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Pastimes : The Justa & Lars Honors Bob Brinker Investment Club -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wally Mastroly who wrote (2146)	11/17/1998 11:36:00 AM
From: Justa Werkenstiff	Respond to of 15132

Wally: Ralph made a good call on the first leg down. Said we were going to 7400 when Dow closed at 8487 on August 4th. And Russia helped Ralphie although that was not part of his model. On October 15, after Greenspan worked his magic, he became bullish. Let's call it the close on October 15th but I don't recall his last flip into the bullish camp. It could have been after October 15th. The Dow closed at 8300 on October 15th. And in between these two dates, Raplh was flipping and flopping on what seemed like a daily basis. Moreover, in any of his calls with the exception of the first perhaps, one could not tell if he was saying to get out of the market, stay put or add to positions. In effect, he was "Round-Trip Raphie" or perhaps "Whipsaw Ralphie." Out at DOW 8487 and back in at 8300. What's the point? When someone talks of market noise I think of Ralph now. The only sound advice was to add to positions below 8650 if funds were available and ride it out if you were invested fully. Brinker was right on the mark with this advice despite the correction exceeding his expectations for which I do not fault him in retrospect. It is now clear to me that the entire episode after the first 10% was a pure PANIC. They will call it the "Panic of 1998." Market models can never predict panic. Who predicted the panic buying of the past four weeks? Nobody. One cannot predict panic to the downside and panic to the upside and that is a risk with being in the market.