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Strategies & Market Trends : The Art of Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (331)	1/1/1999 1:50:00 PM
From: Michael G. Potter	Respond to of 10713

As I was closing out my Quicken for my last trades of the year, I noted that I had stuck to my investing resolution that I'd made last year. I had hung onto my winners and sold my losers pretty consistently throughout the year. I ended with a respectable level of return for my investments and a loss to net against my income for the year. In the past, I tended to take gains way too soon and hold onto losers way too long. I like to buy stocks I think have a good 3-5 years ahead of them, but I also like to trade with a small amount of my account. I always spend the New Year's period looking at what stocks I now hold and try to decide if my reasons for holding them are still valid. I shift stocks I no longer believe in the fundamentals into my trading account. As long as they're still making money for me, I hold them but I'm poised to sell if I see any further negative change. I also sell covered call on them sometimes, but I think that the commissions are very expensive in terms of the return I get. Michael ps - Happy New Year

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (331)	1/3/1999 10:52:00 AM
From: Frank Sheridan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10713

Predictions for the New Year. (From somebody who has been nearly %100 wrong in the past!) Overall, as far as the market goes, I think there is a trend for the market to look for and give high values to newer companies with new technology. The companies that can back up the valuations with fast growing market share and earnings will be the ones that really reward investors, whereas the stocks that don't come through with high growth earnings will get stomped like a bug. YHOO and AMZN really come to mind here. But, I would have shorted YHOO at $200 before the split. Good thing I don't play shorts. When the inevitable happens and the bubble bursts on the internet stocks a lot of the money will be looking for a new home. That might be a big boost for less glamorous stocks and S&P 500 funds. Geopolitical issues really have my attention. The market can react wildly to shocks in world news. These gyrations will represent excellent buying opportunities for the stalwart investor. What am I concerned about specifically? Clinton being thrown out of office. Clinton NOT being thrown out of office. Yeltsin keeling over. Saddam feeling his oats and starting a nice little war. Milosivich feeling his oats and starting a nice little war. Russian nationalists taking power and starting a really big war. Asia crisis not being resolved and leading to instability. China taking advantage of said instability. Pakistan and India inviting each other to dance. The list goes on but those are my biggest worries. However, I tend to be a bit of a doom and gloomer. Hopefully this will be a peaceful and prosperous year for us all. Knock wood. Regards, Frank Sheridan.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (331)	1/8/1999 7:46:00 AM
From: Michael G. Potter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10713

There's been a whole raft of posts in the 3Dfx thread about internet stocks. There are two stocks that in some ways I wish I'd bought, but I haven't. They're Amazon and Yahoo. That's only because I use both sites so much. I looked into buying them, but there is so much frenzy around them that I could not justify a purchase unless I followed them closely. Now I'm not saying that they'll all burst and come crashing down. Years ago, I remember similar comments about Microsoft, how it couldn't keep going. The problem is, everyone remembers Microsoft, but they forget all the other tech stocks that crashed during the same time period. There are many, many IPO's coming to market for internet stocks. Current ones have restricted shares that are coming to market as well. Supply will increase and there's a good chance that momentum will start to slow in the dot coms. As more and more buyers are dragged into the frenzy, I start to wonder who will be left to keep buying the stocks. The only earnings model that I've seen that makes any sense is a very long term model, where internet speed and ease of use increases until it is the mainstream media. Then the current stocks can be considered media outlets or store chains. The argument goes that by buying the early pioneers now, you can get great potential growth at a very cheap price. My problem is, you have to look increasingly far into the future to get value for the price you're paying today. My returns on my investments (much of which is through mutual funds in my 401(k)) are sufficient for my goals. I'll let the mutual funds worry about the dot coms, if I start fooling with them, I can lose my focus on what I know and can invest in. I'd rather not be swept into the frenzy and run off a cliff. Michael ps - if the net stocks do go down, they'll take more than just them down, so all the people that are hoping it will happen so they can say "told you so" are asking their own stocks to go down as well