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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E Newman who wrote (5601)	12/30/1998 12:32:00 AM
From: Michael Burry	Respond to of 78774

Re: VVTV, well, it's an internet stock now - why wouldn't it take off: VVTV says "Electronic commerce sales continue to increase at a far greater percentage than television sales." So I will tell my grandson, "And in the end, at the very highest levels, even the value investors were rewarded, as long forgotten undervalued companies found that a simple press release would unlock all the value hidden in their long-forgotten assets, and then some." Mike

To: E Newman who wrote (5601)	12/30/1998 2:05:00 AM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78774

E. Newman: VVTV. Yes, I saw the move. Congratulations to you, sir! I understand you've followed VVTV for several years, so I hope you've got what you wanted from it today. Thanks for bringing it to the attention of the thread here when it was a value stock (I thought it was a value then, anyway.) In my opinion, I've erred in selling it. I had a very good gain - about a double I think, and with the euphoria of internet stocks, I guess I just should have held to see what developed. The stock wasn't likely (it seems now in retrospect -g-) to have dropped much. As I say, I've been wrong many, many times before. I've got stocks that crater on me -- APM, PFG, UC, etc. I've got stocks that I've taken a round trip on -- JPM, JCP, etc. And I've got stocks that I've been selling too soon - SUNW,FLEX,BMY, etc. And those etc. etc. etc. parts are really painful too! With stocks that are purchased as value stocks, I agree with Jim Clarke's observation that they sometimes seem to spike about 40% at once (if I recall his comment correctly) and then, promptly, they oftentimes recede. So it behooves the value investor to act (sell) promptly. With VVTV, we're likely not dealing with an undervalued stock that's become fully valued-- but rather with an undervalued stock that's thought/alledged/promulgated/touted now as a super growth vehicle. That's a change I didn't really understand (and maybe is more hype than reality.) Sometimes with undervalued stocks, there's a reason why the stock rises -- the problem gets fixed, new management looks to be effective, business cycle turns, and so on. So as things look good, the stock becomes fully valued. Then, as a value investor, I seem to be selling into an outlook that has become bright and shiny. Easy enough to sell when I don't know why the stock has moved up. But when things are looking good for obvious reasons, who wants to sell? (That is, why sell if outlook is so good?) But as value investors, sell we should (IMO). That's what I do and did. Sure looks to me though in hindsight as an obvious mistake with VVTV. My error du jour I guess. Paul Senior