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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Marcellus who wrote (15771)	11/11/2002 1:16:16 AM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78666

re: off balance sheet stuff: It would seem to be obvious that off-balance sheet stuff could come in at some point to bite the unwary investor. Yet... I've found such financing is generally (generally!) not an important factor for me in making or avoiding an investment. Yes, I have held a number of stocks that've cratered because of off-balance sheet liabilities. It always seems that it's afterword that the pundits say, "Oh well of course, it was almost foretold with all that off-balance sheet stuff." Well, in general I can't tell beforehand what's too much, and it seems to me lots of professional investors can't either (or don't make the attempt). Because I have held stocks profitably that have successfully maintained off balance sheet financing, I'm reluctant to arbitrarily shrink from companies that do use this (e.g. retailers.) But then again, that's just me, and jmo. Paul Senior