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Strategies & Market Trends : The Stock Market Bubble -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (1003)	8/4/1998 11:27:00 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3339

Chat Rooms Buzz About Market, But Participants Keep Their Cool By JOHANNA BENNETT Dow Jones Newswires NEW YORK -- They say that there are only two things you can count on in life: death and taxes. Well, according to the stock pundits flocking to the Internet's most popular chat rooms, there is a third: a market correction. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged on Tuesday afternoon -- and eventually closed with a loss of 299.43, or 3.4%, to 8487.31, its third biggest point decline on record -- participants in on-line discussion forums shrugged off the fall as inevitable. "It is a necessary evil," said one participant in the Shark Tank, a popular chat room for day traders on America Online. "Like real estate in the 1980s, the market was just plain overvalued." Oddly enough, while Wall Street often quakes when the Dow falls sharply, chat room pundits tend to pay little heed. "I am not scared," said a participant in "Foolish Chat" a popular chat room on the Motley Fool section of America Online. "I know the companies I am invested in and they are all working today." Many in the on-line world take the view that a drop in the market generally creates buying opportunities. So it came as little surprise when in one chat room, participants interrupted their discord on Monica Lewinsky to debate how long they should wait before swooping in to pick up bargains. And chat room wisdom dictates that selling in a down market is a major mistake. "I'm worried. But that doesn't mean I sell," said another participant in the Foolish Chat. Still, while everyone seemed ready to accept the fact the Dow would fall some more before flying higher, they weren't necessarily happy about it. "It was expected, But it is not fun," said one participant in AOL's Market News chat room. Another chat room participant panicked briefly with the realization that the Dow has fallen more than 800 points from the high it reached just weeks ago. But other participants were hard pressed to feel sympathy. "I was in this business in '87. Believe me you don't know what hurt is," said a participant in Foolish Chat. On a point basis, Tuesday's decline ranked behind only Oct. 27, 1997, when the industrials lost 554.26, and the October 1987 market crash, when they dropped 508. On a percentage basis, though, Tuesday's loss didn't even rank in the top 100.