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Pastimes : Ask Mohan about the Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robnhood who wrote (12019)	12/21/1997 9:40:00 AM
From: tekgk	Respond to of 18056

>> tek,,,,< My main goal remains capital preservation.>> >> WHY???? >> rr Bear markets destroy bulls and bears alike. Lots of bears have been correct about sad fundamentals like PE's PSR's PBR's etc. for years. I probably rode the old bull too long (I got out in June - see old posts) but the psychology of the market was so strong that I took my chances. The early shorters and purchasers of put options are history. Being trampled by and old bull is a terrible way to go. My experience is that bear markets often have violent rallies that can crush even the smartest of bears - this is why I have been careful during the Christmas - New Year period. I would rather miss a big decline than be crushed by a violent rally. This does not mean that I will not take short positions or buy puts, it's that I am very careful when I do so. Since Aug I have gone significantly short three times. Two were nice winners and one was a loser. On the loser I had tight stops on my SPY shorts and had been ratcheting them down but was taken out by a strong upward gap a point or so above the stop. The short still made a little but my puts lost about 30%. Overall I am still ahead of the game. If I add in the interest from my tax free munis it's been a very good couple of months. I guess the bottom line is that I am not as smart and agile as guys like Mohan who take aggressive positions and come up big more often than not - I just plod along slowly trying too see through stuff like the new era crap on the bull side and avoiding the crazy dipsters when I am short. Historically, REAL bear markets last about 12 years (unlike the 87 bull market correction). I believe that this is the start of the fourth such bear of this century (if you adjust to constant dollar terms). Plenty of time to make money on the short side of stocks. The previous 3 bears saw losses that averaged 75% for the perma bulls. If the money supply keeps growing like it is I might even return to the gold market in a few years like I did in the late 70's. If we haven't destroyed ourselves there should be some great long investments by around 2007- 2010 that I would like to take advantage of for my kids.