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

To: rjm2 who wrote (17587)	8/16/2003 11:38:38 PM
From: jeffbas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78530

"inability to find the kind of buys that I find compelling" I suggest being careful as to the standards you are using. Just as we may not live long enough to see the general level of excess seen in early 2000, I also doubt that we will see any time soon the kinds of valuation in tech stocks (and many others) that existed last Fall. Somewhere in between is the kind of valuation levels that will exist most of the time. If you sit there in cash, thinking about those Fall valuations, you may be earning 1% for a long time. The biggest mistake I have made this year by far is to spend too much time looking into the rear view mirror - "It was a great buy at $10 and it just has to be a bad buy at $20".

To: rjm2 who wrote (17587)	8/17/2003 5:10:19 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78530

I doubt my or anyones ability to consistently choose those stocks that react favorably to any market environment. Personally I stay fully invested most of the time. I decided long ago to focus my energies on stockpicking (where I can figure out a company) instead of market timing (where there are zillions of factors to consider and precious few reliable patterns). FWIW, the top midcap value fund over the past few years did pretty well staying invested: finance.yahoo.com^spx,^ixic,^dji&a=v&p=s&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l We each have our own styles. You asked for comments and I gave you my perspective. My own portfolio has outperformed this fund by several points over the same two-year period. You should do what works for you. But I agree with the other poster who said you may wait so long for the perfect pitch that the game passes you by. Dwelling on macro issues seems to lead most people into a paralysis of analysis. And I can't see how most people who aren't economists or market pros can sort out the macro data any better than they can analyze individual company fundies. Last idea - I own a lot of international stuff now that doesn't correlate with US indexes. It's still cheap value stuff but it's also my way of adding a hedge against the overvalued US market index concerns (not that I own much in the US in the major indexes either). Good luck.