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

To: Gottfried who wrote (42965)	3/2/2001 11:21:26 PM
From: Jerome	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

The time of opportunity is here now, with AMAT and all the semi's that we follow. E. Carney pointed out how nicely AMAT bounces off its 200 DMA. Snyder points out how AMAT hits the brick ceiling somewhere about 51. Others have pointed out any rally is unsustainable because of selling into the rally. Others say that we are not looking out far enough out across the valley. I say the valley is a lot wider than the first surveys indicated. This could be the golden age of covered call writing. The ideal covered call is a stock with a lot of volatility that goes nowhere. No need to pick particular candidates in this field. They all work reasonably well. Jerome

To: Gottfried who wrote (42965)	3/3/2001 12:21:57 AM
From: advocatedevil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Gottfried, I was just reviewing Wennerstrom's latest list and thought it was interesting that after all the ups and downs of this last week, the NASDAQ, Wennerstrom's semi-equip group and AMAT were each down about 6%. AdvocateDevil

To: Gottfried who wrote (42965)	3/3/2001 1:53:32 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Yes, you've restated it well. I would add: I have no faith that I am correct. I will decide on a stop-loss price for any short, when I initiate the short, and stick to that decision, no matter what, because I could very well be wrong. I assume that the "big money" will know before I do, when demand at semis begins to firm, and when capex is going to stop getting cut. As a "little guy" managing my own portfolio, that's one disadvantage I have. So, if the stocks start steadily going up, through resistance levels, and I haven't heard any news that would justify it, it may just be that the news hasn't reached me yet (or I ignored the early hints). But "big money" does not have a longer time-frame than individual investors. "Big money" is controlled by people who are evaluated, rewarded, and fired, based on their quarterly results. Most of the semis hit new 12M lows in February, because business conditions markedly worsened very recently. The same is true for companies that make things using a lot of chips, like CSCO. So, right now, there is a discrepancy between the valuations of the chip and chip-equip sectors. Very similar to the way in mid-2000, there was a big discrepancy between the telecom service (WCOM, FON, T) and telecom/network equip (CSCO, NT, LU) companies. Those kind of "disconnects" get corrected, sooner or later. So, was the "big money" wrong in selling the chips last month, or are they wrong in not selling off the semi-equips? It has to be one or the other. The semi-equip sector can't be doing well, if the chip sector isn't.

To: Gottfried who wrote (42965)	3/3/2001 6:53:57 PM
From: 16yearcycle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

G, One has to read the recent posts with good humor. I have been investing in and out of amat for 8 years now. I have put more time into analyzing it then I have doing things for my spouse, unfortunately. I suspect many here can relate to that. After all this time one thing is sure: amat does not trade on fundamentals. If you don't know that, you can still do well, but not as well as if you flush much of the news as noise and simply go with a combination of ta, and guessing a bottom in book to bill. How can I say these things? Look at a chart. For 20 years, amat bottoms close to when book to bill bottoms and even closer to the 200 WEEK ma, or 50 month ma. Who in their right mind thinks "big" money or "smart money" is doing anything other than trying to time a bottom? This is simply all about them trying to reduce risk and maximize gain by timing a bottom. Does timing a bottom in the stock price have anything to do with fundamnetals of the business? I say no. The stock price is disconnected from fundamentals: when fundamentals are at a peak, the price starts to collapse. When fundamentals deteriorate badly, the stock starts to recover, and is always much higher before business improves again. There are different ways of thinking about this. For example, Buffett is thought of as a great fundamental, value investor. He certainly does not look at charts. But, he does wait for stock prices to deteriorate while fundamentals are still very good, and he pounces. Is he timing the stock price? Sure he is. He waits for the disconnection to occur. And waits. And waits. It has to be a great company with a short term problem that can be overcome. Here we are. Let's not forget another thing: the "big money" is running a game on us. The game is to drive the price as far up as they can, using everything they can. Then they drive the price as far down as they can. The farther the better. This process gives them the ability to maximize their activities and reduce the possibility of their own mistakes. Some of us can take advantage of this. Others get crushed in the ups and downs. The big money is their to take advantage of the weak ones, and but don't want to destroy the strong ones, for they will lose too many players. They can't kill off so many as to alter the monetizing of the game. Many will go down in flames, but there are always new players to step up in the next cycle.