the good thing that market could absorb that huge decline in valuation as new interesting undervalued stocks got bid. This distribution and this continued tug of war where the valuations when extended are written off to silly levels are the health signs of this market, the moment it will lose its ability to ‘shoot the culprit’ who falls short in earnings or the moment the market inflation causes outside economic asset inflation just turn off the lights and move on, until such times thank MR.AG to help keep this market from blowing off its cap. Sorry for this long post, just got little carried away.. may be it will make some sense to some..