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To: yard_man who wrote (166071)	5/15/2002 4:39:21 PM
From: reaper	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 436258

<<but they better find the right sectors pretty soon>> a lot of people have found the right sectors. gold, for example. or the long list of companies in boring non-tech businesses that i keep posting here, that have legitimate revenue and cash flow growth. take one of my favorite retailers, Children's Place. while the stock is up a bunch from its lows, consider that it is still BELOW the high that it made in early 1999. In those three years, the company has basically doubled its store base and increased its cash generation by about 75%. but the stock, point to point, is down. THESE are the leaders of the next bull market. back in 1998-1999 (when the "broad" market made its high before the all-tech-all-the-time market of late 1998 - early 2000), which was not all that long ago, these companies traded at pretty high multiples. IF they got those multiples again, the stocks could have quite a run. And they will keep going higher. One, because money can't actually LEAVE the stock market. Two, because 1% of the market cap fleeing the TMTs and big drugs is 100% of the market cap of these companies. Three, because the money managers that own these stocks are out-performing, and will get more money, and thus buy more of those same stocks. Four, because these businesses are simple to understand. Five, because the accounting at these companies is incredibly simple and not subject to the obfuscation of a GE or IBM. Six, because these companies generate sufficient internal cash flow to fund their growth and are not dependent upon the capital markets or the banks. Papa John's generated almost $100mm of cash last year, up over 15% from the year before. The business has VERY low capital requirements (its a pizza place, for god's sake). The market cap, even after the move that it has had, is STILL less than $700mm; that's $700mm equity market cap for a company that generates AFTER-TAX cash flow available to equity holders of nearly $100mm. Even I can understand what they do for a living. Even Al Harrison can understand their financial statements. Barring a collapse in the economy, I am still going to take my little league team to Papa John's for pizza after every win. There is plenty of money to be made on the long side for people who can tear themselves away from focussing on AMAT, CSCO, C, MCD etc all the time. Cheers