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Strategies & Market Trends : Aetna ( aet) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: blankmind who wrote (52)	9/3/1998 4:43:00 PM
From: Norman H. Hostetler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110

Lots of negative publicity and political pressure on HMO's right now. Raising rates (if permitted in several of the heavily regulated states they operate in) will almost certainly require increased services or benefits. Are you sure the financials are clean? OXHP showed how easy it was to cover up problems in this industry. There's a lot of slow bleeding going on in this industry, but I don't think it meets the requirement yet of "blood in the streets." I think there may be a ways to go yet to reach a bottom, that not all the bad news may yet be out. On the other hand, has _Time_ had "The Crisis in HMO's" or some such headline on their cover yet? If so, the recovery may be closer than I thought. My wife used to have Aetna in her IRA because the huge dividend covered a lot of other sins. But she dumped it when they cut it to the present token--too much volatility for the limited upside potential. =+=+=Norm