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To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1327)	12/17/1998 4:07:00 PM
From: Yogi - Paul	Respond to of 2025

Mark, <<I think they are over priced, but then my investing has generally missed all of these great growth companies, so in the end I think my style is wrong, not theirs. But hind sight is so cruel>> I closed out a position in Ebay today. My dear wife told me to buy it for us at $36.00. I said no, no, no. Ease of entry and all that. She insisted and I complied and purchased a token 100 shares into her IRA (mostly to "teach her a lesson" in stock valuation). I stand before you a humble and contrite man who must do his darling wife's bidding for the foreseeable future. $36-240.00 because "honey it's cool". Gotta Love It. Why the hell did I go to B school? Yogi

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1327)	12/18/1998 2:05:00 AM
From: Frodo Baxter	Respond to of 2025

>While it seems like easy pickings to short some of these high flyers, I wonder if it isn't better just looking for positive investments? It may not be true, but Lawrence Kam seems to be so focused on how companies have gone wrong, he never mentions companies that go right. He also misses out on the emotion which drives stock price well ahead of fundamentals. It's not for a lack of optimism. My general view is that the American economic machine is the greatest force of nature and goodness the world has ever seen. It awards intelligence, entrepreneurship, and luck; lifts people out of poverty into prosperity; allows the free pursuit of enlightenment and leisure; is the crucial enabler of liberty and democracy; and will one day cure cancer. What's not to like? I think stock prices for premier growth companies ought to be high. But you don't need me cheerleading for Microsoft. And I have not missed the emotional element driving the current mania. I just don't want to be caught in the wrong position when the tulips explode. Being cautious is not a vice! >I'd like to see his ability bringing light on really great companies. A stock could go down 100% if you get a short exactly right, but a well placed investment could go up %1000 percent. I'd really love to hear a list of your favorite 10 baggers Mr. Kam. First, in this current environment, it is much easier to find a fraudulent, aggressive-accounting, overvalued piece-of-crap company trading at an obscene valuation than it is to discover a true growth story with conservative accounting, protected market niche, and competent managers trading for a song. That's the reality. Second, I'm more interested in absolute annual returns than hunting for the elusive 10-bagger. Unless you're extremely lucky, you'll have to sit on 'em for a long time, along with other candidates that don't prove worthy. So your returns can get killed anyway. Putting your marker on a particular number on the roulette wheel may give you better reward, but the value equation is the same if you just bet odds or even. Third, your expectations may be irrationally exuberant, but I'm more than happy with a 100% gain on a position, especially if it can be obtained in a couple months to a couple years. I did a quick check of my trading history. The closest I came was about a 5-bagger on Midcom puts with strikes of 5 and 7.5 that I opened in the summer of last year that I cashed when the company went bukus in the late fall. So for the above reasons, I'll demur on your request for a 10-bagger list. If you really want to own them badly, you can always invest in a venture capital fund. Your returns won't improve, but you just might have the opportunity to say you owned a piece of the the next Microsoft. Me, I couldn't care less. I will, however, say that I think Knight/Trimark (NITE) is a fairly cheap way to play the e-commerce potential with relatively low risk and significant upside possibility. NITE was originally an LLC formed by a bunch of online discount brokers to internally capture the profitability of Nasdaq market-making. Because of the growth of online stock trading, NITE is now ranked #1 in total market share, with especially high market share in the speculative trash Internet stocks, overtaking Schwab's Mayer & Schweitzer operation. Market-making as a business has sucked ever since the Naz instituted new rules regarding best-price execution. Margins are under pressure and the field is rapidly consolidation. On the other hand, NITE effectively has the biggest order book in the business and order flow will assuredly grow from the influx of new non-Schwab online traders, which is a huge market, of course. Proprietary access to that order flow information presumably allows them to profitably navigate the hyperactive trading of Egghead.com or Books-a-Million without getting their faces torn off. I remain a lowly neutron.

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1327)	12/18/1998 8:17:00 AM
From: LK2	Respond to of 2025

Mark, Robert, I apologize if I seemed overly negative. I am definitely not short the stock market, or tech stocks. But I don't have the nerve to invest in Internet stocks. Like Master Kam says, " I just don't want to be caught in the wrong position when the tulips explode." RE--MU, that went from the 90's to 17 or so in 1995-96. For Personal Use Only <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< cbs.marketwatch.com Micron gamblers come up winners By Brenon Daly, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 6:07 PM ET Dec 17, 1998 StockWatch CHICAGO (CBS.MW) -- In the fast-and-loose world of options, things can change very quickly indeed. And that can raise some questions about how information makes its way in the trading pits. Remember that this column closed on Tuesday noting the heavy trading in Micron Technology (MU), particularly in the December 50 calls (MU LJ). Nearly 5,000 of those contracts changed hands on Tuesday, closing off 1/8 to 9/16. Move ahead to Thursday and those same contracts are worth 2 7/8 -- or nearly six times their value on Tuesday. More than 6,300 contracts traded. (See CBS.MarketWatch.com option chain for Micron Technology.) The reason for the jump: positive comments from BancBoston Robertson Stephens analyst Dan Niles, who said he expects the stock to hit 200 by the end of 2001. "We're at the start of the next big cycle in semiconductors," said Niles. See related story. Niles' comments were noteworthy because they included a three-year price target, instead of the more common one-year target. The huge gains and heavy trading prompt some questions if somebody knew something. Jon Najarian, who trades Micron for Mercury Trading at the CBOE, said some of the activity may have been players who knew -- or thought they knew -- about the positive comments before they were released. Regulatory officials for both the CBOE and the Pacific Exchange, where Micron Technology options trade, weren't available for comment. Typically, they don't discuss cases except to say they are "conducting a routine review." "People are not using options to off-set risk, as they were in September and October," Najarian said. "Now they're looking for a big score." Brenon Daly is an online reporter for CBS MarketWatch. © 1998 MarketWatch.com <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<