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To: kendall harmon who wrote (21912)	8/2/2002 6:31:13 PM
From: backman	Respond to of 26752

WMB...(which i have shorted and covered today...still holding small position) biz.yahoo.com Friday August 2, 3:57 pm Eastern Time Reuters Company News Sell Williams' bonds after 'Buffett' rally - analyst By Dena Aubin NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Investors have tried for decades to score big by copying the value-driven investment strategies of Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett. Yet bondholders might do well to flee his latest foray, the struggling energy trader Williams Cos. (NYSE:WMB - News), according to a leading independent credit analyst. ADVERTISEMENT An infusion of cash from Buffett and other investors, which eased fears this week Williams might default on its debt, has not solved the company's credit quality woes, said Carol Levenson, an analyst at fixed-income research service Gimme Credit. "Bondholders should take advantage of the Omaha rally to exit this name, since we fear the company's situation remains precarious," Levenson wrote in a research note on Friday. Shares of Williams soared as much as 44 percent and its bonds rose seven to 10 points on Thursday after the company said it had secured $2 billion in financing from banks and the investment company of Buffett, known as the "Sage of Omaha." Renowned for his penchant for undervalued assets, Buffett has sparked rallies before with investments in junk-rated companies. Two years ago, news that he had bought junk bonds of commercial lender Finova Group Inc. boosted that company's bonds and helped breathe life into the junk bond market. Last month, when Buffett and two other investors bought convertible bonds of struggling fiber optic cable firm Level 3 Communications, the news drove the company's existing bonds up by more than 20 cents on the dollar. CASH INFUSION COMES AT A PRICE Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Williams has been caught in an industrywide credit crunch following last year's collapse of energy trader Enron Corp. (Other OTC:ENRNQ.PK - News). Part of Williams' recent cash drain likely resulted from increased cash collateral requirements triggered by its downgrade to junk last month, Levenson said. Williams' new financing and some speedily executed asset sales have solved the company's near-term liquidity needs, but its cash cushion is still much lower than it used to be Levenson said. Moreover, the company had to secure the financing by pledging assets, and it gained only a modest extension of debt maturities by doing that, she wrote. Also, the company's sale of $1.4 billion of noncore assets came at the price of some diversification and an estimated $200 million in cash flow, she said. Williams bonds were quoted in the low 60s on Friday, mostly unchanged from Thursday's levels. It shares were down 40 cents or 10.5 percent to $3.40 after closing at $3.80 on Thursday. Shannon Bass, a fixed-income portfolio manager for Pacific Investment Management Co., said that over the long term, the bonds have room to improve further if Williams succeeds in shedding assets and debt. For now, though, they are unlikely to find many more buyers, he said. "I think there's a lot of people that have been damaged in the bonds, and because of that I don't think there's going to be a lot of people looking to necessarily reload on Williams tomorrow," said Bass. "It's going to take time." Rating agency Standard & Poor's is also taking a wait-and-see approach. Analysts said in a conference call on Thursday that they had not yet determined how the new liquidity would affect Williams ratings. "Shoring up near-term liquidity needs the way they did is a good thing," said S&P analyst Ron Barone. "Using (liquidity) is a bad thing, because then they have more debt."

To: kendall harmon who wrote (21912)	8/2/2002 9:41:07 PM
From: Frederick Langford	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26752

Thoughts for the weekend... Only in America... 1. Only in America.....can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance. 2. Only in America......are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink. 3. Only in America......do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front. 4. Only in America......do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke. 5. Only in America....do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters. 6. Only in America......do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage. 7. Only in America......do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place. 8. Only in America......do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight or twelve. 9. Only in America......do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'. 10. Only in America......do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

To: kendall harmon who wrote (21912)	8/3/2002 5:08:19 AM
From: lee kramer	Respond to of 26752

Kendall: Your "Lessons of the Bear" was one fine post. I suggest that every trader read it....Lee

To: kendall harmon who wrote (21912)	8/3/2002 1:35:10 PM
From: TWICK	Respond to of 26752

Thanks Kendall. Many people I know don't take the time to review, and re-group. They'd rather hold on and wait it out. It's especially frustrating when those people are family. Twick

To: kendall harmon who wrote (21912)	8/3/2002 2:42:55 PM
From: Susan G	Respond to of 26752

Excellent article Kendall, Are you posting on real money regularly? If so I'm going to renew my subscription... Then maybe those e-mails from Cramer asking why I let it run out will stop <ggg> I was looking at all the monthly charts I posted in late May last night, as I was looking or an old sox chart with support levels, and found the monthly and weekly charts I had poitced with warning signals in May. I was shocked to see the SOX monthly bearflag reached its projected target this week, I had not looked at the monthly in quite a while, I had been concentrating on daily and shorter term since the move down was in progress. I will post them again later with updates, so we can see the results and learn from them. I myself learned a ton just seeing how these signals played out. The warning signs were all there, but it was hard to believe at that time that the targets projected by those chart patterns could EVER occur. As optimists we all hope the worst will not happen. But they did. I remember pointing out the bearflag on the monthly semis to someone who was very bullish on semis at the time. They laughed it off. Called it a healthy pullback, and said to buy all dips. After pointing out later bearish patterns on the weekly and daily, which also were not taken seriously, I finally stopped bothering to point it out. All I can say is chart patterns do not lie, aswe all learned the past few weeks. The economists and talking heads of the media wwere all telling the economy was in great shape, yet the charts were saying the exact opposite. It was very hard to be so bearish the past few months while so mny were bullish and expecting a huge recovery and rally, but I just could not ignore the charts. Even took quite a bit of abuse from bulls via pm who thought I was overly bearish an seeing things on the charts <g> Even I did not believe some of those targets projected by long term chart patterns could happen, but they did. I only wish I could have recognized these bearish patterns a few years ago, like the huge rising wedge at the top of the nasdaq in March 2000, or the total breakdown in some of the net stocks I was holding, instead of holding longer and waiting for them to come back. But I wasn't able to see it myself until I learned how to see the patterns and more importantly, believe in what the charts were telling me. And none of us wanted to believe that some of these stocks at 100 bucks could ever end up at 2 bucks...we are bascially optimists, who wants to ee the dark side... It's the lesson of a lifetime for all of us, and fortunately for us all, that may be the only breakdown of a bubble we will see in our lifetime. Too bad <g>, we've all learned so much now, in another bubble we would ALL now have the knowledge to make a killing on the way up - AND the way down <g> I updated most of the monthly charts last night, and will finish them all and post them later.