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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chi-X who wrote (22344)	11/10/1997 2:33:00 PM
From: Andreas Samson	Respond to of 61433

There seems to be a pattern to the way a stock dies. First, the price starts to fall, on heavy volume, without any NEWS to support the change in valuation. Speculation abounds. Investors begin to cite theories of market manipulation by brokerage houses and market makers. 'It's a conspiracy of short-sellers, those back-stabbing motherF@#%$!'s.' Then they begin to yell at management for not 'clarifying' the situation. At the eleventh hour, management releases an 'earnings shortfall'. Price falls further, then stablizes briefly. Investors begin to talk about the wisdom of 'long-term' investing. Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch are cited (as though either one would scratch this flea-bitten dog in question) with regularity. 'We're at the 52 week low. Only a fool would sell now.' 'When everything turns negative, that's the time to buy.' 'This stock is a SCREAMING buy.' and, of course, 'All the bad news on this stock is out now.' Of course, the stock has only halfway completed its journey to the inferno. Turns out the next quarter isn't going to be so hot either, something about pricing pressures, something about operating margins dropping. Gee, lemme run the numbers again..... 'Well, maybe growth rate is not running at 40% this year, but it's still almost as big as the multiple, that's not so bad, I mean hey, there are lots of companies out there with P/E over 25, and they're trading for hell, $50. Look at (insert name of bellweather company). Look at them. We're trading at a discount to them. This is a value play! And then the next quarter...'gee isn't this the third straight quarter with sequentially flat (or declining) revenues? Wasn't this supposed to be the turnaround quarter? Okay, it wasn't what we were expecting, but lots of companies trade in the single digits for awhile. Look at Shiva. Right? At these prices you can triple down, dammit. RIGHT? Hey, it's getting kind of lonely on this thread. I remember, before my second margin call, when we were getting 500 posts a day...'