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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Man from Mars who wrote (6280)	4/28/1998 3:31:00 PM
From: D.J.Smyth	Respond to of 74651

here's what stkwtch.com has to say about msft. first time in six months they've stated "deteriorating conditions"; interesting: COMMENT Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) indicates a BULLISH TREND Chart pattern indicates a POSSIBLE TREND REVERSAL Relative Strength is BULLISH Up/Down volume pattern indicates that the stock is under DISTRIBUTION The 50 day MOVING AVERAGE is rising which is BULLISH The 200 day MOVING AVERAGE is rising which is BULLISH PRICE IS UNDER SUPPORT OF 91.83 WHICH IS BEARISH Stochastics indicate stock is OVERSOLD RECOMMENDATION STOCK SHOWS MILDLY DETERIORATING CONDITIONS SCORE = -1 IF YOU ARE LONG HOLD CURRENT POSITION; DO NOT INITIATE NEW POSITION

To: Bald Man from Mars who wrote (6280)	4/28/1998 3:32:00 PM
From: johnd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Bald man, Any reason that you see "It is going to $80 for sure" and "looking at $60". Even though I have only long positions, I would love to see those prices fo $80 or better yet $60 on MSFT as that would allow me to buy a lot more at cheap prices in the near future. Let me know when do you think that it will hit 80 and 60 and why? thanks johnd

To: Bald Man from Mars who wrote (6280)	4/28/1998 4:06:00 PM
From: brian z	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

That is a bald view from MARS!! But you are on EARTH now.

To: Bald Man from Mars who wrote (6280)	4/29/1998 7:39:00 AM
From: Shibumi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

>>Going to $80 for sure [...maybe] are looking at $60<< Thanks for this. You know, in reading it, it prompted me to finally do some primary research on this topic. Someone a few months ago posted that Microsoft had seen a drop from its high of at most 19% in the life of the equity. What I did was take 7 years of data (the most I have available, unfortunately) and look at some ideal numbers arbitrarily segmented at a month-by-month basis. In the period in question, Microsoft went from $5.5 to $90 (monthly closing prices). If you look at the average performance of a short bought at the beginning of one month, and covered at the end of the month, then your average monthly return is -4%. The average monthly performance of a long is 3%. The best you'd have done on the short side in a month is 16%, the worst you'd have done is -33%. The best you'd have done on the long-side is 25%, the worst you'd have done is -19%. Another one of the things that you find by doing this is that within any given month, if you short the stock at its highest level and then cover at its lowest level, you can make an average of 13% monthly return. Within any given month, if you buy the stock long at its lowest level and then sell it at its highest level, you can make an average of 15%. To put this in some perspective, here's another set of numbers: if you short the stock at its highest level in a month and then sell at the closing price on the last day of the month, your average monthly return is 5%. If you buy the stock at its lowest level and then sell at the closing price on the last day of the month, your average monthly return is 9%. I don't use TA except on a limited basis to time buys and sells I've already decided to make based on fundamentals. So I'm probably just ignorant of this overall topic. My question to someone shorting Microsoft based on TA is as follows: if TA works so well for you, do you use it to take short-term long positions at a much greater frequency than you take short-term short positions? If not, why?