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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (109249)	9/29/2000 8:56:50 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

Lizzie -- You make a very good point. Let me respond. Lets say there are three kinds of risk -- life cycle risk, business risk and economic risk. PC's currently seem to be "enjoying" life cycle risk and business risk and perhaps economic risk. And PC stocks stand to get pounded again and again as this hits home. B2B (or genomics or infrastructure or handhelds -- or whatever) are early cycle and have business execution risk -- nothing new about that. They do not have much life cycle risk assuming they are not going into blind alleys -- always possible but not the major risk factor. The really big big question mark is do they have economic risk? Are they economically sensitive? To summarize my view: Oil prices did not come down in time to avert the risk of a hard landing (Europe and hence the Euro have been hardest hit by oil so far) -- even if they come down now it is very possibly too late -- and I should say that the expected doubling of natural gas prices this winter will not likely be affected by lower oil prices, nor is there any reason to believe electricity prices are going down (they are likely to jump higher). But none of that matters -- whatever happens now, the die is cast for a shaky economic environment in the months ahead. So here is the question -- are B2B's etc. economically sensitive? If not, you only need to worry about picking the right ones. But if they are economically sensitive, then they too can fall from the sky -- and heaven knows there are many travelling up in the ozone layer. This sector might fall last (and hardest), or not fall at all. Who can say? Can all of your favorite stocks drop by 70-90% in the next 3 months? Is the risk of that happening stable, decreasing or increasing? The good news is that there might be no serious bad news in the next month or two. The bad news is that if there is bad news yet to come it will be in the infrastructure plays, the B2B's, the genomics etc. where speculators have taken refuge and it will make today's bad news seem like the good old days -- its a roll of the dice. But remember what happened last spring to soaring prices of stocks of companies who "could not disappoint". And remember that there was little real economic risk at that time. Cash can be a good investment.