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To: MythMan who wrote (15371)	8/31/2000 7:28:56 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Some misguided reporter from the Seattle Times got lost yesterday and ended up interviewing Fleck: seattletimes.nwsource.com Market Movers: Recovery smacks of 1930's false rally by Greg Heberlein Seattle Times business reporter For four weeks, stocks have climbed, so much so that this week the Nasdaq composite index - the one so horribly wrecked in March - moved into a plus position for the year. Time to jump back in and buy stocks? Heck, no, says Bill Fleckenstein, a world leader in the fight against conventional wisdom. Fleckenstein operates Fleckenstein Capital in Seattle and has been one of the clearest voices against overvalued markets. "You might say it's time to get back in and be an investor," said Fleckenstein, who also writes an entertaining column for a Go2Net online site, Silicon Investor. "What stops me is I see this huge body of speculation and I can't believe that it won't be washed out." Some see flattening interest rates and an economy essentially under control fueling future market gains. Fleckenstein sees something else. "Basically we've had a big rally off a nasty smash," Fleckenstein said. "But it hasn't been powered by much news. The inflation front has been getting worse every day. There's a chance we'll get disappointment on the earnings front. We've got a chance to have disappointment on the personal-computer front ... in the wireless sector. The micro environment is not going to be better." Even buying conservative, lower-valued stocks doesn't make sense, Fleckenstein said, because a stock with a price-earnings ratio of 12 still could go to 6, or lower. (Price-earnings ratios are determined by dividing the stock price by the past 12 months' per-share profit.) The more Fleckenstein ruminated, the more it occurred to him that 1930 was similar. In the crash of 1929, stocks fell 48 percent by November. But in 1930, they rallied 49 percent off the bottom and appeared headed for the old highs. Instead, they turned tail and by July 1932 had lost 89 percent off the 1929 top. "1930 - that's what this might be all about," Fleckenstein said. Yesterday, stocks struggled, with the larger stocks slumping for a second straight day and the rest of the market fighting to stay even.