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To: Sarmad Y. Hermiz who wrote (110544)	10/15/2000 10:07:12 PM
From: Eric Wells	Respond to of 164684

I am curious about what stocks (or industries) you hold long term, if any ? Sarmad - right now, I have no long term holdings. In fact, I own no stocks at the moment. The only securities I own at the moment are a few puts - a very few - on GE, IBM and BRCM. I sold most of my "long-term" holdings in January, and since then, have been moving about half my liquid wealth in and out of stock positions depending on the mood of the market. I was lucky in that I did not get caught in the April downdraft. I did own several stocks coming into Sept - including NOK, PALM, MSFT, LBRT, ISLD, WMT and DIS - I sold half of them when GST and I got into our debate on oil prices a few weeks back - and I sold the remaining stocks shortly thereafter (I owe GST for that call). As for stocks that I have made money on over the years - my two best investments were in MSFT and SBUX, both of which I invested in early on and held for about 8 years. I sold all my SBUX last year and most of the MSFT that I held last year and at the beginning of this year. As for stocks that I would think about buying now - well, I'm thinking about MSFT again - when the stock was trading around 100 earlier this year, I never thought I would ever see it at 53. I can't see it going down much further - and if they win the appeal (which is a big unknown), the stock is likely to go up. In reality, though, I don't see myself investing any significant amount of money any time soon. Personally, I feel that what we saw on Friday has a greater chance of turning out to be a bear market rally, rather than a turn around. I just don't see anything good on the horizon at the moment - oil prices may be heading higher if the Middle East situation is not resolved, inflation appears to still be a threat if you give Friday's PPI any credence, and once earnings reporting season is over, we don't seem to have much to look forward to - until next earnings reporting season. In short, I'd rather wait and see at the moment rather than commit any capital. This approach may cause me to miss out on a 100 point move up in ARBA - but, well, I've grown accustomed to missing such moves in high-flying stocks - and while missing such moves in the past made me question my own investing abilities, today I equate it more with picking the wrong numbers in a lottery. -Eric