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To: robnhood who wrote (111558)	7/7/2001 10:59:12 AM
From: James F. Hopkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

HI rrman; Maybe I give a lot of people the impression I'm more of a trader than I really am. While I use to pick stocks and had a hard time getting out of that I never picked all that many. I'm an index or basket person ( basket case would be more like it ). I'm getting up in years and stock picking just takes to much time , but it was fun when I was into it. Really I looked over my total portfolio , and like right now I'm only 17% invested ( NDX ) if I take away what I have "locked" off. ( locked off means I have both covered calls sold and the price moved up enough that I also bought puts and don't even have to look at it. ) I almost never was over 60% invested 40% has always been in bonds and cash , when stocks did go up enough that I had as much as 70% in then I took some out. I do use some margin from time to time in my regular stock account but it's just used to re-allocate things. ( Buy or short the Qs when I make up my mind to go in/out one of the funds ) that's just to sort of "lock" off the Nav , I almost always get out of them by the end of the day, Or box them off. Some times I might say I'm fully invested but even then I just mean the part I play with in the stock market. ----------------------------- Like now with my 17% in the NDX , I can take a 20% draw down in the market and then double up enough that without going over my 60% that I will only need a 5% run up to break even, and anything more than that puts me over the top it's a slow grind but it seems to work for me and I sleep good at night. ---------------------------- The bond thing I thought of and while a lot of people would think they are silly, if I were to cash them in the Tax would take to much of a bite. I've been looking at my IRA and now wondering at how I'm going to get money out of it without the Tax man kicking my arse. IRAs looked good in days gone by, but when you go to get it out & you pay tax at the income tax rate including on what you made in them compounded , well crap ..they say it's putting off taxes until your income bracket is lower, shit ( what lower )..the income tax rate always seems to go up one way or another, & the Gov hooks you. Crap capital gains tax is lower than income tax, and like me now if I start taking out of the IRA before 65 they hit me for even more income tax than if I had paid it up front and just took my chances with the capital gains rate. As far as I'm concerned the whole IRA thing was a scam I fell for. ----------------------------- Any way I'm not some hot shot trader..if I see a lock that pays better than bonds I take it. Over and over I hear there is no sure thing in the market but over and over I see "locks" that pay good and would do more of them except to get the cash for them I'd have to pay to much tax to make it worth the trouble.. ----------------------------- I short some too..and I'm sure I would have done better if I had been more aggressive with my shorting however I got use to the double down and then pop out on a rally thing over the years that's it's sort of a habit. But for it to work you have to keep enough dry gun powder to blow their shit away on a small rally. I'm 17% in and I won't give much of a hoot if she drops another 20%, I'll bang my way out as that's my style. Something I was taught years ago is if the market falls 50% , then it needs to go up 100% for a person to get even, the only way around that is to have enough cash that when it falls and you double down the cash, you then wind up with 3 times as many shares on the next buy then it only has to go up 33% to break you out, meanwhile the guy without the buying power is still down about 37% and still needs another 56% run up to get even. So it pays to keep a lot of dry powder in times like this, & I kept it even in the bull market, because I never have trusted wall street..and now I know why.:-) Jim