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To: jbe who wrote (22664)	5/21/1998 11:33:00 PM
From: drsvelte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Actually, I recently had occasion to experience my first war (as an observer, only), and I must confess that I came to understand why some people become addicted to it. I am a peacenik. But let's face it, peace can be boring. War is, if nothing else, exciting (for non-combatants too). You are more alive when your life is at risk! So, I presume, it's back to the battlefield? I suppose, but once I had a cocked 9mm on my forehead as a hostage. Quite frankly, I am much more alive when my life is not at risk. Money at risk, OK, because that's all it is.

To: jbe who wrote (22664)	5/22/1998 1:18:00 AM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

So you want the Zen of Investing . Try this approach: use Value Line (I know, I know proprietary methods!) #1 timeliness as your first screen. Then weed out stocks from that group based on your personal criteria. Watch the news daily using one or more of the internet sites like Yahoo!. Hold for as long as the long-term fundamental picture remains intact. Sell when it is violated. Try it on paper for awhile. Buy and hold is generally a good policy, but sometimes it doesn't work all that well -- especially if you ignore bad news. Example: about thirty years ago I was buying IBM at around $12.50 split adjusted. It's around $125 today. When you include dividends, the yield has been around 12% (very boring). A buy and hold on T in 1984 would have yielded around 19% (better than the S&P over the same time frame). I cite both of these companies because each went through a significant down turn that was cause by news available to all of us well before the fact. Had you applied the selling rule you would have avoided much of the substandard pricing. Awhile back I was invested in CKR, a rapidly-growing restaurant chain. I got out because they assumed a significant amount of convertible debt -- debt which I felt added substantial risk to owning the stock. Plus, the convertible feature would have diluted the value of my holdings were they successful in their acquisition. So I got out in the mid 40's (around 43). Last I checked, the company was trading around $30. I don't know the reason, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had to do with the perception of additional risk. Now Ascend is a good quality company, well-positioned in a rapidly growing market. At around the time it merged with Cascade the company experienced some growing pains, but, to my way of thinking, those problems were temporary in nature and since I believe that it is futile to try to predict the market, I didn't sell when the stock began to fall from the 50's down to the 20's. Here's possible approach you might like to try. Using Value Line's #1 and #2 Timeliness stocks as your universe, choose those stocks with the highest long-term growth rates. Take top 30 candidates and apply the PEG screen by selecting the 10 stocks in that group with the lowest PEG. I haven't tried this method myself, but it seems promising. By the way, flapdoodle!!! Now who's a fuddy-duddy? TTFN, CTC