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To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (4779)	12/8/1998 5:00:00 PM
From: Jurgen Trautmann	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11051

ROFLOL! - ich verschiff mich schier vor Lachen... And I guess I am a perfect combination with Juri he 80% cash and Im 120% invested. Makes a round 100% for the two of us. DJ, honest, when? We are in KA at 31th - no problem to meet you in this region one or two days before or later. Zweibrücken is near to Saarbrücken - 15 min normally, with my car about 5 min. - that's possible starting from Dec., 20th. Tomorrow we all will know who's sleeping better - you with 80% in stocks or me with 80% in cash. <g> You remember - I've a drink free from you... Jury

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (4779)	12/8/1998 9:27:00 PM
From: MonsieurGonzo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11051

DJ; RE:" your LEAPS... " BGEN - Biogen was an excellent pick, professor (^_^) FWIW, my biggest winners this year were the financial BigBoys that I bought down during the crash, and sold up during the rally. Returns were amplified by selling covered CALLs on the underlying stocks. It would be interesting to see what a conservative, far-CALL (since there are no LEAPS) strategy consisting of sector index options would have done YTD (Berney?) eg., SPX.X -vs- SPY -vs- GE MSH.X -vs- NDX.X -vs- DELL+MSFT+INTC+CSCO -vs- IBM RLX.X -vs- WMT DRG.X -vs- MRK NF.X -vs- AXP BKX.X -vs- CMB or CCI IUX.X -vs- AIG XBD.X -vs- MWD or MER As Berney's BigBoy table shows, DIA - Diamonds had a lower risk / higher reward than any subset thereof -- unless one was fortunate enough to pick MRK + WMT + MO + IBM this year. BTW, SPYders almost always beats out DIAmonds, w.r.t. risk and reward. Interesting is the little MDY - S&P-400 MIDCAP baby spyder. It out-performed SPY, DIA and all the WEBS during the recent raging bull rally. However, it lags behind SPY/WEBS y.t.d., and tends to fall faster; A damn useful tool in a bull rally, though... +31.5% since 10-OCT, 0.5% APR yield. I routinely monitor the performance of the EuroWEBS -vs- the national telephone stox, eg., EWG - Germany -vs- DT - Deutsche Telekom EWQ - France -vs- FTE - France Telecom EWU - England -vs- BTY - British Telecom EWL - Switzerland -vs- SCM - SwissCom EWP - Spain -vs- TEF - Telefonos d'Espana EWI - Italy -vs- TI - Telecom Italia EWD - Sweden -vs- ERICY - Ericsson ...and for the most part, ( but not always ;-) I've found that the EuroTelStox were less volatile (they went down during the crash, but then folks bought them as defensive holdings), and that the EuroTelStox outperform their respective EuroWEB (w.r.t. kapital gains plus APR yields). In addition, the EuroTelStox have PUTs/CALLs and sometimes, LEAPS available, whereas one must go to country-specific index options, rather than WEBs, which have no options, to leverage foreign stock market index positions. I would consider something like an 80:20 = EuroWEB:TelStockLEAP worth taking a look at... or more (classic) conservative, take the 7.5% APR dividend yield of EWL - Switzerland and buy that dollar amount of SCM - SwissCom far-CALLs, for example. Cannot tell you how happy I have been with UND - Unum Corp 8.5% MIDS as a cash-management tool and short-term bond substitute. It doesn't grow, true - but it doesn't decay either; it just churns out 8.5% APR (12.1% APR taxable equiv in an IRA) every month. -Steve

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (4779)	12/9/1998 2:22:00 AM
From: Chris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11051

DJ, RE: LEAPS I don't know how long you (and the other dudes) have been playing with LEAPS, but for me this is my first year. My first impression is that like a good red wine they can age well (only in an up market :). This also fits my personality. I tend to like to buy and hold more than jump in and out. My market timing is off. :) Maybe I'm just having beginners luck, but here are my LEAP trades for the year: Stock LEAP Price Sell price Buy Date Sell Date % Return INTC 1/00 80 call 23 ½ 39 ½ 02/10/98 11/20/98 68% MSFT 1/99 70 call 15 5/8 42 02/20/98 11/20/98 168% CSCO* 1/00 40 call 18 ½ NA 03/12/98 Still Hold'in 141% LU 1/00 65 call 14 32 03/31/98 12/03/98 128% CPQ* 1/00 20 call 10 ½ NA 04/03/98 still Hold'in 126% SEG* 1/00 20 call 10 7/8 NA 04/03/98 still Hold'in 35% LU 1/00 80 call 12 3/8 22 ½ 04/08/98 12/03/98 82% LU 1/00 80 call 12 3/8 25 04/08/98 12/04/98 102% PFE* 1/00 120 call 24 NA 04/30/98 still Hold'in -38% * Option closing bid price used for YTD return CSCO bid 44 ¾ CPQ bid 23 5/8 SEG bid 14 3/4 PFE bid 17 7/8 Both SEG and CPQ were converted from owning stock to buying LEAPS. Here is a little study: I had CPQ & SEG stock and converted them to LEAPs on 4/3/98. Stock # shares Stock price Current price %change Profit CPQ 300 25 7/8 41 7/16 60% (15.5625/s) 4668.75 SEG 200 26 ¼ 32 7/8 25% (6.625/s) 1325 LEAP #contracts Buy Sell % change Profit CPQ 1/00 20 call 5 10 ½ 23 5/8 126% 6562.5 SEG 1/00 20 call 3 10 7/8 14 ¾ 35% 1162.5 Result Gain/Loss vs stock CPQ 1893.75 +40% SEG (162.50) -12% The volatility on SEG has been way down in the last few months. I paid over $4.00/s premium then and now there is under 2.00/s. I CPQ premium has decreased but was covered buy the stock price increase. In both LEAP cases there was less initial capital used than with the original stock purchase. Now I think that if CPQ had not moved up so much in the last couple of weeks I would be sitting on a loss relative to a stock purchase. I don't know about anybody else but with LEAPS I'm paranoid of running out of time with the stock in a down cycle. I decided to start rotating out of 1/00 LEAPS at the beginning of the month, but without having the 1/01 LEAPS purchased. Now MSFT, INTC, LU have made powerful moves without me :( In the future, I will not do this unless I want to completely close my position with that stock. I guess this is part of the learning process. Christopher