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To: Joseph G. who wrote (4806)	8/31/1998 12:03:00 PM
From: Cynic 2005	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86076

To all, I was talking to a friend over the weekend. A bear that he is, he also lurks here on this thread. He asked me for my two best short picks. I told him Xerox and cisco and short Dell. He raised a few points regarding DELL and CSCO which I think are important. He said companies are indiscriminately buying Dell and Cisco products. So he opines that buying puts on them may not be fruitful. He thinks that DELL and CSCO being the darlings of the portfolio managers, they will not sell these stocks, rather, protect their portfolio with index puts. (Since premiums on DELL puts are so high, I think I will avoid them as well.) But, I will not buy the argument that To this I say, if only it were that simple! I think at this time the issue is the big picture. Are we or are we not headed in to a recession? I think we are! There are technical and fundamental signs to support this argument. With valuations being as lofty as they are, it is very difficult for any one to resist the temptation of cutting-back on equity exposure, if not liquidaing. Besides, ciscos and Dells of the world are not held by the buy-and-hold Buffet Brains, but by the pump-and-dump speculative suckers like Jim Creamer. You have seen the havoc they caused on the up-side. Now you will see the havoc they will cause on the down-side. I don't understand why the governments are there to protect greed of the exuberantly bullish speculators. If they want to stabilize the markets on a steep fall, I think they have a responsibility to contain the speculative frenzy on the melt-up scenario as well. Just a few thoughts as I find some time to butt-in with my comments. PS: picked up some XRX-ML's this morning! My slogan for now, "Xerox puts, don't be bearish without them."