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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sylvester80 who wrote (32900)	2/24/2002 9:34:12 PM
From: exp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

Syl, that's the problem. The aggregate SP500 etc. earnings numbers put forth by analysts etc. are not reliable. This has been demonstrated by Yardeni and others. The pro-forma eps put forth by companies and analysts are more than misleading as shown by SEC and Fed investigations. The problem is systemic in nature and no one can come up with reliable numbers (even pro-forma). It will take years before this is sorted out not weeks or months. In addition, for techs the issue of accounting for stock options is the make or break issue. Any unfavorable change in stock options accounting would doom Nasdaq and force many techs into bankruptcy. So, I don't buy the arguments that (1) these accounting issues will pass soon, or (2) that we'll benefit in the long-run from the accounting changes (yes, but we'll be poorer in the aggregate for many years to come first). Remember, all this took 20 years to accumulate (since 1982) and will take years to unwind. Of course, my trading will go on as usual long and short when warranted but with keen appreciation of true underlying values of the assets I am trading.