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Strategies & Market Trends : MARKET INDEX TECHNICAL ANALYSIS - MITA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stomper who wrote (13863)	7/27/2002 9:14:01 AM
From: marginmike	Respond to of 19219

dude dont puta stick in the donkeys eyes, they may get mad and kick you-g-

To: stomper who wrote (13863)	7/27/2002 12:50:30 PM
From: CYBERKEN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19219

Not exactly. While I think that short-selling as it currently takes place will create a future catastrophe in our markets, my concern is that large institutional investors who are supposedly "fiduciaries" of the retirement money of millions will decide that the most appropriate investment style in today's market is not the old fashioned practice of buying and holding the best companies in the world, suffering the losses while benefiting from the gains, and preserving the customers' capital through good times and bad (like now), but, instead adopting the investment style of LTCM. As you'll recall, LTCM was "fool proof" because it's managers were supposedly from some sort of master race which could rise above the common concerns of the flow of the markets that us mere mortals have to worry about. These geniuses would go short and long and adjust their leverage, creating a perfect world where the customer would always get superior returns (and they would get massive compensation for just being who they are). Of course, like all such fool proof schemes, it crashed and burned, and even the Fed had to step in for damage control. Now imagine a significant portion of those obscure folks-managing the retirement benefits and life insurance assets of millions of people who not only haven't got a clue, but can't get one because the disclosure rules are practically non-existent, deciding that they'd better play this bear market with massive hedging schemes, and that they can somehow do better than the common investing idiot. Same old story, and, eventually, same sad results. But this mistake would be so big that there would be no lender of last resort when the margin calls start to come in. It's a long complex problem, and volumes will be written about it if it occurs. At the end of the day, markets are built confidence in the long view. When that disappears completely, the markets (and probably the entire society) go with it. Short-sellers and hedge fund managers trade on that apocalypse scenario. And the day we ALL hedge (whether we even know about it or not) is the day we are signing our death warrants. With today's crisis of confidence, far too many people are considering putting their fate into the hands of the usually-harmless short-seller. It's a tough row to hoe, but we need to retain enough confidence to stay long, whether we like it or not. Regulation of short-selling is a positive tool in this critical effort to keep the majority looking forward. Otherwise, the fashion of the day, "hedging", becomes the poison that puts an end to the entire free world. And THAT is what's worse than what you are seeing today...