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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: S.C. Barnard who wrote (28834)	7/10/1998 9:13:00 AM
From: MarkM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

Yes. I have a friend who margined on BARR about a year ago. He has more common sense than me, and stayed in until he broke even. He's particularly stubborn, and USUALLY it pays off for him. Now BARR has plummetted again, but it will probably come back from it's $7.5 area to hit $12 again in the not too distant future. CPQ is much bigger and has more inertia than a rinky-dink company like BARR. Ekhard Pfeiffer has general credibility for good management. And CPQ is trading at only 15 times forward earnings, apparently a relative bargain, even according to analysts comments yesterday. Also, people are buying the future, which looks revealing into the fall/spring. My take is for a short up-burst through earnings, where $36.5 is completely reasonable (I think there's 80% probability). Then a short rest. Then a big fat pullback to $30 again as the Japanese botch up their economy even more this summer. The Asian thing is far from over. It presents a recurring buy opportunity because there will be massive fears at regular intervals. Add to that Russia, Nigeria?, whatever! My plan is to get out (if possible) as CPQ hits a local high in the $36 region, then get back in about $30 mid-summer. But I realize it's not so easy to follow through on these things. Good luck! PS: My aim is not to buy early and not to sell early. They are my two biggest weaknesses, and probably of most other small-time investors as well.

To: S.C. Barnard who wrote (28834)	7/10/1998 11:17:00 AM
From: Maxer	Respond to of 97611

scba: I'm in the same boat at a slightly lower price, though I don't call myself dumb. I prefer to think of myself as EARLY. Maybe 6 months early. And I don't know what I'm going to do either. But I am setting stops today. Not going to let my shares back into the 20's

To: S.C. Barnard who wrote (28834)	7/10/1998 2:02:00 PM
From: Windseye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Well, I jumped in on margin 2/6 for 4000 at 35+. When I realized my error in buying on the DEC purchase frenzy I looked at interest costs over the next 10 months, looked at how and what EP and company would do, listen to wiser heads about the long term prospects, and have settled into waiting for 40 in the last quarter... settling for 20K gross minus 8K interest expense for a net of 12K. Of course I can bail for no gain at 37 or so. But the long term prospects are solid, and I can't find enough panic in the Asian crisis or bad prospects in Russia or Japan to really get me so worried I should desert this strategy. If I had other investments working enthusiastically while cpq was at 23 I would have doubled down and picked 8K more. Unfortunately I was not willing to increase my margin expense that much at that time... I hope that's the worst error of the year! Doug