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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (182)	12/29/1998 6:47:00 PM
From: HoodBuilder	Respond to of 41369

Just remember folks that when Bears turn Bullish you've reached a market top. Keep the divergent opinions coming and keep buying AOL!!!!!!!

To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (182)	12/29/1998 6:59:00 PM
From: EZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

Bonnie i agree that sooner or later the bubble will burst and people that have everything tied up in a 401k or mutual fund are going to see their early retirements disappear before there eyes,stay diversified and dont put all your eggs in one basket is a good rule,but to sit on the side and miss opportunities like AOL and some or the others is not nec. just use some common sense and take some profits out every once in a while or buy some puts if you want to cover your butt,cause right now momentum is internet, tommorrow?I see were the BEAR comes from in your name,lol...EZ..P.S.I remember less than a month ago when everyone was saying AMZN couldnt go any higher when it was at 200.00 ,hate to be a short on that one now!

To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (182)	12/29/1998 7:29:00 PM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

Actually, I DID get five bucks on my first attempt at this! Congrats, you are a winner! :) More than can be said of many... Infrastructure is called "barrier to entry"...something you need to keep out competition. Like Intel has. Like AOL doesn't have. Yes, there is no mystery that BTEs are low or non-existent for internet stocks. What counts, or should count, in place of BTE is name recognition and being first on the block, corraling customers. AOL, AMZN, and YHOO have done this so far. Don't underestimate the power of brand recognition and comfort level. Sears was bid up to fantastic levels because of the Sears Catalog, that brought the convenience of home shopping to every tiny frontier town. Honestly, I don't see any difference between the hardcover and catalog versions of catalog merchandising..except it's theoretically easier for me to find the cheapest price on the internet. This is called "deflation"...it means that severe price wars will eat up profit margins and drive prices down. It means that stock prices will go down, not up. I think I agree with you on this. That is why I am not a fan of the long term prospects of companies like AMZN. AOL, OTOH, I see as competing not in e-commerce directly, but in enterntainment. There are rumours about AOL+CBS, and Disney tried a takeover several years ago. With the eventual convergence of TV and the internet, the winner will be the company who can capture audience share and sell eyeballs. AOL has the inside track there. So for historical comparison, I think RCA might be a better analog than a utility. All this IMO, of course. Content and advertising revenue is a business expense, not a profit. The big difference between AOL and a utility is money derived from advertising revenue (like the Yellow Pages). The big IF: if companies find the cost of the internet maintenance and advertising cost doesn't give an adequate return on investment in an era of deflationary pricing, they won't pay the advertising costs or go to a cheaper competitor. Yes, that is true... and will contribute to the shakeout. I do think we have a ways to go before that happens. Conversely, the utilities are getting into the internet business.. If you got free ISP with your utility bill, would you switch? Remember, AOL is a portal as well as an ISP, so switching would not be necessary. What would be a problem is the loss of subscription revenue, but again this is a long ways off. I think the biggest sales pitch AOL (or Yahoo, for that matter) is its addictive quality. I need to see more studies here, but it looks like an increasing number of people are literally addicted to the internet sites..just like Ko or Mo, there's a certain set of the population who are addicted for life and form a repeat audience. Exactly. As I said, it is like the entertainment business, audience share. Right now AOL is the equivalent of all the broadcast channels combined, with the remainder being the equivalent of cable channels. The stock market, as a form of gambling, feeds a lot of the addictive qualities..it's also leading to a level of bankruptcies without equal in US history. We have entered the stage of internet stock gambling. And yes, it is a sobering thought. But I think most people playing the internuts know they are gambling. It is not like the 20's, when investors were playing with 10% margin and thought they were investors. So when the bubble bursts, it will be interesting to see what happens to the highest flyers. I don't place AOL in that category yet, but if it goes up much more at this rate, it may well be. I also suspect that a lot of the money from the OTC-BB marketplace has flowed over to the internuts. The OTC MM's killed the goose that laid their golden egg through greediness. It was not enough that they scalped outragous margins, they also had to run them up and down to squeeze the last dime out of the investors, until they all left. These are interesting times we live in. Yes, maybe utilities will be the answer.... :-)

To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (182)	12/30/1998 1:08:00 AM
From: Pruguy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

personally...I found that a veryinteresting comment.....i';m addicted to the internet, smoikes and , if I could find it, some drugs to.

To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (182)	12/30/1998 3:59:00 AM
From: David Montgomery	Respond to of 41369

Interesting you should post that. I was having a conversation at dinner about "no real fundamentals" when it comes to the internet stocks. I took the position that having no real fundamentals was ok. Nobody knows what will happen. A lot of the internuts will go by the wayside somewhere down the road. In the meantime, the investment that people make in the internuts will lead to the economy of the future - whatever that turns out to be. I was corrected. It was pointed out that a lot of people have thrown a lot of money at other things, getting no return for the longest time. That pointed out another fundamental that we haven't factored into this market. Whatever the internet "business" turns out to be, it's going to take a lot of resources to develop it. On the surface, that means a lot of money going down the drain. It turned out to be a semantic discussion over what fundamentals are. The only hope we can have is that the people throwing the money at the internet will fuel some really great advancements. I don't know what they'll be, but I sure want to find out. I'm not naive enough to think that a lot of people won't throw money at the wrong stuff - ipo's that go sky high based on speculation, skym's that go sky high because 4% of their business saw a 100% increase in growth (or something like that), etc... We can only hope that as the growth becomes substantial, the number of people hurt is kept to a minimum. Just my free addition - you get what you pay for.

To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (182)	12/30/1998 5:03:00 AM
From: 1SFG	Respond to of 41369

Interesting word--"addictive". You seem to be addicted, along with me and 14 million other lost souls on AOL alone. The drug business is doing fine and should the internet be truly addictive, I want my piece of that investment. Look deep into your old economics text books under elastic and inelastic demand. <Content and advertising revenue is a business expense> Uhmmmmmmmmm, since when is revenue an expense? Those are opposing terms if I remember my basic accounting correctly. I think you are suggesting that there will be some sort of a consolidation in the internet businesses. I would agree that the strong will survive and that is why I am long on AOL. The internet is here to stay, addictions or not, and it will make money for many but not all.