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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (34745)	10/29/1998 6:02:00 AM
From: accountclosed	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 132070

I am in agreement with MB that the world of investment alternatives is huge. I also believe in looking at your entire financial life and being sure that the whole makes sense. So...my cash account is pretty much drained at this point. If I were advising anyone what to do with the market in this shape, I would ask them if they had credit card debt, car loans, equity lines, commercial loans, etc. If you have riskless options (paying off one's debt produces a riskless return), that seems like a great alternative to me here. I probably sound like Jim Grant, but I like stuff here, too. If one has been delaying a purchase of a car or house or whatever...go for it. This about face during October of the market has me very concerned. I can find much more compelling stories about stocks I hate like yhoo, ebay, dell, msft, aol etc. Aol really gets me; take the market cap and divide by the number of subscribers. As a businessman would you pay 20,000.00 or whatever the number is today for a subscriber??? Ebay, too. I have been an internet user for a long time. I remember when it was the arpanet. I have lots of friends who use the internet that I talk too. I have never heard of ebay, nor has anyone I ever talked to. I have never seen a link to it and have never been on their site. The only place I hear about it is in the financial news and we all know that absurd story. In retirement accounts, of course, one faces a different story. You can't buy a new car with your ira unless you are willing to face some stiff tax consequences. I have been in bonds a lot over the last few months, but think the bond market is acting spooky here and want to understand it better. I just refinanced my house and due to watching the bond market like a hawk, I was able to lock at the best possible day when the long bond was down at 4.69 in the first week of October. My mentality there was like a trader. I had my information at the mortgage company but kept not locking. Not locking a rate is like having a long bond position; locking is like closing out the long bond position. I started developing a list of longs (again i'm worried about alpha) which included names like cd, fp, ely, cohr, adpt, apf, tdf, rdc, cse, x, soc. But I hadn't totally done my homework when this updraft has taken my breath away. I am pretty uneasy waiting for a sad story like cd or soc to turn around while visible, liquid stocks are selling for a zillion times earnings, book, and reasonable value. thus in frustration in part, I am starting to think again about options which is not my usual style. Anyone please comment on my long list.