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Technology Stocks : Creative Labs (CREAF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CHIP HUNTER who wrote (5192)	10/29/1997 12:32:00 AM
From: CHIP HUNTER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13925

Jon I take it you went long today, am I right?? Well guess what I just got home and looked at the charts and I think it might be the right time to go short again in CREAF.Good luck Jon!!

To: CHIP HUNTER who wrote (5192)	10/29/1997 2:48:00 AM
From: Jon Tara	Respond to of 13925

Chip, how many times I changed my mind is irrelevant. You find merit in not changing one's mind. I find merit in being willing to do so. I changed it as many times as the market told me was necessary, given my trading style. The TA was negative going into earnings, and the market was not cooperating either. I set a target of 18. However, I did not feel that CREAF was safe to short, because of a good probability of an earnings blowout. It was not worth the risk. The day before earnings the market started treating earnings reports better. I went long on that and on clues from market action on the close prior to earnings. I try to avoid market exposure. (My account is 100% cash more often than not.) I made it clear when I sold that it was nothing "personal" against CREAF, but just because I was being cautious of a shakey market. 5 points on a 21 dollar stock in 48 hours was just fine with me... And, boy, did the market subsequently shake! :) I did not feel that there was a good enough probability of a drop in CREAF to justify a short position. Certainly, it would be expected to react in a market crash, but it was not clear that there would BE a market crash. The stock was acting so strongly, that it appeared that it might even go up even if the market moved down strongly. But, at the same time, I wanted to protect my total investment and profit in what seemed like a very spooky market. I did say last week when I sold that I was going to stay out of the market until Tuesday, and did so. This also turned out to be exactly correct. (Though I do attribute this more to luck than anything else!) I also made it clear when I subsequently made bullish statements about CREAF's strength in the "crash" that I was not buying - just observing that CREAF was holding up very well, and that this was to be noted for further action, and that I felt that CREAF would be one of the best stocks in any subsequent market rise. So, I'm not sure that I really "changed my mind" at all. You are wrong, when you say "the TA doesn't change from day to day". It certainly does - EVERY day. You must be willing to re-evaluate the TA daily. TA is not deterministic - it only points to probabilities, and those probabilities shift daily. We are about "even" at this point - I bought at 21, sold at 26. You shorted at 26 and change, covered at 22. (Using round numbers here.) Our trades were mirror-images a week apart. The difference is that I had no market exposure whatsoever (long or short) during an extremally volatile period when "anything" could have happened.