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

To: Don Hurst who wrote (3745)	8/27/1998 8:17:00 PM
From: Don Hurst	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8218

The Nikkei 225 at 8:11 pm is below 14,000. I knew I should not have had sushi tonight.

To: Don Hurst who wrote (3745)	8/27/1998 8:54:00 PM
From: MR. PANAMA (I am a PLAYER)	Respond to of 8218

Don, Greenspan is a republican and by humming and hawing he will not move the QTR point now but will open the flood gates after a more serious fall by a point or so. The one point that keeps Clintons polls high is the stock mkt gains people have...remove those gains and polls come down. Here 's looking at you NEWT.

To: Don Hurst who wrote (3745)	8/28/1998 1:46:00 PM
From: Arrow Hd.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8218

I also tuned in Moneyline last night and watched Farrell dance around. At one point he said to hold and then in the next breath said to reallocate more to cash or bonds. If you are fully invested and own stocks, to reallocate into debt or cash requires selling stocks so it was important to watch the lips move. Buying Hong Kong stocks is even dicier in my mind. There is a reason they sell below cash on hand. That cash wont be worth as much when China devalues. A blurb this morning indicated China was considering "outlawing" shorting. So much for open markets and hands-off governing. Russia will get worse and whatever they get away with will become the new standard for financial capitulation. Though it is not spoken in public there is tremendous fear of a reversal to military rule and it is still the world's second largest nuclear arsenal. There will be accomodations beyond what would normally happen in a situation like this. The October tax selling issue gets discussed once in a while but, in general, tends to get glossed over. I happen to follow it closely. I like to have a lot of cash in October to be able to buy stocks that are sold off by funds for tax loss reasons. Most funds close their books in October to give the accountants a few months to do the financials so that the tax statements can go out in January for individual investor tax returns. I usually like to have six to ten mid-cap techs that have experienced bottoms, are oversold, have reasonable fundementals, maybe a positive catalyst coming along, ok market share, etc. You get the picture. This is not that hard to do. You can expect a bounce in early November through the first week of December of anywhere from 10 to 15 percent in this select basket. Then it tends to go sideways until the last week of December. Few are around the end of December and a washed out stock often continues to sell off. I reload the afternoon of the last day of the year but do not count on a big January effect. Instead this is just for a two week period in early January where the selling quits and there tends to be another short period of upside bias. Then I am out of these stocks again until early February when my associates and me reassess things. Not a perfect formula of course and not every stock works out either but the basket approach with close stops to avoid a singular issue from screwing you up generally gives you the upside you want as long as your objectives are realistic. But you have to avoid a major mistake. You cant lose big on big positions. That is a zero sum game at best. IBM is in a different category of course and does not enter any of the above strategies. The above is a small to mid-cap tech stock approach that will give someone who does their homework a slight edge and hopefully a bump up in their yearly performance. But to each their own. I have seen a lot of very interesting strategies discussed here on SI that I am sure work if the discipline is followed. Then it tends to go sideways until the last week of December. No one is around the end of December and a washed out stock often continues to sell off. I reload the afternoon of the last day of the year but do not count on any "January effect". Instead this is just another two week period in early January where the selling quits and there tends to be another short period of upside bias. Then I am out of these stocks again until early February when my associates and me reassess things. Not a perfect formula of course and not every stock works out either but the basket approach with close stops to avoid a singular issue from screwing you up generally gives you the upside you want as long as your objectives are realistic. But you have to avoid a major mistake. You cant lose big on big positions. That is a zero sum game at best. IBM is in a different category of course and does not enter any of the above strategies. The above is a small to mid-cap tech stock approach that will give someone who does their homework a slight edge and hopefully a bump up in their yearly performance. But to each their own. I have seen a lot of very interesting strategies discussed here on SI that I am sure work if the discipline is followed.