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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (37760)	10/3/2000 4:09:18 PM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 70976

Brian, It is a panic of sorts. People are trying to protect their assets. Eventually the most vulnerable sell at the lowest prices. If you read my posts today you know I am a bull on nasdaq and amat. There were times today I knew if I told my wife how bad it has really been for me particularly since august she would order me to get out. Being human means protecting assets. Whether this decline is warranted or not we have not done a good job short term in protecting assets. I have been crushed by intel, amat, and today add oracle to the list. That doesnt even take into account my lower cap stocks. Mike

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (37760)	10/3/2000 4:13:26 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

>To anyone selling AMAT, why are you selling here after a 50% haircut? Fear... perhaps they think it will go even lower and they can buy back in lower. Also, growth in semi equipment was forecast to slow so the momentum players have left. These are the folks you have to get out of the stock before it really goes higher. Fundamental good news like this suite101.com don't matter when the rats abandon ship. Just stay calm is usually the best advice. IF you have cash, figure out where you feel comfortable buying back and perhaps you get a "Blue Light Special". Unless you plan to retire this week, a sale is usually a good thing if you have money to invest. I am CONVINCED now that my changing FROM pure "buy n hold" to "take a bit of profits on the way up" makes it a whole lot easier to endure the eventual downturns. Even if it really doesn't pay in the long run after taxes, it makes it nice to know you walk away with a profit no matter what happens. I am VERY interested to compare results with people like Cary that were very conservative and are probably hoping we get to $30 so they get a steal. 8)

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (37760)	10/3/2000 4:50:47 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Well, may be I am not the right person to answer this as I sold 2/3 of my AMAT around 78+ and the rest about 70. But the rationale stays the same: (1) It rarely pays to fight the tape. Before I open a position, I set my expectations for the stock. If the stock does not behave accordingly, then it is obvious that I don't know what I am doing and I should get out. When I bought AMAT before the last earnings, I publicly stated that if it does not go above 80 soon, it is fated to drop and I'll get the hell out of its way. Well, it went above 80, but soon retreated. So I sold. My only regret is that I waited too long to sell the remainder of my position. (2) My tape watching for the past few weeks has told me that AMAT is too sluggish compared to NVLS and SMH. It doesn't matter if they fell as much as AMAT; on intraday basis, AMAT is not behaving strongly enough compared to some others. This is never a good sign. (3) AMAT is (was?) somewhat expensive both on historical and relative basis. So even if you believe in the semicaps, you might want to sell AMAT in favor of some others, unless you believe AMAT has a technological advantage. The "one stop shop" advantage never holds much water with me. (4) Even if the market is totally wrong, the words "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" should never leave your mind. I am not too greedy; if my stocks misbehave, I sell them. If that proves to be a mistake later on, I buy them back. The market is like the sea; there's always enough fish to eat. (5) You should consider the possibility that the stock market may be right. Even if the stock market is wrong now, the stock may stay depressed for another 2 quarters and by then a real slow down may be on the horizon. I don't have a crystal ball that can see that far into the future. So most of the times I respect what the market has to say (though on occasions I give market the finger). (6) The dramatic rise and fall of Nasdaq has been well correlated with the liquidity trends from Bank of Japan. There's a lot of foreign money in the US market. This is very impatient money that has been here only because things were lousy back home. A poor performance here may (if it already has not) lead to large out-flow of foreign funds. The old saying "it takes a lot of buying to push the stocks higher, but they fall on their own weight" is very true. Personally I am hoping that within two weeks enough companies announce good earnings to turn the tide around. But I think this situation may continue until January. ST

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (37760)	10/3/2000 5:20:00 PM
From: Cary Salsberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Brian, I think a risk/reward analysis is more useful than basing one's current decision on the fact that one's previous decision cost 50%. How long will the cycle last? What is the earnings stream to the peak? How far will sales, earnings and price fall in the downturn? What will the price do from here to the next bottem? Will the rate of technology growth slow from current rates? What will slower growth do to PEs, many of which are still excessive? How will a PE meltdown affect the already low semi-equip PEs? I found 96 AMAT posts awaiting me, but no quantitative scenarios have been developed to support a buy/sell/hold decision. I know a lot is at stake for many and emotions are running high, but the thread is fighting the tape and should produce a reasonable model for continuing to do so. Cary