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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scotsman who wrote (27442)	1/2/1998 6:34:00 PM
From: J Fieb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Scotsman, The lack of DVD rentals is good biz for some as I got this mail today.......Dear Frequent Buyer Club Member: Happy New Year from the staff of DVD EXPRESS! For those of you that have been on board with DVD from the beginning, we applaud your patience and enthusiasm for helping get this exciting new technology off to a strong start. And for the newcomers to our group of early-adopters, we welcome you and promise exciting developments in the world of DVD over the next few months and throughout 1998. For those of you keeping track of the numbers, we now have over 800 titles in stock at our warehouse! Good News/Bad News scenario: Over the last month, demand has been so strong for some popular titles, that we've sold out supplies after as little as two weeks. This is unusual for us, and a result of underestimation of demand by the studios, and the resulting under-pressing of product. In a couple of cases, we've been allocated far less than we've ordered. We hope this doesn't continue to happen, but on the bright side, underscores the growing demand for good strong 'A' titles. By the way, at the time of this email, CONTACT is back in stock. It's a good idea to check in each weekend to see what's new for the following week. We process orders every day, including Saturday and Sunday, to insure that new titles arrive at you home as close to the street date as possible. We will also be offering a preorder service soon to make it easier for you to get guaranteed delivery on new titles. This service should be available by January 10. Best wishes for a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year. Here's what's in store for the next two weeks. ~ January 6, 1998 ~ Blue Angels Celine Dion: Colour of My Love Fire Down Below Red Arrows: Rolling in the Sky Spawn ~ January 7, 1998 ~ Mozart: Requiem for Sarajevo Navy Seals Weird Science ~ January 9, 1998 ~ Tromeo & Juliet ~ January 13, 1998 ~ Beneath the 12 Mile Reef Gold Rush Jack and the Beanstalk Money Talks Utopia ~ January 14, 1998 ~ Cat People Double Indemnity Radioland Murders The Andromeda Strain Weird Al Yankovic If you would like to visit our store now, click on the link below. dvdexpress.com

To: Scotsman who wrote (27442)	1/2/1998 9:07:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Scotsman, I'm not sure I follow your logic. You know, these index funds are I think the devils own creation. If anything is going to cause a 30's style crash, it will be those things. A whole lot of people have their 401K and other money in mutual funds. They buy these index funds which must, by definition, emulate the index by purchasing the same stocks in the same proportions as the index itself. So, you have a large amount of money chasing a limited amount of stock. The price of the stocks has to climb, regardless of fundementals or technicals. When the stock price climbs, the index fund makes a large return. They mutual funds say " Hey, look at my performance. And more money comes in, and the thing simply spirals upward. 1. For every buyer there's a seller. 2. If a stock within an index becomes overpriced, it may be sold or shorted by individuals (and probably many have been). 3. If we confine our discussion to something tangible like the S&P 500 simply because Vanguard pioneered index funds with that one, does this not, in fact, provide greater diversity than many individuals would otherwise have? Is there not less risk than concentrating ones holdings in CUBE, for example. 4. Or are you suggesting that anyone purchasing mutual funds should be prohibited from holding stocks? 5. Last time I looked at a long term graph of the S&P 500, it had a nice upwards slope. What's wrong with getting the Index performance? You get to beat 90% of equity funds and probably a larger percentage of individual investors. Thats how you get Coke trading at 45 times earnings. I thought that consistently growing earnings during the past century faster than the economy in general grew, contributed to the premium investors are willing to pay for Coke. Having Buffett as a major holder doesn't hurt. Having a globally recognized brand name adds a little value as well. (I don't own KO, but I do have the Dogs of the Dow, and I don't care what their P/E is. For 15 minutes effort once a year, one gets to beat the Dow by about 5% points annually during the past 70 years). Sooner or later, something will break, and the entire herd will head to the doors at once. Will not be a pretty sight. Probably true, but what's that got to do with people deciding to own the whole market via the Vanguard 500 fund or AMEX:SPY? IMO, absolutely nothing. I'm interested in hearing the underlying reasoning against buying the market in favour of picking a couple high tech stocks with no track record, higher P/Es, PSRs, P/Bk, etc than most "overpriced" members of the S&P 500 or the Dow. Ian.