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To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (26863)	8/2/1998 1:11:00 AM
From: SliderOnTheBlack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

Bottoms & Buying Signals - Insider Trades, Mystics & Market Timers... Hmmm; maybe things aren't as bad in the ole 'Patch as some may think. Remember - '' It's allways profitable to beat the crowd to the party,'' both financially and philosophically... Seems Mr. Momentum Cramer has suddenly been born again re-discovering the FUNDAMENTALS of value investing, bottom fishing and using Insider Buying as an ''early buy'' signal... 'bout time he started listening... even said he's looking at Oils - my God, a scoop here ! He's actually looking at OILS* ! Subscribe to theStreet.Com and this wouldn't be news ! Since ''cutting & pasting'' is against their wishes; the least I can do is link to their subscription area - thestreet.com _________________________________________________ On Insider Buying: from 7/31/98 The Street.Com ....''When the average New York Stock Exchange stock declines 25%, you know you have to start looking beyond the nifty 50 for some buy ideas. For some of you, particularly you institutional types, anything beyond the favored few might be booby-trapped. You don't know which stocks deserve to be down 25% from inflated levels, and which ones are headed down 50%. I've got the answer: Watch insider buying. For much of the last five years stocks haven't had such startling declines. So we haven't seen many executives take advantage of dips in their stocks to buy. In the market. Outright. You hardly ever see large-cap insider stock-buying, because most execs have such good option packages that they never need to buy. They get stock anyway for free. They only sell. But that's not the case with the rest of the unwashed. Many companies have very stingy option grants and if execs want to own stock they have to go buy it. They don't buy off the 52-week-high list as momentum mutual funds do. These folks aren't into the 200-day moving average or the advance-decline line or Barton Biggs' Death Watch 2000. They are into making money. They could take their savings and do a bunch of different things with it, but they only buy stock for one reason: They think the stock is going higher. I haven't paid much attention to insider buying and selling these last few years. In fact, I have railed against it, noting in a piece back in SmartMoney a few years ago that you would have sold a massive amount of Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq) and EMC (EMC:NYSE) -- two real winners -- if you had followed insider selling too closely. (Of course, insider selling can be the key to getting out ahead of a fraud, but that's not easy, either.) But there was a time when I was mesmerized by insider buying and it made me a fortune. I noticed an amazing pattern in 1994 and 1995 among executives of small- and mid-sized banks and savings-and-loans of massive accumulation of their own stocks. Talk about prescient buying. You could not have been more right than these guys. Now this group has been wrecked, with many savings-and-loans at their 52-week lows, trading reasonably to book value at a time when the large banks are finished making their giant mergers and now just want to do fill-ins. These guys are the fill-ins. I speak to these types of execs all of the time. They are startled and humbled about how far and how fast their stocks have fallen. Some of them have massive prepayment risk because of the way the yield curve is structured. (In other words, people are refinancing their mortgages.) But many of them don't. And some of them are doing fabulously, exceeding estimates handily. To a person they all claim to be buying their stocks. I want to wait and see the filings. If they are buying, I am buying. They know their businesses better than anyone. Maybe this could be '94-'95 all over again, with 100% to 200% returns ahead. Of course, the declines haven't been limited to just financials. There are massive selloffs in basic industries, metals, aerospace and anything oil and gas. Again, I will scrutinize the insider buying here. We have heard over and over again that there is no value in this market. That's just plain wrong. In fact, a shocking number of stocks are incredibly undervalued, if you use a BetzDearborn (BTL:NYSE) measure (the company got a bid Thursday about 100% above what it was selling for). We just need help in finding the undervalued ones . Insider buying is one signal that can help. That's what I will be riveted to now that this reporting season has run its course.'' **...and Sandy - hold that putter - I know we've all ready discussed insider buying a zillion posts ago...but Cramer obviously missed them & others might not care to go back 23,000 posts to review the concept. _____________________________________________ On Technicians - Traders ( Mystics & Martket Timers) JJC....'' They don't like the market until it gets so rich that they feel comfortable buying. To me that is plain counterintuitive. That said, why do I pay any attention to charts and charting at all? Because it is something that people follow. It is a pattern that I want to understand so I know why people are freaking out or getting more confident. It may not be a reason for me to do so -- in fact it never is -- but I like to know what levels people feel secure at and when people feel that the panic will go on...'' **...not a bad case for the old bottom fishing buy & hold; we've definitely passed the ''pain & Freaking out'' threshold level here - another great buying signal ! And for all of those armchair monday morning quarterbacks who have riled against trying to catch that falling knife and are reading the tea leaves every night - this ''Bud's'' for you ! Yes; Fundamentals are back in style...