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Technology Stocks : EMC How high can it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jhg_in_kc who wrote (11199)	9/22/2000 2:52:37 PM
From: Bill Fischofer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17183

Re: Staying calm It's all a question of perspective. Institutions drive the market over the short term and institutional money managers are intensely focused on monthly and quarterly performance numbers. This gives the individual who does not operate under these constraints a very real edge over the long run. The fallacy of market timing becomes ever clearer the more successful you are. Anyone who has held a stock like EMC (or INTC) for a number of years is sitting on huge capital gains that will continue to compound tax-free as long as they are left untouched. Try to time a pullback, however, and the IRS will immediately help itself to 20% off the top. What this means is that you need to correctly time a 20% pullback just to break even on an after-tax basis. Sure, the lucky few will manage this on rare occasion (occasions, you can be sure, which will be widely trumpeted) but like the well-publicized lotto winner such stories are few and far between. Far better to ignore temporary market gyrations and stick to the leaders in the key growth segments of the economy. That's the real wisdom behind the old adage to let your winners ride.