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To: AmericanVoter who wrote (28913)	12/4/1998 12:32:00 PM
From: OtherChap	Respond to of 164684

For once, I agree with Cramer. Has he been taking his Ginkoba recently? :) From TheStreet.com- People aren't investing. Heck, they aren't even trading. They are voting! That's the only way to describe what's going on with these Net stocks. People see a site they like online, and they simply vote for it through the stock. It is the silliest thing I've ever seen. Let me tell you why. Stocks aren't politicians. We can make and issue as many shares of them as we want to. Owners of stock know this. Soon, they will game it. Perfectly. And these voters will lose a fortune. Currently, here is how the system works: National Gift Wrap -- and we will use that private company so nobody takes it personally -- has a busy Christmas season every year, so busy that it can't handle all of the calls. Voila, it sets up a Web site, a .com, and on it are pictures of the most beautiful Xmas wrapping paper you have ever seen. Santas, snowmen -- National has it. (Totally legit, in fact, I may suggest it this morning to my Dad, who runs National Gift.) It issues a release simultaneously. The stock goes nuts. BAMM -- pun intended -- sales ramp big. Year-over-year sales explode. (After all, the company did not have a Web site the year before. Talk about easy comparisons!) So it issues another release. It will soon stock folding lock-top boxes and even shopping bags on its site. Sales spike again. Another release. The stock flies. National gets teased as a segment on CNBC, and the voters flock to their polling place, their PCs, and cast more stock ballots. National goes on CNBC, and the voters, many of whom have ordered gift wrap from the site, send the stock to the moon. Now, let me tell you what the future holds for the voters. The people who run the National Gifts of the world aren't stupid. They see this pattern. Soon, they will call their brokers ahead of when they reveal their Web sites. They register a ton of stock, and then when they start up their Web site, they are ready for the onslaught of voters. They sell. They issue another release. They sell again. They broaden the selection. They sell again. They go on CNBC and sell what is left. And the voters are stuck holding ballots that they can't pay for, as they are just day traders anyway. They never intended to take the votes home -- they thought they could leave them in the PC! But no matter how many votes they cast, there are more ballots available from insiders. Supply right now is well short of demand for the .coms. That's one reason why the stocks jump like this -- without the help of professional market-makers, who have almost given up trying to put some order in these markets, as they have no inventory either. (The other reason is the speed of voting: Human market-makers can't replace stock sold short fast enough to meet the demand.) But demand in stocks begets supply. So, voters, get ready, because soon the insiders will be ready with more ballots out there than you can handle. A landslide for the bears is coming.