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Non-Tech : Invest / LTD -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (1097)	7/16/1998 12:27:00 AM
From: Lucretius	Respond to of 14427

I'm so nutty that I bought a few DEC puts on MSFT. I've never seen a more lopsided bet on calls that this stock will go higher. In the first qtr CC, MSFT said going forward would be difficult and that earnings for the year had peaked and that their stock was "too high." Well, they must think it is in tulip territory now and so do I. I'm not going to go into all their problems that everyone has seemed to have just forgotten, but I will mention a few. I know how attorneys think (I was one), and MSFT isn't just going to walk away from their legal probs w/ the justice dept; the feds want blood after being spanked in the first round on the WIN98 injunction; Sept 8th should be a big day for them. Their careers would be set if they take down Mr. Softy so they won't sleep until they stab that beast in the heart no matter what it takes. As for sales... WIN98 is a joke. Enough said. The chart looks like AMZN. Damn thing has gone vertical. W/ the NASDAQ COMP nearing the magic 2000 mark and MSFT reporting tomorrow after the bell... if I were a trader... tomorrow or Fri looks like a place to start doing some serious selling. (somebody call a priest, I need forgiveness for speaking such heresy!!!... plus I'm probably wrong and need to confess that too?) Just so you don't think I'm the only one who thought the bet on calls looked lop-sided: biz.yahoo.com FINALLY.. this one is the clincher!!! Voices from the past??? I came across this, and it virtually made me positive that the top is coming right SOON. Compare the following from 1987 w/ an article written this Tuesday by my favorite blow-hard and buffoon, James J. Cramer. "In a market like this, every story is a positive one. Any news is good news. It's pretty much taken for granted now that the market is going to go up." - Wall Street Journal, 8/26/87, (the day after the 1987 market peak) Wrong! Jul 14, 1998 Wrong! Dispatches from the Front: Cramer Says It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This By James J. Cramer Was it the vacation, or is this market just glad to see me? Tech, banks, and drugs all going higher -- it doesn't get any better than this. In the meantime, talking heads drone on about caution in the background and how dangerous everything is out there. Wake up and smell the Bokar. This is a tape that likes bad news and loves good news. Merck (NYSE:MRK - news) gets a shoo-in approval for some drug? Let's take it up a couple. Nothing bad happening at Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) ? Let's give that a higher multiple. Things sounds just okay at Intel (Nasdaq:INTC - news) ? Heck, that's better than terrible -- let's expand the multiple. No preannouncements in hardware techland? Well, let's unleash the purse strings and put that money to work. Japan in disarray? Love disarray. Oil drillers announcing bad numbers? OK, we aren't that stupid. They still won't go up. There is dog food that even dogs won't eat. What does this mean when everything except the most horrible situations rally? It means there is a ton of money around -- so much so that it wants to buy anything. It wants to be in the winners (Microsoft, Dell (Nasdaq:DELL - news) , Merck). It wants to play catch-up (Intel). It wants to bottom-fish: buying beat-up banks. Liquidity is something that doesn't get measured that easily. We have AMG Data, but I find it haphazard. We have mutual fund cash positions, but those cease to matter when cash became illogical to have at most of these mutual funds. We have bull-bear ratios, but they don't explain it either. Liquidity is something that can be seen, not counted. You can smell it. You can even taste it. But you can't measure it. Right now I feel like I am up to my ears in market liquidity. It is so great that it lifts all boats except those that are splitting in two, Titanic-like, and even those don't go down as fast as they should. (I highlighted that just for laughs! wait till he watches her sink to the bottom and he has no lifeboat. That water is awfully cold!!!) With expiration coming this week, I wonder whether we are not in for some terrific ramp-up to the top end of the trading range. If Applied Materials (Nasdaq:AMAT - news) only goes down 1 on an awful number, what does Intel do on a less-than-awful number? And what happens when companies report good numbers this week? Maybe bears ought to do some midsummer hibernating this week.

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (1097)	7/16/1998 6:51:00 AM
From: Thean	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 14427

Papaya, I sense you are feeling the need to be invested in something. Stop! Take a hold of yourself and go outside for a walk. Tell yourself it is OK to be on the sideline even if everything flies by in a hurry. It is OK not to take 50:50 chance. Cramer is probably right in his article, except he does not tell you when the things will come to be crushing halt. LT is probably right in that the crushing halt will come but he can't tell you when either. If you go out and short MU, the risk is pretty high it may crack $33 and go to $40 in 2 weeks. If you go long VTS, it may not penetrate $36 and go to $25 in 2 weeks. They may also win you a lot of money on the other side of the 50:50. Way too uncertain, and I'm not interested yet. Take MU for example, if after 2 weeks and we are pass the mid point of the earning season and the overall earning still stinks, and MU has a hard time cracking $33, then I may go Put MU. Not today. Oil has dropped below $14.80 overnight and I'll be careful about those drillers if oil drops further. Of course DO and EVI earnings will have a lot to do with the early trend but I may sell all at the open if the going gets too good.