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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robnhood who wrote (18246)	5/9/1998 12:56:00 AM
From: Vitas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 94695

Then you have to wonder, is it important to be "elite". When I turned thirty I was aghast that I didn't have my first Ferrarri; when I turned forty I said, We'll I still don't have one, but who gives a ...........

To: robnhood who wrote (18246)	5/9/1998 11:01:00 AM
From: James F. Hopkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 94695

Russell; If in the long haul one subtracts inflation, and what could have been made in bonds ( if entered at the right times ) then take off ( all the companies that went belly up and got delisted ) take all that away from the indexes and you will see equities have not done all that good for the majority of the people that played them. Brokers are sales man..they point at the good side..but don't tell you about the leaky pipes under the house. They tend to pick the low points and compare them to the high points..while never mentioning all the issues that got dropped from the indexes..let alone dropped from the market. There are a few funds that have done OK ...but seldom do people say well If I went in this fund last May..or had bought bonds at that time..now were would I be..let me tell you bonds bought last May have done better than most of the equity funds. Navs are often window dressed too..take the 5% front load funds they can show a better track record than the investor gets not only do you lose the 5% up front..you lose any profit that 5% would make, the better the fund does the more that 5% cost you. In can't prove it, but circumstantial evidence tells me that many no load funds use a fudge factor that conceals a small charge going in and out and enhances the looks of their performance. They get inflow/outflow orders early enough in the day, to adjust the end of day CUT OFF time on calculating their Navs just enough that you could not hold their feet to the fire..but it adds up. Large inflows of money and they pick a slightly higher point to end their day,, large outflows a lower one. This may be a very small number but add it up over a years time. I know a lot about fudge factors..as I have had to use a few myself. I tend to think if you happen to buy in on a day with a lot of other people or exit on a day with more going out of the fund you get clipped a little, both ways..but if your lucky you you may be on the other side of the fudge factor, still it's run in a way that the skew catches were the direction of the most action, hence the majority..so your odds over time of being on the right side are not as good as being on the wrong side..and this will effect market timers like myself more than the longer term investors.. <G> Don't get me wrong I'm not making any big complaint about it, as I know what they are up against and how market timers do cost them money..and have a net negitive effect on the over all market. LOOK AT ONE SHARE A share is like a commodity ..from the value point of it on the premise that the value is based over time on the abliity of that company to do good and have more earnings and so on, for that value to increase. Each time that share is traded it cost money to trade ( it has an over head that takes away from what it could have increased in value based just on the preformance of the company ) So short term traders add to the overhead of the commodity called a share and the company has to better and better to hold the value of that share above what the almost hidden over head over head that is built in each time it changes hands. A short term capital gains tax would discorage a lot of that, and really help the longer term investors and the market to do the job it was intended to do. BUT the big brokers don't want that they after all make money off the volume. While with equities I'm more a trader than an investor I do not live in denial as to the negitive impact traders have on the long term gains in the value of Stocks..and would not object to a short term cap gains tax. Even the what the Brokers would call obscene..but I would want it to apply to every one not just the small trader and we will never get it, not in my life time. So I'm not going to fight the trend, and would be foolish to come down on my own case for playing the market in a way I know is not condusive to it being an efficient way to price companies. People with a lot more power than me could change it if they wanted to and untill they do I will consider the sin of it all to be on their sholders not mine. Jim