To: accountclosed who wrote (88243 ) 1/11/2001 10:01:19 AM From: Freedom Fighter Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 132070 Ant, That was a great post! Wayne >>in baseball, players make the hall of fame for being great starting pitchers, relief pitchers, fielders, sluggers, singles hitters, base stealers, etc. similarly, in the market, there are many paths to success, not just one. in your post, i see at least three themes. 1. economic conditions as they currently exist, for example, inventories The horrific inventories continue to build and the consumer consumer economic activity has entered free-fall mode 2. possible federal reserve action and whether that will be effective or not. 3. investor psychology. === the element i would like to add to the discussion is that i think an investor needs to decide what area or areas of market analysis, he/she is good at. some investors succeed because they are masters at reading and reacting to investor psychology. other investors are masters at understanding the federal reserve and the impact of their likely action on the economy and how the stock market will react to the action and the economic change. other investors are excellent at looking at balance sheets and ferreting out details others miss that may later become important to the market. still others have a vision of growth in a certain sector. etc. i think it is a mistake for an investor to imagine that they are good at everything. so if i were looking at your post, in terms of "what are you missing", which of these elements that you bring to the table have you been most successful at deploying? the answer might be different for different people. i don't think our job here is to come up with the "right" solution for everyone, but something that works for us individually.