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To: Fredman who wrote (202)	8/6/1998 2:44:00 PM
From: marcos	Respond to of 253

Here's a post with some good questions to ask when evaluating an oil stock 207.183.153.73 - I would add 'What is the debt and how is it structured?' to that, but this guy Kerm knows a thing or two about oils. Follow his bio to 'Kerm's Korner' (but don't post there). What you're paying for a barrel of oil reserves can vary widely, as can finding costs and the competency and honest of management. And just plain luck - I came back from travelling a few years ago to find that my one little star junior oil was right back to where I'd bought it - their luck seemed to run out and the finding costs shot up right after I'd left. This was in a period of flat to mildly up PoO ... ah well, que ser , ser . The majority of my buys lately are in oils - if the Monica thing drives WJC to grind on Saddam, the PoO could have a run, imho ...... cheers

To: Fredman who wrote (202)	8/7/1998 2:01:00 AM
From: Druss	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 253

Fred--Market Cap is really a bit misleading. In simple terms a companies market cap is the shares outstanding times the share price. So a company with a million shares and a $100 a share price has a market cap of one hundred million. This certainly becomes a flexible number though as a general market turn down could knock say $10 off of the companies share price and suddenly it is worth ninety million, a takeover bid however might come in at one hundred and fifty million or more. Absolutely nothing need change day to day with the company for all this price change to occur the next day. In terms of what does it mean to you, in basic terms a company must sooner or later justify its market cap. If it is too low the market will recognize it eventually just as it will if it is too high. Some investors might prefer to invest only in large cap stocks. That can leave you with a stock like AMZN however which has a huge market cap but in terms of business is not justifying the current valuation. I prefer to use fundamental numbers and ratios to evaluate a company. These can tie into the market cap but give a picture of the company as a business also not just how much those investing think it should be worth. PSR is a good number tying the revenue to the market cap. In theory a company with a large market cap should be less volatile, have a bigger business and safer. However if the traditional fundamental numbers are badly skewed the large market cap stocks will be the most volatile. All the Best Druss