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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stock Farmer who wrote (2550)	3/23/2001 3:14:19 PM
From: MeDroogies	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

No, you have, like Jay, taken portions of my argument and made a totality from them. Reread my posts. I have never said that insider selling IS NOT an indication of future knowledge. That is, I do believe there are insiders who sell because they feel there is a peak, and if you are astute, you should take it as a good indication of what action you should take. However, it is also important to consider the filings and the timings of the sales themselves. LE, if he really had insider knowledge and wanted to really max out his gains, would've sold long before he actually did. In many cases, if you review filings by CEOs, the activity they engaged in could've been better timed and even maximized more efficiently if it were purely a "lets just sell cause we're at a peak" situation. Again, I haven't said it isn't a reason why they may sell, just that it isn't the ONLY reason, which several people here have intimated. In fact, more often than not, it isn't even the main reason. You may consider that blissfully ignorant, I consider it understanding the activities of anyone who has a large portfolio to manage. As for the advice to my father (in law!), you should reread my post. I pointed out to him that he had done a lot of research on the companies that the broker had not. The broker did not dispute the work he had done, but merely steered him into other stocks that he (the broker) felt were more fitting for my father in law's profile (and, in all likelihood got the broker a slightly larger commission because the firm was trying to move the stock). This, in no way, is the ostrich theory you propose. It is merely that the broker had no information about the investments my father in law wanted to make, but merely wanted to steer him into 3 other stocks....my father in law was a willing participant. I would say that my approach to investing is sound. I've not lost money, I've made money. Certainly not as much as I would've had I sold at the peak...but who did sell at the peak? Besides, you only lose money if you sell after the decline. Assuming you don't sell, you haven't lost "yet". I often wonder at the ability of posters like you...if you're really as good as you would propose to be. You're quick to poke "holes" in my statements where none exist and claim ignorance on my part. Yet the basis of the theory I disputed was this: if the CEO is selling, it's time to sell because he must know something. In fact, there is no basis to this theory, because selling is an activity with many motives behind it. Certainly the one stated can be part of it. However, that is an oversimplification of a process. That, in itself, is blissful.

To: Stock Farmer who wrote (2550)	3/23/2001 3:52:30 PM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 74559

Maybe someone has pointed out thet Bill Fleckenstein will be on CNBC at 6 p.m. EST today. Ted David posted this, which I appreciate. I wouldn't want to second guess him, but I would not be surprised if Fleckenstein mentioned that the present P/E levels and dividend yield levels for all the indices still more resemble what has in the past been found at the top of bull markets than at the end of bear markets. There is also no evidence of irrational fear. Former go-go enthusiasts are now talking about "selectivity;" as John Train pointed out long ago, that jargon word is usually a tip-off that the real cascade has not begun. Two or three years ago I compared the increasing upward momentum and confidence in the market to the high spirits in Germany following the invation of Poland. We are now some months past the Battle of Stalingrad, in that analogy, but the Normandy Invasion has not yet occurred. I consider it a great privilege to have been allowed to live through two major financial manias: silver and tech stocks.