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Technology Stocks : IDTI - an IC Play on Growth Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Phaedrus who wrote (7997)	4/24/1998 12:54:00 AM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 11555

PC demand is not slowing more than normal variation. There has been a lot of "channel cramming" by Compaq and others that has caused an inventory glut and that increases the downward pricing trend. Networking sales were a big fear item last fall and that proved to be only a temporary inventory and product evolution problem. Forecasts indicate healthy growth in units but slowing growth in dollars. It is a time to be very selective but no time to panic. Besides, open up your investment thinking to the fact that you can make money if stocks move up OR if stocks move down. Yesterday when I saw the explosion in several internet stocks - ADAM, ALMI, TRAC and others went up an average of ~100% in a single day, I shorted ALMI and got up early this morning to try to short several others. Unfortunately, all these stocks gapped down at the open. I covered and made about 45% on ALMI but wasn't able to get off any more trades before they had already made 80% of the move. I saw yesterday as a "blow off" of speculative investor enthusiasm in these high-flying internet stocks. That probably was enough to tip the seasoned traders to pull the plug and take some profits. Even if you don't want to do much trading it is a good idea to hedge your investments when things get to one extreme or the other. Although a couple of my stocks went down 5%-7% today, I was up overall because of the large gain I made shorting that one stock. I would have made a lot more if so many people weren't thinking the same way and we had just a few more hours of "irrational exuberance".