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To: Aggie who wrote (84832)	1/20/2001 4:08:43 PM
From: isopatch	Respond to of 95453

Aggie. Good afternoon. Likewise not meaning to be critical. Worked with many intermediate tops, some cyclical tops and a couple of major secular tops in the few industry sectors I've most often worked in during my career in the markets. But to be perfectly honest? If you're waiting for "many senior executives cashing in their total position" to "give you pause", IMHO you are being perhaps a little unreasonable in setting out what you will require and accept as adequate evidence (from insider selling anyway) From a practical standpoint, many top executives hold enormous positions in their stock. As you know, millions of shares isn't at all unusual. In some mid and most smaller caps where you most frequently find very large equity positions (often by a founder or founding family members) it would be almost impossible to sell that even over a several week period without collapsing the share price. Knowing that, you then set you requirements for SIGNIFICANT insider selling at lower levels. What several of us presented last week was the thesis that when you detect a change in insider behavior then a pattern of selling that's persisted with more than one insider liquidating some fairly large blocks, that's important. Actually, I've NEVER seen most senior execs in "many" patch companies cash in everything. Perhaps the only thing that might be approach that (if we had the stats at hand to look at) would be there was probably heavier selling into the 1979-80 major LT secular top than for an important intermediate top such as I've argued we're forming now. In a previous post mentioned that I don't consider selling from options exercises alone to be significant. And that it's important to use a basket of indicators to help you form opinions about when a market top may be approaching. And I agree with you that it's to be expected that from one person to another it's only natural to assign a different weigh to insider transactions vs other indicators. Your background is in the petroleum industry. Though I have some geology and workover planning experience, the vast majority of my professional experience is the stock market, first as a broker for 6 yrs and later as a professional investor for the past 14. Frankly Aggie, to someone with my background? The Herold comments on insider selling DID "come right out and say it". But when I'm expressing a point here on the thread, knowing that most of those reading this share neither your background nor mine? IMO it is necessary to be a bit emphatic though not necessarily melodramatic(G). That way, as many readers as possible will hopefully walk away with something clear, understandable and helpful in understanding the stock market side of the O&G industry. BTW am sure there are more folks here than just me who would like to hear what indicators you use to tell you it's time to sell because it looks to you like a substantial correction is close to beginning. TIA Regards Isopatch