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To: SusieQ1065 who wrote (17871)	9/23/2001 8:25:41 PM
From: ChrisJP	Respond to of 208838

Anybody whose portfolio was 70% stocks/30% bonds & cash before Sept 11th ..... is now 60% stocks/40% bonds & cash. Just from the 15% drop in stock prices. :-( So their recommendation is not only pointless, its a slap in the face of everyone who has held on for the past 12 months. Why didn't they just come out and say that a year ago you should have been 0% stocks and 100% bonds ? Right now it appears the best alocation is 80% money market/20% gold. Chris

To: SusieQ1065 who wrote (17871)	9/23/2001 8:41:58 PM
From: ChrisJP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 208838

So I'm walking from my office to the subway station around 3pm this afternoon ... when all of a sudden I hear the VERY loud roar of jet planes. No planes are allowed over "war-time" Washington, DC, so I'm kind of wondering what's going on. Then I hear helicopters. About 500 - 1000 feet over my head, are 4 Presidential helicopters -- returning to the White House from Camp David. The jets were their fighter escorts. Chris

To: SusieQ1065 who wrote (17871)	9/23/2001 8:57:43 PM
From: Teri Garner	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 208838

Stocks not as cheap as they look Kathleen Pender Given how far the market dropped last week -- the Dow industrials were down 14 percent and the Nasdaq composite was off 16 percent -- you'd think that stocks must be cheap by now. You'd be wrong, at least by historical measures. Using the most basic valuation -- price/earnings ratios -- stocks are less expensive than they were but still not bargain basement. That's because earnings are falling as fast or faster than stock prices, which is not unusual at this stage in an economic cycle. As of Friday, the Standard & Poor's 500 index was trading at 26 times actual earnings for the latest four quarters. Since 1981, the average PE ratio on the S&P 500 was 17.2. The highest was 32.9 in 1998. The lowest was 7.3 in 1981, according to S&P. There are other ways to measure earnings. Most stock analysts like to use operating earnings (which exclude all kinds of special charges) projected for the next four quarters. This usually results in higher earnings, and thus a lower PE, than using actual earnings. But even using this more liberal yardstick, stocks still don't look like raging bargains. The S&P 500 is trading at 18.6 times projected operating earnings, compared with a long-term average of 15 times, according to Thomson Financial/First Call, but those earnings estimates may be overly optimistic and out of date. sfgate.com