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Strategies & Market Trends : Tech Stock Options -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hans who wrote (28462)	11/14/1997 1:09:00 PM
From: ViperChick Secret Agent 006.9	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58727

Hans You are not the only one.... glad you are taking it in stride!

To: Hans who wrote (28462)	11/14/1997 2:21:00 PM
From: Muizz M. Kheraj	Respond to of 58727

Hans, You sound like me...except that it has happened to me on more than 3 occasions... Muizz

To: Hans who wrote (28462)	11/14/1997 9:00:00 PM
From: C.N.S.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58727

Agree with most of what you said except >> 6) dont pay more than 1 for a call (reduces loss)<< Low-priced options expire worthless very often. One should strive to sell this (via covered calls or naked puts). Buying low-priced options make sense mainly as form of hedging strategy. Might I be impolite enough to ask - what do you consult in, which part of the country, what rates in that part of the country for s.t. assignments, how do you do it (via employee of co. with W-2 or via 1099) and what is your opinion/experience about the whole thing ? Feel free to completely ignore this question if you consider this too intrusive. Regards Shivu

To: Hans who wrote (28462)	11/16/1997 11:10:00 PM
From: Autumn Henry	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58727

Hans, thanks for your posting. Reading from the street.com tonite it seems that that the funds are really getting hurt alot too. And supposidly they have all that expensive help to help them make smart decisions...so where does that leave us relying on ourselves.....:) (I have comforted myself in the past that if Donald Trump could have almost lost it all once and he could and did hire the best help money can buy then a little guy like me could make a few mistakes....:)) This is Cramers view which may be similar to many managers and has a certain comfort to it: Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: Cramer Finds Himself Fighting for the High Ground By James J. Cramer 11/14/97 9:37 PM ET Did we retest? Is that what happened Thursday? Did we hold? Just when I think we have and I am committing capital a little more aggressively, Jeff Berkowitz, my taller, cooler partner, sticks a hastily penciled Post-it note on the middle of my stock screen: "The problems in Brazil and Southeast Asia have not gone away. Have you forgotten that?" I crumple his warning in a ball, and say, "No, no -- I think we have a tradeable bottom on our hands." He responds: "What the hell does that have to do with the $%#$%##% overseas disasters?" I fire back about how "it feels good" that stocks bounced where they should have bounced, that we are on course to be out of the woods by next week. And he says: "But who is going to make the numbers? No one will make the numbers! Don't give me that gut instinct stuff. Deal with reality." I can smell his fury. By now I am screaming at him. "You want reality. How about the #%#^@% U.S. %&$^%$% bond market. There's reality. Six trillion dollars of reality in my favor. You gotta love the bonds." And he's right back in my grinning face: "Then buy the &^$&$$% bonds! Listen to yourself. You wanted to buy the supermarkets because they kept going up, and I told you that we hadn't even done any homework and now American Stores blows up. You could have buried us." Low blow. So it goes in hedge fund land, where more than the usual amount of confusion reigns. I can't recall when I have been more at odds with my soul mates. It gets worse. Jeff is so anxious about my desire to call the bottom that he checks in with the Trading Goddess on Thursday night for a read. I don't know if Mrs. C got her vision clouded by his bearishness, or if she's just reading the tea leaves differently than I am, but he gets her to tell me that she doesn't even think we are done retesting. That we haven't had the tradeable bottom. Friday, when it was up 100, she urges me to pare back and ready myself for another leg down. I tell her she's already been wrong for 100 points. Now I am arguing with her, which is never good for the home life. "The Japanese are taking decisive action," I say. "They might be shoring up the banks this weekend and cutting taxes." She doesn't to want to hear it. "Isn't that that the 400th stimulus package in the last ten years?" she asks. "Why would you fall for it this time?" I found myself mouthing "but this one might really work." "That's something to bet the ranch on," she says, ringing off with the same disgusted tone reserved for past Novembers when I have risked our years on hunches like "the tradeable bottom." "Why don't you just go to the movies, where you won't hurt anybody," she tosses in as a final rejoinder. I can take on one of my valued partners at a time. But I can't take on both. So on Friday I ended up kicking out a lot of what I bought Wednesday and Thursday. On Monday I'll look at it again. What's the point of telling you all of this internal mumbo-jumbo? I'm sharing it with you because despite the tremendous conviction you see from the talking heads on television, and the calm reassuring manner of your broker or mutual fund manager in his quarterly letter, all of us pretty much feel like we are flying blind right now. And that speaks more loudly than any stock recommendation. ************ Autumn