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

To: semi2000 who wrote (38579)	10/21/2000 10:28:10 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

re: I just feel funny about seeing posts after posts of your requests for AMAT to go to 30 Sorry. I am not requesting or rooting for 30, and I am not communicating well, if that's what it seems like. That's my buy price, and it'll either happen, or it won't. And I'm not at all certain that I'll get it. I'll stop doing it if it makes you feel funny. I remember getting a lot of responses like this in Summer and Fall 1998. I kept watching and waiting and trying to see through the fog, and posting, "not low enough to buy yet, I think it'll go lower." A lot of posters thought that meant I didn't like the company. Actually, it's exactly the opposite. If I didn't think it was a good company, I wouldn't be spending all this time following it, and looking for a good buy-in price. It's always a good company, but it is only occasionally a good stock (last time it was a good stock to buy was late 1998, two years ago). And, if TheCycleReallyIsOver, it might not be a good stock to buy till well into 2001. And, again, (I think I've posted this about 97 times recently), I am NOT sure the cycle is over. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

To: semi2000 who wrote (38579)	10/21/2000 10:55:38 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 70976

More on 30: My decision to buy at 30 is purely based on the calculation that it is undervalued (P/S=3) at that point, and the P/S valuation is more likely to go up than down, if I get in at that level. That's it. Nothing more. It is NOT a prediction that the market will give me that price. In the short term (anything less than 3 years), the market is random, emotional, unpredictable, liquidity and sentiment-driven. Only over the longterm do the fundamentals control. My decision to buy then (and I may change my mind if something happens to make me think conditions have changed) is made without regard to what the market thinks (or might do). Mr. Market is a manic-depressive with no longterm memory. He USUALLY prices stocks incorrectly (=at wide variance to their fundamentals). That's what I take advantage of. But I have very little idea of when (or if) he will give me the opportunity. Also: I see no rational reason to use different methods to calculate value and buy-in prices, in techs vs. nontechs. The idea that an investor shouln't use PE, P/S, and other metrics, in tech stocks, is an idea that can only gain wide acceptance in a mania. In the end, it comes down to future earnings stream, whether I'm looking at a manufacturer of Mobile Homes or semi-equip. And the repeated patterns of the past are the best predictors of the future. A lot of people have lost a lot of money, over the last 12 months, because they bought a GreatIdea with lousy fundamentals. On P/B, I agree, because the way Book is calculated makes it a meaninglesss number (for AMAT and McDonalds). JS@AMATat300in2010doyoufeelbetter?.com