To: artgal who wrote (4972 ) 4/24/1998 12:25:00 PM From: Jonathan Brown Respond to
Susan, I sympathize. Buying at the top, then watching a stock retrace, is no fun. In fact, last night a man named Monty on the thread for Intervu--the stock leaped from 18 to 32 in a couple of days, then collapsed on the court to 18 yesterday--had a brilliant two-word remark: MERCY!!!! MERCY!!!! He'd bought at 27, and he was feeling, uh, pinched. Even so, he showed a sense of humor, which I enjoyed and thanked him for. As for advice, my take is, as I've written in earlier posts with my usual grand dukely authority, that the Net sector has undergone a bipolar episode. The arguable reasons are many: rotation away from traditional tech sector plays, herky-jerky acceptance of the Net as a Big Thing, generally bullish market sentiment. However, this period of rapid cycling is subsiding. A bearish rout displaced a bullish blitzkreig, but SEEKs earnings surprise rallied the longs, who were in full and chaotic retreat for a couple of days. I'm looking for consolidation for the coming week, with buying as April showers turn to May flowers, mutual fund first-of-month liquidity shoveling up the, ahem, manure to help our buds bloom. That's what it looks like to me. SEEK's uptrend is intact, despite the thrashing violence of this retracing; until I see definitively broken trendlines, I will look for price improvement. As for strategy, speaking for myself, to keep my wits and avoid panic, pace Warren Buffett, I diversify and keep bets quite small. Doing so I find I sleep just fine, and my portfolio seems to like it too. Of course if you're a genius for whom normal rules and conduct do not apply, or if you're a compulsive gambler--or just compulsive--you can trade every day, tracing each twist and turn of the market like a proctologist peering into a colon with a laparoscope. Then you can report back to the thread with your findings every 15 minutes or so, to the great joy of all. But if you haven't the time or inclination for such work, look for a style that lets you keep your cool and your reason while yet allowing you to spend a few daily minutes outdoors. This may sound strange coming from a long, but if you're queasy, consider trimming, even taking a small loss if necessary, whatever you need to do to control your fear and greed. In the long run I suspect you'll be happier, and possibly wealthier, for doing so.
