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Strategies & Market Trends : Mr. Pink's Picks: selected event-driven value investments -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Marty Lee who wrote (3151)	9/19/1998 8:25:00 PM
From: Spunky Beaver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18998

I get the impression that you put a substantial percentage of your portfolio in MRVC as a long. Once it tanked, you wandered over here to find a reason why, and as a result, have become enlightened by the postings of Mr. Pink, Pluvia, Wexler, Goldfinger, and others. Well, you stumbled onto good company. Just remember that it usually takes many things to go right for a company to be profitable, but it only takes one or two mistakes to make a company go down the tubes. Hence, if you plan to go long, it's best to go with companies that have built-in protection of some sort, i.e., patented technology for which there is a huge and established demand (major drug companies), virtual monopolies (Microsoft), revenues guaranteed by regulatory boards (power companies, local phone service, etc.), and those where competitors are locked out by capitalization barriers (auto manufacturers). Before you go long on a company, try to identify if it has any key advantage that offers some sort of protection from competition. If it doesn't, then it's not worth buying into. And if it's overpriced, then it just might be short material!