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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (24811)	10/31/2002 8:26:08 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Jay, you lost me there. It looked like a card shark shuffling a pack and saying "Pick a card. Any card". A whole lot of counterbalancing pieces of paper or magnetic fields seems a bit risky to me. I wonder what the heck is behind it all and supporting it - keeping it aloft. I wonder what will happen when push comes to shove and you present whichever card it is you selected to be redeemed for whatever it is that you expect to be paid with. I wonder if they'll shrug and say "Well, we thought we had it all balanced and we'd love to honour our side of the bargain, but please come to the bankruptcy court where we can discuss this more fully". I guess I'm too stupid to understand sophisticated financial instruments like that. But hang on, that reminds me of my old primary school chum, Bong Wong, who I called in to see back in 1989, after the stockmarket bust of 1987 [which was a major event in NZ unlike the rest of the world]. He owns Multimedia Systems, which he created. In the mid 1980s he told me he'd been approached by Equitycorp who wanted to take over his company in exchange for a bunch of their excellent shares which had risen extraordinarily during the early to mid 1980s. He declined, saying that he didn't understand that financially complicated stuff. I ventured to suggest that he probably did and the proof was in the outcome. Equiticorp went bust, along with all the other debt-inflated puffballs. Bong carried on. Alan Hawkins even did gaol time for fraud. Equiticorp's process was to buy companies with no or low debt, using the excellent Equiticorp shares as money. Then they'd borrow a big bunch of money, puff the whole charade up another notch, then go look for something else to acquire. It all worked beautifully until one day the creditors asked for their money back and lenders required higher interest rates. The collapse was spectacular, for many, many companies. The fallout is still clearing, 15 years later, with assets being sold off as the old boomers are carved up and the market continues to wallow. As I said then to more intelligent people, I think I'll stick with these boring solid companies. They suggested I get with the new way of doing things - financial companies and sophisticated instruments, not dumb old stone age companies which make things. QUALCOMM makes things. People seem to like to buy those things. They pay money. QUALCOMM puts it in the bank. It works for me. I don't understand all that stuff you described, but I bet it's really good for people who understand it. Mqurice

To: TobagoJack who wrote (24811)	10/31/2002 11:42:30 PM
From: pezz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<<Have I made myself clear on this trade?> Oh yeah ,sure, I got it alright.I guess ya know what'cha doing. S'funny I use screening to pull up hundreds of stocks and might buy one out of fifty , but I just BUY it! None of all this hedging just in case stuff...Sheesh you is taking all the risk outa the game.What fun in that? Oh well not too many reports from me lately. I'm pretty much fully loaded up and don't think I wanna get on margin just now. Finally got enough miles on my new Jeep. Gonna take it up to the Sierras this weekend. Only two weeks left in trout season ya know.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (24811)	11/1/2002 3:56:07 AM
From: Snowshoe	Respond to of 74559

Jay, I bought NLY earlier this year based on buzz from you, Fleck and others. Sold it on that nice pop in June and then watched it tank. Maybe I'll look at it again, but that sudden drop really freaked me. Bought a couple smashed small cap tech stocks lately with loose change I found under my car seat... ITRA and WIND. Added to WIND this morning. Both of these were pumped earlier this year by Tom Calandra at CBS Marketwatch. I imagine they'll both fade if/when the Naz slides again. WIND was an old favorite of mine in better days.